I move—

In a Budget speech one must needs look before and after. There is a twofold task to be performed. The financial history of the past twelve months must be reviewed, and an approach, at once prophetic and constructive, made towards the future. The first part of my task is easy—there is also much encouragement to be derived from the facts which I shall be able to present, much ground for gratitude in the measure of success with which South Africa has met assaults and dangers on the war-time financial front. The second part is far more difficult—and the difficulty is not just the difficulty of prophecy, which is in the nature of things a venture into the unknown, but is very greatly increased by the high hopes, the great opportunities, and the tremendous responsibilities with which that venture is fraught.

We give first priority also on our financial agenda to the winning of the war. There is much still to be done. The demands on us are no less than they have been—they have increased. But as victory comes nearer, post-war financial problems begin to present themselves to us, while there is still no relief from the burdens of our major task. We have a heavy obligation in relation to those who have served in the armed forces, and the number of ex-volunteers is already considerable. We have also a great responsibility for the building of a better life for the people of South Africa, and we do not want to wait until after the war before a commencement is made with the laying of the foundations. These are things to be taken into account in the presentation of this Budget, and at the same time it must be kept in mind that, as war gives place to peace, big changes will come about on the revenue as well as the expenditure side of our present statement of accounts. The exact nature of those changes cannot yet be indicated, but one’s anticipation of their general character must needs influence one’s approach to the more immediate problems. I bespeak the House’s sympathetic interest in the complex difficulty of my present task.

Oh!

Those wishing to escape the tax can expedite the date of their death. In view, however, of the time allowed for the filing of estate accounts we shall not derive anything like the full financial benefit of the proposal during next financial year. That, however, has its advantages at a time like the present when we face the developing financial needs of Social Security. When fully operative we shall derive an increased income of £2,150,000 from this source, £1,900,000 estate duties and £250,000 succession duties. For 1944-’45 I put the figure at £1,150,000.

I would like now to ask the House to consider the position in regard to Transfer Duty. This is a tax on changes of ownership of immovable property which is of long standing in South Africa. The rate of duty, varied a great deal in the four old colonies, and has been as high as 12 per cent. When Union came the rate was 4 per cent. in two of the colonies, the Cape and the Free State. It was only in 1919 that a uniform rate of 2 per cent. except for certain leases, was made applicable. In terms of the Financial Relations Act of 1913, the proceeds of Transfer Duty were assigned to the provinces, but with a specific reservation to the Union of complete legislative rights. The provinces cannot change the rate of the duty or amend in any way the law in regard thereto. Moreover, there was in the Act referred to a specific proviso that if Parliament reduced the rate the provinces would only receive the proceeds of the duty at the reduced rate. It is clear then that this matter is entirely in the hands of Parliament, and that the provinces have no ground for complaint if Parliament increases the rate and applies the increase to its own purposes. In special and abnormal circumstances like the present—at a time moreover when the property market is booming in a not entirely healthy way—it is entirely appropriate that this should be done. We propose therefore to impose a war-time surcharge on Transfer Duty payments. From this surcharge payments of duty on transactions where the consideration on which transfer duty is calculated in less than £1,000, will be exempt. Where the consideration is between £1,000 and £2,000 the surcharge will be 1 per cent. Where it is over £2,000 it will be 2 per cent. In all such cases, apart from the exceptional cases of leases to which I have referred, an amount of 4 per cent. will be payable on transfer, of which 2 per cent. will go to the Provinces as heretofore, while the surcharge of 2 per cent. will accrue to the Treasury. It is proposed that this surcharge shall become effective in respect of payments of transfer duty made after today, and it is anticipated that the amount which will accrue to the Treasury during 1944-’45 will be £1,100,000.

It has, I think, for some time been widely felt that, especially in times like the present, operations on the Stock Exchange should make a larger contribution to the Treasury by way of taxation than they do now. I have given a good deal of consideration to the question of levying a Special Tax on Stock Exchange profits, but have found the difficulties in the way of doing this very great indeed. In the circumstances, it appears that the only way of obtaining increased revenue from this source is by increasing the stamp duty on brokers’ notes in respect of marketable securities. At present the rates are 1d. when the consideration exceeds £5 but does not exceed £25; 6d. when it is between £25 and £50; 1s. when it is between £50 and £100 and 1s. for every £100 or part thereof. It is proposed to increase the rates to 6d., 1s., 2s. 6d. and 2s. 6d., and to bring the new rates into operation on 1st May. The amount of additional revenue to be collected is estimated at £200,000 per annum.

A new type of document which it is proposed to bring within the scope of stamp duties is the certificate issued by Unit Securities and Fixed Trust Companies. This certificate represents the holder’s title to an interest in the group of shares comprising what is commonly known as a Unit. The imposition of this duty will make no substantial addition to our revenue, but the business is a growing one and it is appropriate that investors in this type of security should also pay a stamp duty.

We have two other proposals falling under the head of Inland Revenue. When the Excess Profits Duty was introduced, it was felt that it could not easily be adjusted to our system of taxing the mining of gold and diamonds. As an alternative therefore we imposed a special contribution in respect both of gold mining and diamond mining. The rate of Excess Profits Duty has twice been raised. For reasons which I have suggested it can hardly with advantage be raised any further. The rate of the Special Contribution on the gold mines has been increased annually, until, having started at 9 per cent., it reached 22½ per cent. this financial year. The gold mining industry is now wrestling with considerable difficulties. I have indicated why the rate referred to cannot now be increased any further. As far as the Diamond Mines are concerned, we fixed the Special Contribution in the first instance at 2s. in the £ on the profits derived from diamond mining, and as the diamond trade was in the doldrums during the first part of the war, we left is unchanged until the rate was raised to 3s. for the present financial year. It seems appropriate, having regard to the present prosperity of the industry, that we should now raise it still further to 4s. That will give us £180,000.

Finally there is Income Tax payable by individuals. Here, too, we have done a good deal in recent years to increase the burdens of the taxpayer. It will have appeared from what I said earlier on that, speaking generally, I feel the time has now come to call a halt pending a general revision of the incidence of the tax which cannot yet be undertaken. I make that general statement, however, subject to one qualification. At present Super Tax is subject to a tax rebate of £240, and is not payable in respect of taxable incomes under £2,000 per annum. We propose that this rebate should be reduced to £210. That will mean that all present super-taxpayers will have to pay an additional £30, to which must be added the surcharge, and that Super Tax will now become payable at £1,775. That will give us £400,000 a year when fully operative. We cannot, however, count on receiving more than £240,000 during the year 1944-’45.

No medicine tax?

No. I would, however, point out that in accordance with the law the new taxation scales will come into force immediately, and I shall table the necessary notice of motion today. That means that we shall collect during the current year a certain amount of additional revenue which we estimate at £200,000. That will increase our estimated balance on Revenue Account at 31st March by that amount. We propose to transfer that portion of the balance to the Revenue Account for 1944-’45.

I second.

On the motion of the Minister of Railways and Harbours the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 28th February.

I lay upon the Table:

I also lay upon the Table a summary of facts and figures in connection with the Budget statement for inclusion in Hansard, as follows—

I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

I shall confine my remarks to deal briefly with the position of a small number of people in the service of the South African Railway Administration who work under difficult and dangerous conditions. I refer to the Karrier Cob-drivers who have to work under dangerous conditions. Their position was raised here on previous occasions but the excuse always was that although we on this side alleged that these workers were exposed to the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning on the Karrier Cobs, the other side of the House denied the correctness of that assertion. I do not believe that hon. members opposite can still maintain that our contentions are wrong. I put certain questions to the Minister of Railways and Harbours in this House, and I have in front of me the replies in which the Minister states that there have been a number of cases of carbon monoxide poisoning among drivers of these Karrier Cobs. If we study the list which the Minister has put before the House we find that the Karrier Cob-drivers have contracted various diseases in the past twelve months. We find for instance that inflammation of the bowels and inflammation of the stomach during the past twelve months were the cause of no fewer than forty-five people having to go off duty. In thirty cases people suffered from tuberculosis of the lungs and the throat. This is a serious state of affairs. I want to explain to the House that the Karrier Cob-drivers are not only exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning but also to other diseases. But in order to show that there have been cases of carbon monoxide poisoning I want to point out that the Minister in his reply actually stated that such cases had occurred. Apart from that, however, I have in my possession here a copy of a letter from doctors of the South African Railways to the effect that some of these people have contracted carbon monoxide poisoning. Let me refer briefly to some of those cases. The first case I have is that of a certain Hamman. He is twenty-five years of age. He has had five years’ service on the Railways as a Karrier Cobdriver. Some hon. members will perhaps ask what a Karrier Cob-driver is. They are the people driving those vehicles which deliver the goods from Kazerne in Johannesburg. The vehicle called a “Karrier Cob” has one front wheel and two back wheels, and that is the vehicle which causes all this misery. Hamman had only had five years’ service; he used to weigh 155 lbs.; that was his normal weight, and I have statements that he had not had a day’s illness before he was employed on the Karrier Cobs. In a comparatively short time his weight came down to 93 lbs. One has this phenomenon, exactly as one finds in the case of miners’ phthisis, that some people who are affected swell up terribly and others go down to nothing. There are a good many of these Karrier Cob drivers in my constituency and I am particularly interested in them. After 18 months Hamman’s health gave in and he was examined by the medical officer. He left the service on I.O.D., which means that he is to draw his salary throughout the period of his illness. But what happened in every one of those cases? These people were not allowed that privilege. They were given two-thirds of their salary for three months and after that they got nothing. After that they had to carry on without any compensation at all. This man Hamman is in a hopeless position. These diseases after a time become chronic. This man contracted inflammation of the stomach and he underwent a serious operation and the doctors state that he will soon have to undergo another serious operation, though they are afraid he cannot afford it. In Hamman’s case three doctors have stated that he is suffering from the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. I want to mention another man in this connection—his name is Niemann. He is 29 years of age. He was appointed in 1935 as a Karrier Cob driver and he was fortunate enough to stick it out for two years before his health gave in. Today he is in very poor health and although it is said that he is not suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, I have a certificate in connection with Niemann, a certificate from the South African Railways and Harbours, in which the medical officer declares that the man is suffering from the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. I don’t know how the Minister can get past that. I also have copies of other letters about Niemann from a doctor, and I am prepared to mention the medical officer’s name—it is Dr. Schmabman. In one of these letters he admits that Niemann is suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. In his letter Dr. Schmabman says that all tests, except the blood test have been applied, and he adds that there is no need to make a blood test. This is what he says—

His own doctor therefore is so convinced that he is suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning that he says it is unnecessary to have a blood test taken. The Minister cannot deny this because if he does he will have to repudiate his own medical officers. But I want to add this: As I take particular interest in these people I have visited a number of their homes in my constituency and the wives of these men have spoken to me and there is not a single case where a driver of a Karrier Cob does not suffer from some disease or other. In Niemann’s case he has contracted chronic catarrh. Speaking from my knowledge of these men and their families I can say that the position so far as they are concerned is a most unhappy one and I feel that the time has come when the Minister should give the matter his serious attention. The Karrier Cob drivers are rendering the country invaluable services. What would Kazerne look like without them within a week? There would be such an accumulation of goods that one would be unable to turn. But these people’s condition cannot be left to chance any longer. Niemann, after 15 years’ service has got to the stage where he has had to be removed from the Karrier Cob work and be given other work. And what has he been offered? After 15 years’ service in the Railways, after having lost his health in the service, he has had to give up 14s. 6d. per day and start at 11s. 6d. per day. Fortunately that man has succeeded in getting an improvement in his position, but that is what he was offered. I am only mentioning two or three instances but judging from the Minister’s reply to my question there is a long list of diseases which these Karrier Cobdrivers are suffering from, and it is a striking fact that a very large percentage of these Karrier Cob-drivers have had to go off duty within twelve months owing to illness. One cannot prove that in every case these people are suffering from carbon moxonide poisoning, but I want to put this to the Minister, I want him to take the position of the people into careful consideration. They asked for a special health allowance of 2s. per day. They asked for that a long time ago. The Department did not agree to that request. They therefore asked that the Department should give them the opportunity of having one of these vehicles thoroughly examined. They did not want it done for nothing. They were prepared to hire one of these vehicles, but they were not allowed to do so. If the Minister doubts that there is such a thing as carbon monoxide poisoning let him give these people the opportunity of having the question investigated. But I have a letter here written on the 24th April, 1943, by the General Secretary of the Staff Association representing group B, South African Railways and Harbours, Balfour House, Cape Town, and from this letter it appears that the matter was brought to the notice of the Administration as far back as 1941. Let me quote one paragraph from that letter [Translation]—

From this it appears that three years ago the matter had already come to the notice of the Railway Administration, and even then they arrived at the conclusion that alterations had to be made to the Karrier Cob. Now I want to ask why that was not done. My information is, and I think my information is correct, that at Langlaagte alterations were effected to seventeen Karrier Cobs and that the instruction given was that in December, 1943, all the vehicles were to be returned. Alterations were made, but why all this delay since 1941? Why were the lives of these people jeopardised in this way all that time? I think the Minister should give this matter his serious attention. The Minister will now tell us that these alterations have been made. Well, I am particularly interested in this matter and also in these people and I want to say that I do not believe that the alterations effected will keep out the carbon monoxide. They are not effective. I myself have visited a certain place and I have had a look at these Karrier Cobs while they were offloading, and after having had a look I came to the conclusion that the alterations made are not effective. But I did not want to pass any judgment as a layman, and on one of those occasions, while one of those Karrier Cobs was offloading, I had a man with me whose name I do not want to mention, but who is one of the best mechanics on the Witwatersrand. I discussed those matters with him and I asked him his opinion, and he stated that to his mind the alterations effected would not prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. It is almost self-evident because the engine is inside the cab, next to the driver. If the engine were outside one could understand it, but as long as the engine is in the driver’s cabin, next to the driver. I fail to see how one can keep the gas out. The gas is light and there is not the slightest doubt that even since the changes have been effected it still escapes from the differential and the oil sump. Those are the two places in particular where the gas percolates. The load carried by the Karrier Cob is just behind the cabin, and in between the cabin and the load there is an opening where there is a vacuum and as soon as the vehicle moves there is a continuous suction underneath the open space and everything passing through the tube is sucked back into the inside of the cabin where the driver sits. No matter how one looks at it, the whole thing is dangerous and it is high time the Minister realised the position and did something to improve the whole situation. There is only one way he can help and that is by doing away with the Karrier Cobs. The Minister will reply by saying that those Karrier Cobs work very, very cheaply. We admit that, but our reply is that we have no right to jeopardise people’s lives simply because the Karrier Cobs operate so cheaply. Judging from the list which I have here lots of those people have contracted inflammation of the stomach, inflammation of the bowels, tuberculosis of the lungs and all kinds of other stomach troubles, their hearts have been weakened and so on. These people do not only suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning, but these vehicles bump so badly that the drivers cannot stand it and they contract all sorts of other diseases, and even their hearts are weakened. In view of the fact that these men render very valuable services to the State it is our duty to see to it that their health is looked after. The only improvement the Minister can effect is to secure some other type of vehicle which may perhaps be a little more expensive to the industry, but which will not be so detrimental to these people’s health. These men are shaken to pieces. I asked the Minister another question in this regard. I asked him how many days’ leave these Karrier Cob drivers get every year—that is these people who have to work under those shocking conditions, and the Minister replied as follows—

On completion of five years and less than ten years’ 12 days’ leave accumulative up to 36 days.

Those men cannot let their leave accumulate—it is impossible for them to do so. They need their leave very badly every year. In passing I want to say that on account of illness these Karrier Cob-drivers are sometimes off duty for a long time. In one case a man was off seven months; during the first three months he only got two-thirds of his salary, and after that he got nothing. How can one expect those men to let their leave accumulate? The Minister further replied—

It is scandalous! We are told daily that the State wants to build up a strong and virile nation. These are all young men, they are between 24 and 35 years of age, and they have to be strong because if they are not strong they are not employed. Is the Minister in earnest in his protestations that he wants to build up a strong nation if he only allows men doing that type of work twelve days’ leave per year? They need a good rest after twelve months. I want to ask the Minister to give these people not less than three weeks every year, they are entitled to it. If he does not agree to that request he should stop talking about building up a healthy and strong South Africa. If he refuses to grant them that privilege I am afraid we cannot take him seriously. Now I put another question. I asked whether those men were officially allowed a break in their work so that they could take the opportunity in the morning of drinking a cup of tea and what was the Minister’s reply—

So it means that these people are practically treated as slaves—surely they are entitled to a few minutes to drink a cup of tea? Anyone is entitled to that. I had a case brought to my notice the other day of a certain driver who at 11 o’clock drank his own tea in the Karrier Cob, and who was punished for doing so. That is my information, and I assume it to be correct, although I am speaking subject to correction. In all probability it is correct because according to the Minister’s reply, officially those people have not got the right in the morning to drink a cup of tea. It is an unheard of state of affairs. Give these people the right to enjoy a cup of tea at 11 o’clock in the morning, and to stop work for a few minutes. It is not to the credit of the Railways that such a condition of affairs should be permitted to exist. Now, may I come to another point. Only 40 per cent. of these Karrier Cobs which the Minister seems to be so fond of have self-starters. The drivers get to work in the mornings and have to start them. There is a starting handle for each vehicle, but it is very heavy to turn. So the Karrier Cob has to be pushed. The drivers have to get natives to push the vehicles up and down until the engine starts. And that is a very serious point too. These things have to be pulled and pushed about until they start, and if an accident happens as a result, the driver is blamed. I have a specific case before me. I do not want to mention the name but I can show it to the Minister if he wants to see it. This man had a slight accident—the Karrier Cob was very slightly damaged, while it was being pulled along to get it started. The man was summoned under the disciplinary regulations. First of all he was summoned because he had not made sure that vehicle No.… was connected to tractor No.… before it started. The second count against him was that he had failed to give effective warning to the driver of the tractor to stop after he had noticed that the vehicle was not properly connected to the tractor. Those are the grounds on which people are fined. The man sits in front of the vehicle which he has to drive. The tractor makes a noise. How are these people to hear each other if anything goes wrong? The third count against him was that he had left Karrier Cob No.… before he had made sure that the driver of the tractor was not going to drive on. How could he have made sure of what the man on the tractor was going to do, seeing that he was in front of the Karrier Cob and the other man was on the tractor? This man was summoned and he had to pay a fine. It’s not only the Karrier Cobs which undermine people’s health, but they continually get into trouble through the Karrier Cob refusing to start in the mornings unless they are pulled out and then the drivers are held responsible for difficulties which arise and for damage done. Before I conclude I again want to ask the Minister to consider whether his department cannot do away with these Karrier Cobs altogether. It’s no use saying that the drivers do not contract carbon monoxide poisoning in the Karrier Cobs because the Administration’s own medical officers say that they do, and the Minister in his own reply has admitted it. So far as the alterations are concerned, they may be useful with entirely new engines—brand new engines—but as soon as the vehicle gets old, leaks develop, the gas escapes and these men get poisoned. We therefore want to ask the Minister to replace those vehicles by better and more effective vehicles. I further want to ask the Minister to tell us whether he will be prepared to meet those people by giving them three weeks’ well deserved rest after they have been working hard for a year? Twelve days is far too little for those men. A number of those people have contracted chronic diseases. They are poisoned, and the poison leads to chronic diseases. As it has been established that those men are exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning, I want to ask the Minister to help them, to meet them, by allowing them to get their full salary when they are off duty for longer than three months, and I want to ask the Minister to make this provision retrospective. Now my final question to the Minister is this: I want him to have a thorough investigation made, and if it is found that men have contracted chronic diseases and are suffering from those diseases, they should be met and given some compensation. I make an urgent appeal to the Minister. Last year I attended a function held by the karrier Cob-drivers. The Divisional Superintendent was present that evening. The main object of holding that function was to distribute certain diplomas for good work done and so on, and I can assure the Minister that it would be practically impossible to get a better lot of Afrikaners together than the Karrier Cobdrivers who were there. They do their duty conscientiously, they work hard and the Divisional Superintendent told them so. I want to make an earnest appeal to the Minister to let those people get what they are entitled to and we are looking forward to his doing something for them.

When the Minister replied to the debate yesterday we could see that the criticism which had come from this side of the House must have been very effective. In the past when the Minister replied to criticism from this side of the House he was usually very moderate and he used to reply to the criticism in a very courteous manner. Yesterday he replied as though he were talking to people very much below him, and that to me proves that the criticism which we had levelled against him got home. Now I want to touch on a few points which the Minister referred to yesterday. First I want to say a few words about the Cavalcade. The Minister replied to my remarks on that point but unfortunately he had to give the information supplied to him by his people and the answer which his people gave him was not correct. I asked how many officials were engaged in connection with the Cavalcade. I do not know whether the reply given by the officials was deliberately wrong, but the reply was that one official was engaged full time and that a few officials were engaged for part time work in connection with the Cavalcade. But what are the facts? In the workshops certain chairs, benches and toys are being made for sale at the Cavalcade. It is true that this work is being done after working hours, but I want hon. members to realise that the people doing that work are being paid overtime. In other words, it is perfectly true that they are not doing any work for the Cavalcade in their ordinary working hours, but they are doing it after working hours and they are being paid overtime. Now, in this connection I want to mention a man’s name, and I should like the Minister to say whether what I am saying is true or not. Let me say at once that I do not expect the Minister to know all this, but still the Minister is the head of the Department and he has to supervise matters, and he is responsible for whatever happens among his officials. Now, I want to say something about the man who collects on the station, a certain Rossouw. This man walks about on the station with a little cart. He is the man who insults the passengers if they refuse to give anything for the Cavalcade.

An Afrikaner?

Unfortunately he is a man with an Afrikaans name, but. I want to ask the Minister whether it is true that this Rossouw does not have to clock in in the same way as other employees have to do when they start work in the mornings—as hon. members know there is some kind of apparatus where they have to press a knob which enables those in charge to know the time they arrive and start work. Rossouw only signs his name and then starts on his job—he is the man who walks about the station platforms; he does nothing but cause offence to our people, and he only makes himself ridiculous in the eyes of the public. In January he was paid for 102 hours overtime. I mention the number of hours so that the Minister can say whether that is correct or not. He was paid for 44 hours Sunday time. That was in one month. And he is the man who in his spare time—for which he is paid overtime—collects for the Cavalcade! I think it is high time the Minister had an investigation made at the Cape Town station. Now I want to come to a question on the Order Paper about the buildings at Green Point. Unfortunately the Minister has not yet had time to reply to that question. Buildings are being erected on the Green Point Common and I should like the Minister to tell us who is paying for those buildings, where the material comes from, whether Railway men are working on those buildings, and whether they are supervising the buildings? The Minister has told us that only one man is in full time employment, and that two or three men are doing part time work in connection with the Cavalcade. I should like the Minister to reply to that question. Now there is another matter I want to bring to the Minister’s notice. On the station, under the clock, a lottery is being run. People have lodged complaints with the police and a charge was laid because lotteries are illegal. After that things were changed. There is a bottle there now and the public are asked to guess how many beans are in that bottle. That, too, is illegal. If we study the law we find that anything constituting pure guesswork is illegal, and that only if a certain amount of skill is required is an enterprise of that kind not illegal. The law requires that in such a case the size of the bottle and the size of the beans or the peas must be stated, so that the individual guessing the number of beans in the bottle can use his intelligence to work out or calculate how many beans there are in the bottle. In other words, the law is being broken, but the Minister allows the law to be broken in order to get money for the Liberty Cavalcade. Now I want to come back to one of the principal grievances or complaints which we have here in the Western Province. If we misunderstood the Minister yesterday he himself is to blame. He was excited and perhaps he spoke faster than usual. I believe he said that at those places where people are accustomed to seeing Europeans and non-Europeans travelling together on the trains he was not going to take up the attitude of a moral preacher in order to separate the people from each other. The Minister will remember that before the General Elections I asked whether there were no special coaches for the Europeans and non-Europeans on the main lines, and I further asked whether the same thing did not also apply to the branch lines? The Minister replied that in the Cape Peninsula it was not the custom on the main line to separate Europeans and non-Europeans. Yesterday in his reply he said that he was not going to take any action to separate Europeans and non-Europeans in areas where those people were accustomed to travel in the same coach. If there is one grievance which we as Europeans feel it is in regard to the mixing up of Europeans and non-Europeans, not only here in the Cape Peninsula but on the lines to Paarl, Stellenbosch and Somerset Strand. Whatever train one boards, one sees white women in their seats and coloured men come in—it seems as if they do so deliberately—and sit beside them. This sort of thing has a bad effect on the public generally. I believe there was a request made some time ago for school children to attend a particular performance. The Railway authorities wanted to give them certain facilities to go to that performance, but the non-Europeans refused to accept any other day but that which the white children were to have. They insited on travelling on the same train as the Europeans. What are the first and second class reserved passenger coaches on the main line for? Are they not there for the non-European. Is not there a regulation that the Europeans are not to travel in those coaches? Now I want to ask the Minister whether he is going to provide protection for the conductors who remove coloured persons from the carriages intended for Europeans? The reason why I ask is this; I have spoken to a few conductors on the trains and they have told me that however much they would like to do so they receive no protection and they are not encouraged by the people above them to take action against that class. I think the Minister will agree that there is a dividing line in South Africa between a European and non-European; there are even regulations on the Railways to the effect that non-Europeans are not allowed to travel in the coaches set aside for Europeans. That being so, why is no action taken? We know that the Railway officials have to carry out the regulations; if they do not they are punished, so why are they not protected if they carry out this regulation? There is no general election pending at the moment and the Minister need have no fear of losing non-European votes if he applies this regulation. It is more than probable that we shall not have an election for a considerable time, and I can assure the Minister that both English and Afrikaans-speaking people in the suburbs will be very grateful to him if he will lay down a dividing line between Europeans and non-Europeans on our trains. Now I should like to quote a letter which I received from the Minister in reply to another letter which I wrote to him. This is what he wrote to me on the 28th August [Translation]—

I want the Minister to tell us how much these people are getting? Why cannot he appoint additional people to do that work, and why must he take rail workers to do that work without paying them the same wages as the cloakroom assistants get? He goes on to say this [Translation]—

This letter was written on the 28th August, and at the time this letter was written an additional man was appointed, but to this day two rail workers, men who are not porters, are employed in that office. The one is a certain Olivier who had been working there since June, 1943, the other one is Vyssel, who has been working there since June, 1942. Even since the letter was written no appointment was made and these people are still being employed there. I want to make an appeal to the Minister. If there are Europeans who are doing the same work as those cloakroom attendants and they are kept there for any length of time—in the one case more than a year, and in the other case nearly two years—the Minister should see to it that these people are promoted and get the wage attaching to those posts. I also made representations to the Minister regarding a uniform for those people and he was kind enough to give them a white coat. I understand that that is quite good enough for the work which those people do—they carry parcels about. Let me say that I don’t know those people, I have never been in touch with them; I have my information from a different source, but I think it is high time they were paid the wages to which they are entitled. Now I want to make a further appeal to the Minister. The Minister told us that he wants to be just, and if anyone is persecuted on the Railways and we bring the matter to his notice he will go into it thoroughly. The Minister should realise that it is very difficult to give him names for the simple reason that if we mention names, the people in question are afraid that they will be persecuted. If we give a name to the Department we usually get the reply from the Minister that the matter will have to go through the ordinary channels. If the Minister were dependent on his work for his living and for that of his family he would also be afraid to complain because he might be victimised and he might be deprived of the promotion which he was entitled to. And that is the position of these people. They are afraid to allow us to give their names, they are afraid to allow us to ventilate their complaints; that is why they come forward surreptitiously, so to speak, to make their grievances known. I do not think it is fair on the part of the Minister to expect us to give the names of those people. We also know that the Minister considered it very unfair that the names of the General Manager of Railways and other head officials were mentioned here. That being so I wonder how he can expect us to give the names of subordinate officials. I don’t think it would be right for us to do so. The Minister’s two statements are in direct conflict with each other. If the Minister wants right and justice to be done on the Railways he should comply with the request which I am going to make to him in regard to things which have happened on the Railways since the outbreak of war. The Railways have done a lot for the war effort, and they are doing a lot now for the Liberty Cavalcade. Many officials are being compelled by means of indirect pressure which is brought to bear on them to do things which they don’t like doing. The Minister spoke about the enthusiasm prevailing among those people for the Liberty Cavalcade. There is a good deal of enthusiasm about spying on Afrikaans Railway officials—there is a lot of enthusiasm to force them to do things which they do not want to do. That is the sort of enthusiasm there is, and the result is that there are people doing work in connection with such undertakings simply because they are afraid of what may happen to them if they don’t do it. Some of them even work for the Cavalcade after working hours because they know that they are being spied on. Others are keeping a very careful watch over them. Let me again mention the case of the man who collects on the station. I was at the station for a little while and I kept my eye on him. He simply went and sat down somewhere where he had a conversation about people who did weight lifting and things of that kind. He says that he was not enthusiastically disposed towards the cause he was serving but that he was paid well for his overtime and he did not have much work to do, and if he did not do it someone else would. If the Minister is in earnest with his statement that he wants to protect the Afrikaans-speaking people on the Railways, and if the General Manager is also in earnest, then the Minister should issue a notice stating that these people will not be victimised and that their promotion or advancement will not be interfered with simply because they hold views different from those which the Minister holds. The railwaymen are not as satisfied as the Minister thinks they are. The Minister should not imagine that we are out to find fault with him. So far he has always had an easy passage here but it is our duty to bring these matters to his notice because we want right and justice to be done to the Railway officials who loyally do their duty, even though they differ from the Minister’s political views. They have the right to differ from him so long as they do their work properly, and I want to appeal to the Minister to tell those people that there is no obligation on them to take part in the Liberty Cavalcade if they do not want to, because they are as much entitled to their point of view as he is entitled to his.

I should like to say a word or two to the Minister of Transport with reference to the public transport position in the Union of South Africa. The Government is to be congratulated on the appointment of a Minister of Transport, and we in the House are very pleased that transport generally can now be called into question under the aegis of a Minister of the State. Now, the Minister may be aware of the fact that the Transportation Board has seriously curtailed public transport in all the towns of the Union. Transport has been curtailed to an extent that it is today almost a public danger, and in most of the larger towns the question of people going to and from their work is becoming one of the major problems—especially in respect of those who unfortunately have no motor cars. I do not know whether the opinion of the Transportation Board is the correct one or not—that Board has taken the view that we in this country will not receive additional means of transportation until about 1947. In those circumstances they have laid down some very stringent restrictions on the operation of transport, not only very much to the public discomfort, but almost to a stage where the public are seriously inconvenienced in getting to and from work. On the Witwatersrand during the recent rains I understand that the question became one of great seriousness indeed. We unfortunately have to accept, shall I say, the story which is told to us by the Transportation Board. We have to accept it unfortunately without any serious or substantial evidence being laid before us in support of their assertion. They say that no public transport is likely to come to the Union of South Africa before about 1947, in fact vehicles are labelled with notices that they have to be used sparingly because they cannot be replaced before 1947. Now, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that, in all the larger towns such as Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, and possibly other towns, public transport difficulties have been considerably accentuated by the attitude of the Department of Defence, and in Cape Town particularly where we have several large aerodromes, it is the duty of the transport undertaking which is run by private enterprise to take a large portion of the members of the Defence Force to and from their work, and the position has got to such a stage in Cape Town.…

On a point of order, I do not want to interrupt the hon. member, but I do want to make a point clear at this stage. Officially there is no Minister of Transport in existence yet, and therefore the hon. member cannot refer to the Minister of Transport as such, but apart from that the matter which the hon. member is now raising is a matter which comes under the Transport vote on the General Estimates and has nothing to do with the Railway Part Appropriation Bill.

I understand the Minister is not now the Minister of Railways and Harbours, but the Minister of Transport. Of course, if the Minister is prepared to delay …

On a point of personal explanation, I said I did not want to interrupt the hon. member, I only wanted to make the point clear because if it is not clear we shall get into a considerable tangle before we finish.

I understand the policy of the Government is to abolish even the Portfolio of Minister of Railways and Harbours, and I understand the Minister has been appointed Minister of Transport?

No, the Minister has explained that he has not yet been appointed Minister of Transport. And besides, I have pointed out that this is a matter which cannot be discussed on the Railway Part Appropriation Bill.

I should like to ask for a thorough explanation from the Minister because I understand that there was a memorandum which actually came from the Prime Minister’s office to the effect that a Ministry of Transport had been set up. We should have some explanation. The Minister is referred to all over the country as the Minister of Transport, and actually it has been officially stated that he is the Minister of Transport.

The hon. member must accept the hon. the Minister’s personal explanation.

Will the Minister please explain to us when he will become Minister of Transport. He says now that he is not Minister of Transport, but when he writes letters to me he signs himself Minister of Transport. We should like the Minister to explain the position to us.

I take it that the House will have no objection to the Minister giving an explanation?

The position is this: The Ministry of Transport is divided into two clear cut sections. The Minister of Railways and Harbours continues to function under the Act, under all the Acts governing the Railways. That is to say, among other things he has his separate budget and his separate Part Appropriation, and that separate budget and part appropriation only deals with Railway and Harbour finances, and not with the finances of the Transport Department which hon. members will find covered in the Main Estimates. It is true, I am known as the Minister of Transport, but in fact legally, as far as this Parliament is concerned—hon. members will notice that all questions addressed to me are addressed to the Minister of Railways and Harbours.

So the whole thing is a bluff?

Anything dealing with Railways and Harbours comes under the separate budget of the Railways and Harbours.

Under which Minister does this vote come?

That is for the House to decide.

Who is Jekyll and who is Hyde?

I am making it clear what the exact position is—so far as the position of Minister of Transport is concerned, well, there are certain points there on which I am not quite clear myself, but the main point now is that only Railway matters can be discussed on the Railway Part Appropriation Bill, and not matters dealing with the other department of the Minister of Transport.

Can we deal with civil air matters here?

So far as the Civil Air Board is concerned, that will be dealt with under the Transport Vote, but so far as Airways, which fall under the Railways are concerned, they will be dealt with by the Railways.

So that you have it both ways.

Well, it seems I can be criticised both ways. I was not really anxious to interrupt the hon. member. I merely wanted to make the position clear. It is quite clear that there is room for clarity in regard to this particular appointment.

The position appears to be perfectly clear. The Bill before the House deals with expenditure for Railway purposes from Railway funds, and the debate must be confined purely to Railway matters.

Might I put it this way, in discussing the question of transport facilities for the large towns, that it seems that the only way we can relieve the position, is by the Railways stepping in and giving us some assistance. The Railways are the chief transport undertaking in the Union, and if it is going to be impossible for private undertakings and Municipal undertakings to give transport facilities, it seems that the Railways should take some steps, because obviously the one Minister will be responsible for everything. The Railways are the chief transport undertaking in the Union, but it still seems strange to me that we can only discuss the running of public transport under another vote when we are at the same time dealing with the most important transport undertaking in the country, and it would appear to me to be quite logical despite the fact that we have here a Part Appropriation Bill which refers purely to the Railways, that we should be able to discuss matters of public transport here. It seems now as if the Part Appropriation Bill should be introduced under the title of Transport Part Appropriation Bill. We are getting into this difficulty, that under the ordinary Part Appropriation Bill we are not entitled to discuss the question of Railways. The Minister introduces a budget of his own, he introduces a Part Appropriation Bill of his own, and I am in this difficulty now, that had I known that the official statement that the Minister of Railways is Minister of Transport now—had I known that that official statement was only a sort of half baked statement, and did not mean all it said, I would have raised the question of transport on the ordinary Part Appropriation Bill. It now seems that the Minister is falling into line with what is generally happening in South Africa—we have two languages and two capitals, now we have a sort of bi-focal Minister of Transport and we have difficulty in knowing what the position is. Another month or six weeks may bring this particular situation to a head—another month or six weeks without the interference of Parliament or the Minister may land us in a position, not only of difficulty but of danger, and I think on this occasion the Minister might have been well advised if he had waived his point of order and if he had allowed at least some discussion on this question of transport because here is a thing which should not really be discussed on the ordinary estimates. Here is a thing which the Government has decided must be placed into one particular Department of State which has all the dignity almost of the Minister of Finance himself, yet we have to confine ourselves to Railways and Harbours on this matter, and when we come to transport we shall have to speak to the Minister of Finance. I suppose if we had raised these matters on the ordinary Part Appropriation Bill the discussion would have been replied to by the Minister of Finance. I think the whole procedure is stupid. I think the Minister should try and make available to this House at the earliest possible date some opportunity where the members can discuss the dangerous position into which the highways of this country are getting.

At this stage of the Bill I do not want to say very much more in regard to matters which have been discussed here previously. There will be other opportunities this Session for the discussion of Railway matters, especially on the main estimates. But I think there are a few points on which I should say something immediately, especially after the reply which the Minister of Railways gave yesterday on the amendment which I moved at the second reading. After his reply I think we simply cannot allow those points to pass. In the interests of the House and of good administration it is necessary for us to come back to those points. Because the reply which the Minister gave yesterday is still fresh in our memories, I think we should deal with it now. First of all, I should like to refer generally to the fact that the Minister refused the real request which was made to him through the medium of the amendment which I moved. The fact that he does not want to accede to that request is the most important fact as far as the amendment is concerned, in the reply which we had from the Minister yesterday. It seems from the attitude of the Minister that he is of opinion that he would weaken his position in the estimation of the House and of the country if he were to accept this amendment, and if he were to appoint a commission of investigation to go into the complaints which were made to him in this House and outside in connection with these promotions. All I can say to that is this, that instead of placing himself in a weaker position he would have strengthened his position considerably, if he is correct in what he said in his defence, namely that there is no reason for complaint. If there is no reason for that complaint and a commission of investigation had been appointed to go into the matter and the weakness of that case had been exposed, he would have found himself in a strong position as against his own case and as against the Railway Administration, and especially against those who have voiced this complaint in connection with these cases year after year. The fact that he does not want to accept this, does not indicate his strength, but rather his weakness. Then I want to ask the Minister, since this complaint was made last year, is again made this year, and, I am afraid, will be raised in this House year after year, whether it would not be worth his while to put an end to this matter once and for all? And there is only one way of putting a stop to it, and that is to appoint an impartial commission, on which the various parties of this House will be represented, to go into this matter thoroughly and then to inform the House or the country what the position is in connection with the matter. Is it not worth while in the interests of his Administration, in the interests of his own peace of mind, that this matter should be thoroughly investigated? The defence which the Minister put up here on this amendment is not an improvement on the defence which he put up last year. Last year I described his defence to the accusations as a tragedy. But his defence of this year is even worse. It is not a tragedy; it is a comedy. What was really his reaction to this request to cause investigations to be made into these cases which are the subject of complaint? In the first place, he exclaimed: “Yes, complaints are being made in regard to this, that and the other case, but who said so? Tell me who made the complaints. Tell me who said it, and then I shall go into it.” What is the supposition underlying that exclamation, “Who said it?” The supposition is that hon. members of this House know nothing about those matters. It is not sufficient if they say it. They know nothing and it must therefore be asked: “Who said it outside?” But not only that. The Minister wants to know what dissatisfaction there is in the Railway service. He knows of no dissatisfaction. Well, if he does not know of dissatisfaction in the Railway service, then I can tell him that we on this side of the House know so much more about his department and his officials that we can tell him that there is dissatisfaction and widespread dissatisfaction in the service. Why does he ask that question: “Who said it?” Is he engaged in a smelling out process? Does he not know that if a man in the Railway service were to admit that he complained, that in the majority of cases he would be a marked man in the service? And the Railway official knows very well that thereafter the possibility or the probability is that, as far as promotion is concerned, there will be discrimination against him. “Who said it?” It reminds me very much of the man who hears a rumour about himself; the rumour is true and he knows that it is true, and he knows that he cannot defend himself. But the first exclamation which usually comes from him is: “Who said it?” It is clear that the Minister has not done everything to deal with the complaints which have been made; on the contrary, he tried to evade those complaints. We mentioned chapter and verse here. We brought forward case after case, and many striking cases, which immediately give rise to the question: “Why is that the position?” As far as those points and those facts are concerned, the Minister did not make any attempt at all to enlighten us or to defend himself. We would like to know what good reasons he can advance why an official like Mr. Marshall Clark, unlike the case of any other official in the Administration, made such rapid progress within four years that he doubled his salary from £1,000 to £2,000. That is something which calls for an explanation. We asked how it was possible to appoint him to a post which he never occupied, and why, even before he could have occupied that post, he was again shifted to another position. What is the reason for creating a post on paper, a post which does not exist at all, and appointing him to that post? We asked how it was possible for him to pass 28 senior officers. It is not enough to say that he is capable and that he is bilingual. Let me take it for granted that he is capable and that he is bilingual.

This is a technical appointment.

I take it for granted that he is capable. I take it that he is bilingual. But are there not many officers who are senior to him, and who are as bilingual and perhaps even more bilingual than he is, and who are as capable as he is? That is the question which had to be answered, and on that no reply whatsoever was given. The Minister did nothing but attempt to evade the complaint which was made against, him, and he succeeded in evading the issue. There is, however, one important statement which we got from him, and that was an admission, a very important admission. That important admission is that by means of grading and regrading posts, he brings the post to the man who for his own reasons, he wants to elevate to a higher position. It has nothing to do with the actual value of that position, but he grades or regrades the post in order to take a junior man in the service and to elevate him to a position where he wants him for his own purposes. In other words, by means of grading and regrading, the posts are manipulated. Now we have a double admission. At first, his General Manager of Railways admitted it in his annual report. Now the Minister comes along and admits it too. I say that is an important and a very important admission. He advances this excuse, that he has to do it because there are other senior officers above this person, and that they must not lose their seniority. What does that seniority mean to them if, by means of this manipulation of posts, a man who is junior to them is taken and appointed over their heads? Of what benefit is the retention of their seniority as far as they are concerned? I think that is a ridiculous excuse. The Minister said that he did this, and that generally speaking he regarded it as wrong. He frankly said that it was wrong. What we should now like to hear from him is this. Will he in future put a stop to it? If we do not get the assurance from him that he is going to put a stop to it, I can assure him that year after year we shall raise the very same matter, and that similar attacks, and even stronger attacks than heretofore, will be made. In his reply the Minister adopted another line of defence, a line of defence which by means of an interjection yesterday I described as riding the high horse. He adopts a superior, high tone, and speaks with so much authority in this Parliament as though he is lord and master and no one else. The attitude which he adopted in connection with these promotions was not to defend them on their merits, but it was this: “I am Minister, and if I am Minister, I bear the responsibility, and if I bear the responsibility I must be able to appoint in the service whoever I please, and if I can appoint in the service whoever I please, as long as I do not commit an unlawful act, what concern is it of Parliament or of anyone else?” That is the attitude which he adopted. Since the Minister is adopting that attitude, I want to remind him that before his time there were other stubborn Scotsmen who also adopted that attitude. That was 300 years ago, but when the head of Charles Stuart rolled on the ground there came an end to that method. And now I just want to tell him that I would advise him in the interests of the House and in the interests of the country.…

The difference is that Parliament supports me, while Parliament did not support Charles Stuart.

Someone did support him, but it was only for a short while.

I would ask the Minister to abandon this attitude which he has adopted. If he adopts this attitude, even though it be towards this section of the House, I can only tell him that we are not children. We are not afraid of that type of attitude. He puts this proposition, that he can do everything in connection with the administration of the Railways, provided he does not commit an unlawful act. That is a brand new doctrine. I am very surprised to hear it from the lips of the Minister, from a Minister moreover who wants us to believe that he is parliamentary and that he is democratic. I say that that is a brand new doctrine. Let me tell him what the right position is. The right position is that Parliament does not give him the power; that is so. Parliament imposes certain responsibilities on him as Minister, but the function of Parliament thereafter is not only to ask or to ascertain whether unlawful acts have been committed by the Minister, but the function of Parliament is to get an account from the Minister as to whether he carried out those powers which were entrusted to him according to expectations, and according to the intention of the law. For three or four months every year we sit here as a Parliament, but we do not only deal with unlawful acts committed by Ministers. We assemble here to obtain an account from Ministers as to how they carried out the powers which were entrusted to them and which they exercised, within the limits of the law—whether they did so in the right manner and not in the wrong manner. They must give an account. The Minister is not the master of Parliament. Parliament gave him his powers. He must not allow his head to be turned by the fact that he can promulgate emergency regulations. Every Minister is responsible for the manner in which he administers his department. That is why we sit here for three and four months every year and ask the Ministers to give an account. As far as the actual appointments are concerned. I want to say this. The Minister said that, making use of the machinery which exists under the law, he can appoint whom he pleases. He even has the right to appoint unilingual officials. No one denies that he has the right even to appoint unilingual officials. The law leaves an opening for it, if he cannot get bilingual officials for those posts. I go further. The Minister could pick up someone in the street who is not in the Railway service and who has the necessary qualifications, and he could appoint him to the position of General Manager of Railways tomorrow. He could do that too. But the question is whether or not in the case of such an appointment the Minister would have to give an account to Parliament. That is the question, whether he is making the right use of the powers entrusted to him by Parliament, or whether he is abusing those powers. I deprecate the attitude which the Minister has adopted in this matter. I can only say that he must not forget that the Government—to put it that way; I have said that he is not the master of Parliament—the Government is nothing but a committee of this House entrusted with the execution of the administration and the execution of the laws in this country.

I know that.

You admit that that is so, and if you admit that that is the case, then the statement which you made yesterday is not becoming. Just one further point. I think it is necessary in the interests of this Parliament and in the interests of the officials, that I should return to this point, namely the manner in which the Minister reacted to our complaint that the General Manager of Railways had availed himself of the opportunity, in his annual report, of interfering with the discussions which have taken place in this House in connection with the Administration. It is necessary for us to deal with this, because it affects not only the relationship between the Minister and the officials, but to a certain extent it also affects the privilege of this House. The Minister apparently felt the strength of our objection, and because he felt it, he attempted to thrust it aside in one part of his speech. He tried to evade the complaint as though it was something quite different. He asked why the General Manger of Railways could not make remarks about the Administration or criticise it. Of course, he can criticise the Administration. He can, of course, suggest improvements. He is at liberty, of course, to indicate whether there are weaknesses in the Administration which must be rectified. But then he must do so through the Minister, and through the Minister only. But that is not our complaint. Our complaint is quite different; it is that the General Manager of Railways in his annual report criticises members of Parliament, in regard to a discussion in this House; that certain matters were raised here, that they were raised in this, that or the other manner, and then he states in his annual report that that is to be deprecated. He regards what was said here as blind attacks. Well, all I can say in that connection is that that is interference, and it is impertinent interference by an official who has no right to interfere in the debates of this House. If he can do so in his annual report, I want to ask if there is any reason why he cannot make the same statement on a platform, and if he were to say it on a platform, if he were to make remarks in regard to discussions in this House, if he were to say that he deprecated the fact that certain members had said this, that or the other—if he were to make that statement on a platform, I want to ask what the Minster’s reaction would be? What is the difference between a statement which he makes in his annual report, and one which he makes on a platform? If we were to allow that, where would it end? In the first place, what becomes of the principle that the official does not address the House, but that the official is represented here by the Minister who assumes the full responsibility. We now hear not only the Minister in connection with our debates, but we also have the voice of the official, together with that of the Minister. I say that that is a departure and a serious departure, from a fixed constitutional practice which has been laid down. I ask again, if we were to allow this in the future, where would it end? Must officials outside, who cannot be directly answered on the floor of this House by members, be able to sit in judgment as between one side of the House and the other side of the House? Again I ask: where will this lead to? Let us assume that the position was reversed, and that the official had made these remarks not against this side of the House, but that he had said in his annual report that the Minister acted in a certain way in the House, and that the manner in which he acted was to be deprecated. If he were to say that certain statements on the part of the Minister were made blindly, how would the Minister react to that? All I can say is this. On the floor of this House there is no difference between those who sit on those benches, and those who sit on these benches. We are aqually members of Parliament, and we are entitled to raise any matter here, provided we are not called to order by Mr. Speaker, and if you do not want to allow that in your case, what right have you to allow it in connection with this party or in connection with any party or any member of this House? I say again: Where will it lead to if this is permitted? If there is one lesson which the Minister has to learn, it is in connection with this matter. If the Minister wants to defend the interference in the debates of this House by an official outside the House, then it is necessary for him to learn the A.B.C. of the parliamentary system and the A.B.C. of good administration.

I shall be very brief …

Thank you.

This is the second time that I have been interrupted by the Minister, and I shall now be considerably less brief than I originally intended to be. I have as good a right to speak for forty minutes as the hon. Minister himself. As a preliminary to my speech, I would like to say that many of us feel that we are of late being more and more hindered and cramped whenever we attempt to address this House—whether briefly or at length. I shall offer a personal statement in a moment or two in order to make my position plain. Meanwhile I cannot let the Minister’s reply to me, which he gave on the occasion of the second reading, pass without comment or challenge. He made a very clever speech indeed, in which at times, in my opinion, he closely rivalled even the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) as an entertainer. I greatly admire the adroitness with which the Minister handled a very bad brief. Almost he persuaded me to be a railwayman—almost, but not quite. On behalf of my Party as well as myself I wish to convey the appreciation, which we feel for the great qualities of the General Manager of Railways; and I want to add—because I do try to speak the truth anyhow—that I myself specially appreciate what to my own definite knowledge is true, that he has the well-being of the poorest of the workers very much at heart. Well, Sir, so far so good, but there is worse behind. Many people in this country call me the “Boxing Padre”. A very considerable number call me things a good deal worse; but the ring game will at least serve to indicate my attitude on this and certain other matters. Up to this Session my Parliamentary sparring has been done, most considerately, with 14 oz. gloves on my hands. With those, Sir, you cannot possibly hurt your opponent. You only teach him to stand up straight, watch his step and mind his eye! On the second reading of this Bill I made use of 8 oz. gloves, the usual wear of amateurs. And I want to say now that I am perfectly prepared today, or any time in future, to put on the 4 oz. mittens of the professional, when a blow becomes a blow, and is fully intended so to be.

What about bare fists?

I am quite prepared to adopt the excellent suggestion of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom), and whenever it is preferred—or necessary—to fight in good old-fashioned he-man style, without any gloves at all. I am moved to say that because there seems to be resentment on the part of Ministers if we feel it our duty to offer criticism of any kind. Just as the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) found himself in difficulties this afternoon, so I find myself in difficulties the very moment I rise to speak. The hon. Minister could not allow me to complete even my first sentence without interruption. Are we, then, not to be privileged to utter a word? Is it dumb we are to be? We are told by the Minister, and we have heard a very great number of times in this House, that every respect and consideration is shown by the Railways to all-comers, to all and sundry. I should like to put before you, Sir, a little bit of that consideration as it really is. After last Thursday’s portion of the debate on the second reading, the Government press proceeded to give their version of the proceedings; they had every right to do so. My contribution was entirely omitted. I have no grievance on that account, but because of that, and thereupon, I went round to Hansard to get an extra copy of my speech with a view to putting it before the one paper in the whole country which I thought would be willing to present my views without any delay. And what did I find? The Department of Railways had beaten me to it, as the bad boys say. They had preceded me; they had taken the only two copies available. If that is consideration as understood by the Railways, it certainly accounts for some of the mystification one feels in dealing with official statements and actions. It did not apparently occur to them to take one copy and leave one for me, and that they would be able to make as many copies as they required in their own offices. It did not occur to them that possibly by their action my protégé’s case was losing the one chance of publicity that it still had, because the Department and Minister had appropriated the copies. I feel very uneasy about this matter. That is what I worry about in regard to the Railways. They do not mind trampling on the privileges and the rights of others, and we wish, in the interests of what is fair and square, to stop that. I am satisfied that the Minister is not wholly to blame for this, nor are his high officials. This is merely one manifestation of an attitude of mind that has seized officialdom. After all who am I that I should criticise the heads of the Railway or any other Department of State? Even if my criticism is just, even if what they have done is without sense or justice or mercy, who am I that I should presume to bring up these things? Are they not the Great White Chiefs of the Railway, and does not any Department have the last word? It seems to me there is too much of that attitude, and I deplore it intensely. It has to be counteracted in one way or another. I am not going fully over this case of the electrician Dellis again, but relying on the sense of justice of the Minister and of the House, I propose to submit for consideration two facts that I previously omitted, because I did not want to take a minute longer than was necessary to say what I had to say—a form of consideration that is not always extended to the House. I left out one or two matters, and I shall deal with them now. The Minister, during the second reading debate, interrupted me at the stage in my speech, when I was saying that a man was sent from Danskraal to Durban to take the place of my protégé. At that stage the Minister interrupted me to say that he had denied that, and I have no doubt he did it in good faith, but what I said was true. The Minister’s information was at fault. I am saying now that on the 4th of January another electrician did report in Durban, and did proceed to do the work of the man who has been stood aside in this amazing and unjust way. I have a letter here which I had better give, because I do not know nowadays how far one’s unsupported word goes in this House. I may say, too, that I believe it, because the writer of that letter having made certain statements, these were checked by me and I found that everything he had stated in his correspondence was true. Wherever he referred to documents I demanded originals instead of copies, because I could not believe that such letters had been sent by the Railways. The Minister, in the earlier debate, took the line that a man did not go from Danskraal at all. Well, this letter is dated the 7th January—

The workman says a good deal more, but the remainder is not essential to the proof of my statement. He wrote on the 11th a similar letter—

I am telling the Minister through you, Sir, there was a man sent from Danskraal, and that I am unable to see why it was necessary to take this man so recently out of his apprenticeship and force him up-country, when it was thoroughly known he was specially handicapped, and when he had conscientiously refused to do any such thing. When I was discussing this, days and days before I mentioned it in this House, with a very high official of the Railways, it was suggested to me that there were other matters at issue. If this man—or any other man—had misbehaved in any way, one could understand punishment being meted out, although even then the punishment must fit the crime. There is excellent sanction for that view in operatic circles, if nowhere else. There is nothing wrong with this man. His character and ability are admitted to be beyond criticism. I have here another letter; it is from the system manager of Natal and is dated 19th November, 1943. It says—

I wanted to put these two points before the Minister and I have done so. If you would allow me, Sir, ten seconds extra to mention a classic parallel, I might compare myself with that Mark Anthony depicted by the Bard of Avon. Much more than he I can claim myself to be a plain blunt man. “I am no orator, as Brutus is.” But I have some honesty of mind, a homely virtue which is shared by my associates in this House. We all like a square deal. I wish to make, therefore, a final request, and I do so without any compunction whatsoever. The Minister has promised that he will review this case that I have put before him, with sympathy. I say, Sir, that sympathy will feed neither the man nor his mother. I welcome the sympathy, but extra to the sympathy I want a clearance certificate for this man’s freedom from service on the Railways; he does not want to work for the Department, and I definitely do not see why he should. So we want a clearance certificate, and I am also asking the Minister for compensation for depriving this man for five months of any means whatever of earning a livelihood. The value of his labours to the Administration in that period would have been £150, and I ask for that too. And if I have begged on both occasions in vain, if it is a fact we are not wanted to get up here and speak at all, I shall have no alternative but this—and it is an alternative I shall follow with a great deal of reluctance—to place the matter in detail before my constituents and to ask them for instructions. I know the good heart of the Minister, and I put my trust in him. This has really been only a slip on the part of the Railways, but there is a strange reluctance to admit it. The incident is nothing to the Administration; it is not only bread and butter but a matter of life and death to this man and his mother, and I ask the Minister to give us more than sympathy in this case, to give us justice.

Last year we made very serious complaints against the Railway Administration, and we levelled certain accusations against the Administration. We mentioned specific cases in order to show what really happened in the service. This year we have come along with a motion, asking the Minister to appoint a commission to investigate those cases and other cases in the Railway service. The Minister adopted the attitude that he accepted full responsibility for what took place, but he refused an investigation. By doing so the Minister showed that he was afraid of a proper investigation into what happened on the Railways. He adopts this peculiar attitude; he says: “Show me where I contravened the Railway Service Act?” He thinks that as long as he does not contravene the law, he can do as he pleases on the Railways. I want to ask the Minister whether he does not realise that although he does not contravene the letter of the law, it is nevertheless within his power and within the power of the Administration to permit the most serious injustice to a section of the personnel in the Railway service. He can manipulate appointments; he can hold back certain people, and advance others; he can do as he pleases and still act in accordance with the letter of the law. It is no defence for the Minister to ask us where he contravened the law. The question is whether improper things are done in the Railway service with regard to promotions and appointments. If the Minister were to investigate the matter and the evidence showed that all these accusations were false, his position in this House and in the country would be very much stronger. But as long as the Minister refuses to let this investigation take place he will be suspected outside and in this House of being afraid to do so because there is really something wrong with the service. I do not know whether the translations which the Minister gets of our speeches are so incomplete, but the Minister did not reply to the specific cases which I mentioned, and it seems to me that he does not understand the true position. I again want to put the position clearly today, and I want to ask the Minister to reply to the few cases which I am about to mention and to give his reasons. Then the House and the people will be able to judge. In reply to the charge that Mr. Marshall Clark had received these rapid promotions, the Minister said that there was an Afrikaans-speaking official who joined the service in 1925 and who reached a salary of £2,200 in 1939. Who is the official concerned? Which case is he referring to? Unless I am mistaken it is the Chief Mechanical Engineer of Railways. On a previous occasion the Minister referred to this individual, or rather this case was mentioned by members on the Minister’s side. This officer is one of the best qualified officials. He entered the Railway service in 1925, and he is fully bilingual. He is a mechanical engineer. In that section of the Railways there are quite a number of unilingual persons today. Owing to his efficiency, this person has climbed to £2,200. Every time a vacancy occurred in the Railways he was considered along with others, and because he was regarded as being more capable, he was selected for promotion. But a post was never created in order to advance his position. He had to go from step to step, from post to post. He had to climb step by step to reach that position. But what happened in the case of Mr. Marshall Clark? Let me say at once that I have no objection to the promotion of Mr. Marshall Clark or of any English-speaking official who is well qualified and capable. I can understand that young men enter the service who are qualified and capable, and possibly they go over the heads of senior officials, whether they be English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. We have no objection to that. We do not object if a man rises in the Railway service on merit, and wins his position. But what happens? Mr. Marshall Clark occupied a post of £1,200; a post of £1,400 was then created to which he was appointed. Please note that the post is created; it did not exist previously. Mr. Clark had not yet occupied the post when a new post of £1,600 was created. He does not carry out the duties of that post, and what is more, no one is acting in the post on his behalf. A post is created on paper which is deemed to be of such importance that a salary of £1,600 is attached to it. But there is no one to carry out the duties connected with the post. Why was that post created? Will the Minister tell us why such an imaginary post was created which exists in name only? We believe and we maintain that this post was created in order to advance a certain man over the heads of others. That is the difference. The question is not whether it took Mr. Loubser fourteen years and Mr. Clark twenty-one years to climb to that notch; the difference is that here you have a small number of officials in the service, a band of chosen people, and posts are created in the service for them with the deliberate object of promoting them over the heads of other officials. Do the Railways exist for the sake of the officials, or the officials for the sake of the Railways? Let the Minister reply to that. Do not let him be so vague. What necessity was there to create a post and then to leave it vacant? Is that in the interests of the service? Or is it in the interests of certain persons? Let the Minister reply to that question, and not evade the issue. Let me give another example. The Minister replied to the question which was put in connection with a superintendent. He says there are two superintendents, a Superintendent Operating and a Staff Superintendent. Now he says that both scales have been increased from £1,200 to £1,400; that the one incumbent was Afrikaans-speaking and the other English-speaking. Then he asks: where does the injustice come in? What are the facts? Last year when we raised the case of Mr. Carter, who is the Superintendent Operating and whose scale was increased from £1,200 to £1,400, it was pointed out that Mr. du Plessis, who was also a superintendent and who was also in receipt of £1,200 had remained at £1,200, but Mr. Carter’s post was elevated. I have a letter here from the Minister of Railways, a written reply, in which the reasons are given why the post of the Superintendent Operating was elevated to £1,400. Listen to this: The reasons which are given here are that there are similar posts in Cape Town and Durban only, that the three posts are of equal status, and that the salary attached to each post is £1,200, but, says the Minister, Mr. Carter’s post was elevated to £1,400 because the Johannesburg post carries a greater responsibility than the corresponding posts in Cape Town and Durban. For that reason the official in Johannesburg receives a bigger salary. That may be so, but immediately thereafter the Minister transfers that responsible officer who is on £1,400 to another place, and in his place he appoints a junior at a salary of a little more than £800. The Minister tells us that this is the most important post, and that therefore he must increase the salary by £200. Immediately thereafter he allows a junior to act in that post. Let the Minister defend that. I want to accuse the Railway Administration that the reason why Mr. Carter’s post was elevated to £1,400, was that if Mr. Carter’s post had remained at £1,200, and he had then received promotion to the position of System Manager in Kimberley, which post he occupies today, the person who would then have had to occupy the post of £1,200 would have been an Afrikaans-speaking person, and the man who succeeded him would also have been Afrikaans-speaking. By elevating the post to £1,400 a number of Afrikaans-speaking officials were deliberately prejudiced in their promotion. If the Minister denies that, let him explain why this remarkable process took place. The Minister must not continually evade the issue. Then there is another case, the post of Inspecting Engineer which he reduced to £1,400. The reason which was given was that the Minister wanted to select a capable engineer, and that for that reason the post had to be reduced. He then selected a man who was on the £1,200 scale and gave him this £1,400 post, but ten weeks later he took this man from the engineering division and transferred him to the administrative division. If he is really so capable that the grading of the post had to be altered in order to appoint him, why was he removed from the engineering division ten weeks later, and transferred to an administrative post at £1,600? These are the things which the Minister must explain. He must not evade these points. If he can explain the facts let him do so. But he always evades the pertinent questions which we put to him, and the specific cases to which we refer. He cannot explain them. The only explanation is that it was done in order to wrong Afrikaans-speaking officials in the service. The result is a feeling of bitterness in the service. The Minister said that he knows nothing about it. Last year we pointed out that there was a Gestapo official in the Railway service, a man who has his detectives throughout the whole service, and who ferrets out information in regard to officials in order to intern them. The result is that today every official in the Railway service is afraid to open his mouth. In the past the officials had their associations and could openly air their grievances, but today that is not the position. We have read to this House the minutes of a secret meeting between the General Manager and other managers, in which their attention was drawn to certain people who had to be watched. We know that the chief of the Railway Police insisted that a certain man be thrown out of the service only because he had made a remark concerning the Prime Minister. We know of an engineer who was twice interned on the ground of evidence given by the Railway police, and he had to be released twice. Thereafter he was discharged from the service. He took the matter to court and the Railways had to pay him £2,000 and take him back. These are examples of victimisation. How can the Minister say that he does not know what is going on? The voice of the railway workers is smothered, and that is why one does not hear complaints. Does it not strike you since we first had Mr. Moore as General Manager, then Mr. Watermeyer and now the present General Manager that the exceptional capability of these people was never discovered. The present General Manager occupied very important posts under Messrs. Moore and Watermeyer and throughout that time, the efficiency of this small band of favourites was never discovered. They were promoted after 1940 and their salaries simply went up by £200 within a few months, as in the case of Mr. Clark whose salary increased by £800 within fifteen months. They were only discovered after the 1st January, 1940. It was then only that Mr. Clark’s capability and that of the other few favourites were recognised. These posts were then manipulated, and their capabilities were recognised all of a sudden. Why was their capability recognised only after 1940? I just want to say this: Can you blame us for pointing this out? Can you hold it against us that we mention the names of certain officials in the service? It becomes impossible to deal with these cases unless we mention them by name. I also want to remind the Minister of the fact that he was in this House when attacks were made on Afrikaans-speaking officers who had been promoted. The names of Mr. Geldenhuys and Mr. Van Rensburg were bandied across the floor of this House a few years ago. Why did he not object then to names being, mentioned? Sharp attacks were made on the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) because of certain promotions, and the names concerned were mentioned. At that time no objection was raised. But now that we point out the fact that Afrikaans-speaking officials in the Railway service have been wronged, and we mention their names, it is held against us. I say that it is our duty to bring these matters to light and to draw the attention of the Minister thereto. Specific cases have been mentioned here. Let the Minister defend those cases on their merits. If he cannot do so, let him give us a commission of investigation. The Minister is unable to defend these cases.

I do not propose delaying the House but I do feel that the Minister should realise that the matters we have placed before him are matters of importance, and we are of opinion that the Minister treated those subjects yesterday in a very unreasonable way. Now, I am confronted with a matter which is worrying me even more, and it is this: It has always been said that if there is one honest Minister it is the Minister of Railways and Harbours. I am beginning to doubt very much whether that is so; I am beginning to doubt very seriously whether we can accept the word of the Minister of Railways and Harbours, and I make that statement because of a declaration which the Minister made a week ago in reply to a question, and because of the reply which he gave us yesterday in answer to the debate, when dealing with certain questions raised by us. A week ago the Minister answered a question by the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel), about the wages of lowly paid officials on the Railways, and he said that between 10,000 and 11,000 of them were getting less than 10s. per day including their allowances. That is what the Minister said a week ago—that between 10,000 and 11,000 Railway officials were getting less than 10s. per day including their allowances. Yesterday, however, after we had made representations here to the Minister about the position of those people he made a different statement and he said that the lowly paid officials were now getting 11s. 4d. per day. That is the statement which the Minister made yesterday and I want to know how he reconciles that with the statement he made a week ago. One day he says one thing and the next day he says something totally different. A mistake may have been made and if the Minister made a mistake I do not want to accuse him, but that question was raised here and I again want to emphasise that there are a number of lowly paid officials in the Railway service; some of them work sixteen hours per day, and according to the reply which the Minister gave last week, a large proportion of them get less than 10s. per day. Does the Minister expect a man like that to clothe and feed his wife and children, and to educate his children, if he only gets 10s. per day? We say that these people are living below the bread line, and as the Minister himself has admitted that the Railways are showing large surpluses and that the cost of living has gone up very considerably since the beginning of the war four years ago, we ask him to bring about an improvement in the position of those people. Last year they were given a slight increase, but what is the use of that slight increase compared with the big increase in the cost of living? I again want to put up a plea on behalf of these people, and I really feel the Minister should bring about an improvement in their position. A further objection I have to the Minister’s attitude is this: He got up here yesterday and said: “You people attacked certain officials because they were promoted. You mentioned Mr. Purvis’ name and you mentioned other names, and you are attacking them.” That is not true, it is a distortion of what we actually did say. We attacked the Minister, we attacked the head of his Department, we charged them with having promoted certain officials over the head of others, and we accused them of having brought about those promotions by moving up certain grades and moving down other grades. We have nothing against those officials, and the Minister is simply trying to protect his own skin by alleging that we attacked those officials. No, we criticised the Minister and the head of his Department because they have pushed certain officials over the heads of other officials, and because they have manipulated grades as explained here by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Haywood). That is what we object to. The Minister tries to justify these things in his department by creating posts and positions which only exist on paper. He also tried to make us on this side of the House look ridiculous. Let me assure the Minister that this side of the House does not scare easily. We shall continue to give our attention to this particular matter. The Minister must not imagine that he is going to occupy that seat for ever. In 1920 his party also occupied the Treasury Benches with an overwhelming majority, but four years later they were on this side of the House. The Opposition strength at that time was more or less what it is today. In those days that Party over there, the Government, also rode the high horse, but four years later they were an Opposition. The Minister should remember that after the war much more serious things may happen. Now there are a few other points I want to refer to which the Minister also tried to evade. Let me refer again to the position of Spoorbond. Spoorbond is a trade union which is recognised by the Department of Labour. As the Minister himself said that Spoorbond was loyal I want to know why he did his utmost to undermine and destroy Spoorbond. As I have already said the first thing the Minister did was to put an end to the stop order system. He took that right away from them. Then he tried to get the management of the organisation under the influence of the Department. Well, he did not succeed in that—and let me say that this organisation is not a political society but is only there to act in the interest of the Railway officials, to see that no injustice is done to them—as I have said, the Minister thereupon tried to get control of the Committee of Spoorbond. To a certain extent he succeeded, but an election was recently held and Mr. Auret was elected Chairman of Spoorbond. In spite of that the victimisation and the ban on Spoorbond continued. As I said before it is desirable for the Chairman of Spoorbond to be near one of the big railway centres. Mr. Auret was domiciled in Pretoria where he had schooling facilities for his children and where he had his home, but instructions were given that he had to go. He was transferred, but not on promotion. He was simply transferred to Uitenhage, the only object being to try and destroy Spoorbond. If the Minister continues with that policy it will really prove to me that he is determined to undermine Spoorbond, because, as we know, it is mainly an Afrikaans-speaking organisation. I hope I am mistaken but the Minister cannot get away from the fact that every possible effort has been made to destroy Spoorbond although the Minister knew that Spoorbond mainly represented the Afrikaans-speaking section of the Railway officials. The Minister now tells us that the Railway people are thoroughly satisfied. We are continually getting letters, even from English-speaking officials, which go to show that there is a serious state of dissatisfaction and of exploitation. I said that I was beginning to doubt the Minister’s word. Yesterday, in replying to me, he stated that no secret memorandum had been drafted by the present General Manager before he occupied that position. I said that that secret memorandum contained nothing but an instruction in regard to the way officials were to be smelt out—and I say that it stated that care must be taken to keep certain people out of certain positions merely in order to give those position to a certain clique. It simply amounted to this, that officials who were entitled to those positions could not get them. The Minister said that there was no such memorandum, but he did say none the less that something had been submitted to Mr. Watermeyer in that connection. If that is so how can he deny that a memorandum was drafted? That memorandum was drawn up buy the present General Manager before he was General Manager, and it was submitted to the General Manager. That memorandum is in existence and I challenge the Minister to deny its existence. We shall show it to him. There was a meeting of the system managers, accusations were made against large numbers of people, and it was found that 99 per cent. of those accusations were unfounded. In spite of that they laid down this policy and they appointed a Committee to arrange for the transfer of certain officials without giving any reasons. They did not even tell the System Manager why a particular official was transferred. These people were smelt out and were transferred simply because they had Nationalist tendencies, because they refused to take the red or the blue oath, or because they refused to join up and leave their wives and children behind. Men who were not in favour of the war were treated in that way. Those people did not object to others going to the front, but that is how they were treated. We were told that South Africa would only use volunteers in this war. Well, these people who have gone to the front are no more volunteers than I am not a member of Parliament. We are told that no pressure is being brought to bear on people to join up. I say that pressure is very definitely exercised, but I do not propose at this stage going any further into that question. I only want to say this to the Minister, that when we raise serious matters we want a clear explanation from the Minister. The officials will now come to the conclusion that the Minister is not prepared to have a searchlight cast on his actions. He refuses to let us go into these questions. But as the Leader of the Opposition has said we shall continue raising these points; we are not going to be stopped from doing our duty even though our number here is only small. We are going to see to it that we have a sound administration in this country. The Minister has referred to Ottosdal and to Piet Retief which I dealt with in the course of the debate. He says there are a number of other places where certain things have to be done. That may be, but is that a reason why nothing should be done at these two places? People have actually had accidents at Ottosdal, but, of course, the people living in that area are Afrikaans-speaking, and the Minister’s attitude really shows his contempt for those people. The Minister admitted that the goods shed at Piet Retief is inadequate, but he simply shrugs his shoulders and says that he cannot do any thing about it. The Minister has a big surplus and the materials which he needs are obtainable in this country. At present the men have to work there under conditions which make their lives miserable. They are working under unhealthy conditions, and if they have to continue in that way their lives will be shortened. As I said before, in summer the heat almost suffocates them in those corrugated iron buildings, and in winter they almost die of cold. I hope the Minister is not going to take up the attitude that because we have criticised him in respect of certain matters he is not going to do anything for us. Let him do the right thing because we are tax payers, just as much as the other section of the population, and that being so we have the right to demand that the Minister shall come to our assistance in regard to these matters. I do not want to detain the House any longer, but I thought it was my duty to bring these few points to the Minister’s notice, and I hope that henceforth he will control his department in such a way that there will be no need for us to bring complaints of this kind before the House.

I did not take part in the second reading debate, but I did listen to it, and I also listened to the Minister’s reply. I am very surprised at the Minister’s attitude. He even went so far as to deal with the matter in a frivolous way when he said that he had the support of Parliament. In other words, he can commit any injustice because he has the support of Parliament. Is that a reasonable and fair attitude on the part of the Minister; is it not the object of a Government to deal fairly with every section of the people? When it comes to specific cases, the Minister’s side will support him to the utmost, even though he may have acted quite wrongly. They will not vote against him. But how can the Minister adopt the attitude that he can do as he pleases and that he can be as unreasonable as he pleases, as long as he has the support of Parliament? That is a totally wrong conception of a Minister’s duties. The Minister also deprecated the fact that we on this side mentioned specific names. We have stood up time and again and voiced criticism in connection with certain incidents, and it has often been said to us when we did so that we must state the names. That has happened continually in this House, and when we come forward with concrete cases and mention specific names, we are told that that is not right either. I can well imagine that if hon. members on this side had made this attack on the Minister without mentioning, names, the Minister’s reply would have been that he cannot reply because the charges are too vague. He would have told us: “Give me the names and then I shall be able to reply.” It is ridiculous on the occasion of this debate to advance the argument that we should not have mentioned the names. Charges have been levelled against the Minister, very serious charges, and I should like to know whether these charges are correct. I listened to the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) and to the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Haywood) when they spoke of paper posts which have been created, and I should like to know whether that is true. I expected the Minister, therefore, to say that he would welcome an investigation. That would have been the best method for the Minister to adopt in order to bring to light the correct facts if those hon. members did make incorrect charges. I say again that these are serious attacks on the Minister; why is he afraid of an investigation? On previous occasions promotions have been made over the heads of other people, and when the matter was raised in this Parliament, the Minister said that it had been done for this, that or the other reason. But here we have a serious charge that paper posts have been created, and it surprises me that the Minister is afraid to cause an investigation to be made. I should imagine that as someone who feels that there ought to be right and fairness in the administration of such a department, the Minister would immediately have said that he is prepared to have an investigation instituted.

I am afraid of nothing.

You are afraid of this investigation. The Minister says that he is afraid of nothing, but why does he not allow this investigation to take place? We are faced with this position that serious charges have been levelled against the Minister, but we do not know whether those charges are correct. The Minister does not want to assist us by instituting investigations in order to enable us to determine whether or not the charges are correct. If those charges are incorrect, the Minister should have been the first person to have an investigation instituted. Instead of that he shields behind all sorts of statements, and he is unwilling to allow the investigation to take place. I must say that I have not much faith in the Minister and his administration when it comes to the question of right and justice, because I have a good deal of experience in connection with him and his department. I want to raise another matter in order to show how the Minister and his department set about things. I have discussed this question in the House on a former occasion, but up to the present I have not had full satisfaction, and for that reason I want to raise it once again. A little more than a year ago I battled with the Administration in connection with the wages of casual artisans in Bloemfontein. I fought tooth and nail for nearly a year and eventually the Administration admitted that they had underpaid these artisans over a period of four years, with the result that the Administration had to pay out something like £4,000 in arrear wages, which had been unlawfully withheld from these people. I wrote letters for nearly a year in regard to this matter. I wrote to the General Manager of Railways, but I got no satisfaction from him. Eventually I wrote to the Minister. There, too, I did not get satisfaction, and I then decided to raise the matter in Parliament. Telegrams were then sent backwards and forwards and the arrear wages were paid out. I mentioned this matter during the course of last Session; the wages were duly paid to these people, but I found that they had not been fully paid. I then raised the matter again towards the end of the previous Session; it was the last evening of the Session, and I said that an injustice was being done to these people. The Minister of Railways replied, and all he could say was that there was something radically wrong. The Minister also said: “I shall go into it. The hon. member has raised this point, and I have made a note of it.” It was in April that I raised the matter here. The Minister then made a note of it. I waited and waited, but I heard nothing. In October I again wrote, to the Minister, asking him whether he had forgotten that he had made a note, because I had heard nothing. The Minister then wrote to me that he could not make any further payments to these people. I now want to go into the merits of the case therefore. I shall take the case of one man as an example. After I had dug up all the facts, it came to light that over a period of four years the Administration had underpaid this artisan to the extent of £404. They did not, however, refund this amount to him, because they made all sorts of deductions. They deducted the equivalent of all the privileges which he had received—for example, the privilege tickets. It amounted to a sum of £108, so that he was paid only £296. I then asked the Minister and his department whether he would lay on the Table the instructions in connection with free passes which were in operation as at the 1st September, 1941. This instruction appears in List 97/P of 1/11/40. In that instruction the privileges of casual officials are laid down. A distinction is made between causal servants who work at intervals, and those who do regular casual work. These were regular casual servants. In this regulation it is laid down, inter alia, that privilege tickets for bona fide recuperative leave are given to a casual servant engaged on work of a regular nature, in favour of himself, his wife and his children under 17 years of age, but is does not apply to journeys of more than 100 miles until such time as he has completed three months’ service. Then such a servant is further entitled to a free pass for himself, his wife and his children under 17 years for a bona fide holiday, provided he has been in the service for at least twelve months. In the third place, he is entitled to residential season tickets in favour of himself only. Here it is laid down, therefore, that all casual servants shall be entitled to this, and there is no mention of their wage scales. The position was this. It was arranged that the casual servants would be paid according to the fixed scale of wages operating in the area in which they were employed. These casual servants had always received 2s. 7½d. per hour. while the fixed wage was 3s. 3d. The Minister and the General Manager admitted that they should be paid on that basis, but they said that, in that case they would withdraw the free passes. Now I want to ask the Minister to show me a single reference in the instructions which provides that these free passes will not be given to people who receive the fixed wage scale. In his letter to me the Minister states—

I asked him on what grounds that was being done, and his reply was that it was in terms of the instructions. I then asked him in terms of which instruction it had been done, and his reply was simply that the free passes had been withdrawn in terms of the instructions. I should like to know from the Minister whether this List 97 has ever been altered. It states therein that these people were employed subject to those instructions. Those instructions have not yet been amended, and there is no reference in them to the wage scale. The Minister admitted that this man had been underpaid to the extent of £404, but he deducts £108 in respect of free pass facilities, to which, in terms of this instruction, this person was entitled. I should like to know from the Minister when this free pass instruction was altered or withdrawn. In his replies to my questions he did not refer me to any other instruction, nor did he say that this instruction had been altered or withdrawn. It is still in force, and I maintain that the Minister and his department were wrong in deducting this amount. The £108 which was deducted from £404 represents more than 25 per cent. We have heard in this House how the highly placed officials are assisted, and of the wonderful promotions which they get. Here we are dealing with people from whom their lawful wage was withheld for four years; the Minister and his administration admit that they are entitled to this wage, a refund was made to them; but it is really not fair to deduct that money today. There is no reference in the free pass instructions to the wage scales. This applies to everyone. These people saw that they were entitled to free passes, and they made use of them.

If they had not thought that they were entitled to them, they would not have undertaken these journeys.

Precisely. I know of one of these persons who came to Cape Town twice on holiday. He is a poor man, and if he had not had the privilege of the free pass, he would not have come here. He might have gone to Aliwal North, but certainly not as far as Cape Town. Now the Railways come along and simply deduct this money from his wages. It is unfair, and I regard it as deceit. If the Minister cannot show us that an alteration was made to the regulations, if he cannot show us that the free passes of these people were withdrawn, then it is nothing but deceit. Those men are simply being deceived and deprived of money to which they are entitled. These men are told that they, are entitled to free passes; they avail themselves of those facilities, and then the Railways proceed to deduct the monetary equivalent of those concessions. It is nothing less than theft. I have not yet said the last word on this matter. I have been dealing with this matter for nearly two years, but the Administration is tough. I though that they would refund this £4,000 to the people concerned. But those people have approached me again, and asked why it was necessary for them to hand over this money. It is not just and fair, and I make an appeal to the Minister to see to it that justice is done to these people, as I expect him and his Administration to act fairly.

To all of us who have the real interest of the Railway Administration at heart the fact that the Minister of Railways and Harbours has taken up the attitude he has is a very painful one. We would have preferred to assist the Minister and his Administration in building up a powerful organisation in the service of the country, an organisation outside the politics of the country, above the politics of South Africa, an organisation which would be able to serve South Africa and which would help to make South Africa a great country. That was the ideal we had in view with our Railways. That is the ideal which we have, and nothing would have pleased us more than to have assisted the Minister with suggestions, ideas, and constructive criticism; nothing would have pleased us more than to have been able to develop this organisation in such a manner that it might become one of the most efficient Railway systems in the world. But we also have a duty and a responsibility placed upon us. We have the duty imposed upon us to see that the Administration is kept outside and above politics—but under the present system the Minister and his General Manager are turning the Railway Administration into the biggest and most effective party political machine in the country to help the Government. It is being turned into a powerful political machine. Every Government in a democratic country serves out its time and is then substituted by an alternative government, and when we come into power, what shall we do then? It is only a question of time, but it will be a painful thing for us to have to remedy some of the unjust actions which are being committed. It will be a very unpleasant and distasteful duty. Our transport system is of the utmost importance. It is becoming more and more important. I am particularly referring to our Railways. Our Railways are gradually becoming the most important, and in many respects the only means of transport in our national life. On account of the tyre and the fuel problem people are being driven more and more to use the Railways. The Railways are becoming a very important institution and we are very anxious to have the Railways kept outside party politics. The Minister tells us that he is not aware of any grievances or of any dissatisfaction. He says that we are simply making loose charges. The Minister has asked us not to mention names across the floor of this House. Well, we are not anxious to do so, nor do we want to come to this House with any minor grievances. We consider the business of Parliament too important for that sort of thing, but what are we to do? We cannot convince the Minister unless we give him the names of the people involved. We have no alternative. We have asked for a Commission of Enquiry which would be able to bring all these matters to his notice. The Minister perhaps does not know of all the grievances; he does not know of all the injustices that are being done to people. We therefore ask for a Commission of Enquiry so that the real position may be brought to light. And if a Parliamentary Commission is appointed the majority of members of that Commission will be supporters of the Government. We ask the Minister to give us such a Committee of Enquiry so that all these matters may be brought to his personal notice, but the Minister says no, he is not going to grant our request. That being so we ask the Minister to accept our word that there is very grave dissatisfaction, very deep discontent; not only discontent but a feeling of aggrievedness, and not only that, but there is a lot of bitterness. We say: “Take our word for it.” The Minister treats us with contempt, he treats us as though we were children. He takes no notice of us. I have written down his reply here point by point. He says we are looking for ammunition. Well, is he afraid that we may find some ammunition with which to attack him? Is he afraid that we may come across something as a result of the investigation? If he is not afraid of that why does he not grant us an enquiry, and if he does not want to grant us an enquiry why does he not accept our word that there are many grievances, that there is dissatisfaction? Why does he not look into those matters? But he treats us lightly. He should realise that he has the happiness, the welfare of more than 80,000 people in his hands. On his decision depends the welfare of more than 80,000 people. And now we just want to tell him that his knowledge and his outlook on the Railway service is befogged because he is isolated by a small group which only tells him what it wants to tell him. Others who want to tell him the truth are not givens the opportunity of doing so. He asks: “Where do you get the information about all this discontent?” Recently a member of the staff organisation wrote something in one of the staff journals in which the Administration was criticised. The man who wrote it was hauled over the coals because he had dared to defy the Administration. Staff organisations are always afraid of the same fate overtaking them as that which overtook Spoorbond. The Minister originally said that Spoorbond had proved it was a non-political organisation, that it was faithful and loyal, and was worthy of being recognised as an organisation of the Railway officials. And who is the man that killed that organisation, the man who rendered most lip service to it? He told the House that he offered Spoorbond this, that and the ether. We are not children. There are more ways of killing a cat than smothering it with butter. The Minister very effectively destroyed Spoorbond, but the feeling of dicontent which was created when the Minister did so still exists. It has not been removed, and I can assure the Minister that he will yet find it out, that he will hear more about it. If we take up a strong attitude with the Minister we are told that we are threatening him. We don’t know how to approach him. If we talk nicely and gently he takes no notice of us. If we talk seriously he says we threaten him. We don’t know how to approach him. If we are friendly towards him he laughs at us and looks upon our arguments as a farce. If we talk seriously he takes up the attitude that we are not treating him fairly. What he says is the be-all and end-all in the Railway service. Whatever he says is above criticism. He says that all we are doing is to stir up strife and politics in the Railway service. The man who is really doing so is the man who accuses us of doing so, because nobody has dragged politics into the service more than the present Minister has done with his General Manager. We have given chapter and verse to the Minister. It is quite likely that he is not satisfied because he says that the criticism was very trivial. Well, we shall continue to criticise so that he may come to realise that our criticism is not just trivial and insignificant. We will get our information together gradually and we will produce it here across the floor of the House; he will then realise that these grievances which we have spoken about are not trivial and he will be able to draw his own conclusions. He says that our allegations bear the mark of unreliability. All I said was taken from his own replies to questions. I nut it to him: Does he want us to believe that his own replies were unreliable? My speech was a short one and was based on information which he gave me and nothing else. I read out the replies which he himself gave me. They were not hearsay stories, but I quoted the replies which the Minister himself gave to my questions. I asked him for details about positions carrying £600 per year and more in the service of the Administration which had been regraded since 1933. Surely that was a simple question? There should be only a few positions of that kind—there cannot be many of them, and it should have been quite easy for the General Manager or his staff assistant to give the information. They have all the machinery at their disposal and they have all the records, but what was the Minister’s reply?

Has the process of moving posts up and down been so extensive, has it taken place on such a large scale that the Minister cannot give us the information? Has there been such a large number of cases in which this has occurred? Has it been so extensive that it will cost hunderds and thousands of pounds to supply the information? The Minister must not take it amiss if we come to the conclusion that he did not want to give us a reply. The information is available but you did not want to give it. You say our information is unreliable. Do you know that as long as 18 months ago we heard that Mr. Marshall Clark was going to be the next General Manager? We could not believe it. He was too low down the ladder of seniority, but do you know what we now feel?

The hon. member must address the Chair.

Yes, Mr. Speaker; we heard that eighteen months ago. We did not believe it because we said that Mr. Clark was too low down on the list. He is an engineer and I don’t want to say anything about his ability. I assume he is capable, and I also assume that he is bilingual, but we also assume that he is not the only capable engineer nor is he the only bilingual man. The other side of the House have told us that Mr. Marshall Clark has proved his value by the services he has rendered in connection with the new construction work on the Rand. I quite admit that any man who can prove his value there is a good man, but which other engineers have been given the opportunity to prove their value—other engineers who were senior to him? What opportunities have they had to prove that they can do just as good work as Mr. Marshall Clark? Before we had the present General Manager we had two General Managers who were engineers, the one was Mr. Watermeyer and the other Mr. Moore. Mr. Marshall Clark entered the service in 1922. Mr. Moore became General Manager in 1928 and he held that position till 1933. He never considered Mr. Marshall Clark to be such an outstandingly able technical man. After him came Mr. Watermeyer; if I am not mistaken he was General Manager until 1939. He also did not look upon Mr. Marshall Clark as such an outstanding man. It was only during the past four years, during the war, that it was discovered Mr. Clark was such a highly competent and talented man. I don’t want to say that he is not competent, but there are men who are just as able, just as competent, just as reliable as Mr. Clark; the only difference is that they are his seniors. But do hon. members know when this position started developing and when it became unbearable? It started from the time war broke out and from the time the emergency regulations were proclaimed. Under the guise of seeing the war through, and assisted by the fear which the staff have of the Government owing to the emergency regulations, this method which the Minister has described as legal—imagine, he described it as legal without any scruples—this method is put into practice. It’s all done under the cloak of seeing the war through. The fear of internment—a great many railwaymen have been interned—the fear of being suddenly transferred without any reason, the fear of dismissal—numerous officials have been dismissed for trivial reason and others without any reasons—the fear of being asked to resign—because the members of the staff were in fear of all these things, the Administration can today do those things without there being an outburst in the Railway service. But these times will pass. We want to tell the Minister that if he refuses to give us a commission or a committee—and apparently he is determined not to give us one—if he refuses to accept our word—let him go to the staff, let him get into contact with the staff, let him make it possible for the members of the staff to tell him without fear of victimisation what they feel, and I can assure him he will be astonished at the feeling prevailing among the staff. He says we have only mentioned a few names. Quite true. I have mentioned no names, nor do I want to do so now, but was that a reason why the Minister should not have replied to the points I raised? I raised the question of the creation of a post under the style of “Administrative Secretary to the Minister” and this is what the Minister said in reply—

We assume that was a good reason—

We assumed the reasons mentioned by the Minister were good reasons, and we acquiesced. The Minister found that the position had grown in importance and had become so extensive that the man occupying the position had to be given a new title, but that he also had to get £200 more, and the position was therefore raised from £1,200 to £1,400 per year. We are satisfied with that, and we feel it should be within the discretion of the Minister to make such a change. But what do we find now? What has happened since? An Administrative Secretary to a Minister is appointed on the 15th November, 1940, at £1,400 per year. Twelve months later he is promoted to System Manager in Pretoria at £1,600. We have no comment to offer on that, but now we come to his successor. He was a man who on the 1st September, 1939, was drawing a salary of £573 per year. On the 1st November, 1940, he was promoted to £735 per year. Now this £1,400 post was vacant, and the man who used to draw £735 per year was promoted to this high position, but the post was first of all brought down from £1,400 to £840. The post which twelve months before was so important that it had to be raised from £1,200 to £1,400 was now brought down to £840, and the man who was earning £735 was appointed to that post, but the previous secretary had not yet vacated the post when the post was again increased to £945. One month after the newly appointed man had taken up the post it was increased by £105 per year. And what is worse is that two officials in the same grade and the same salary occupied the same post for six weeks. I put the position clearly, I gave the facts and I spoke slowly, but apparently the Minister did not understand what I said. He did not reply—he did not say a word about it. Surely we were entitled to expect the Minister to make a statement? If not, he should have told us that he did not want to make a statement on that point. The same official who on the 1st September, 1939, was drawing £573 per year is now getting £1,200 per year. And do hon. members know what is being generally said in the lobbies and in the General Manager’s office? The general talk is that that man will next year be transferred from the Minister’s office to the Parliamentary section, again with an increase, and that some other official will be appointed to take his place. We don’t believe all those stories which go about, but if we think of the rumours which we have heard about Mr. Marshall Clark, and if we see what’s going on there then we begin to get worried. We do not say that the man who deserves promotion should not get it, nor do we say that the Minister has not got the right to give a man promotion before his time, but we do say that it is definitely wrong for posts to be deliberately brought down and then to be raised again; we say it is wrong that a post which has been pushed up to £1,400 should be brought down a year later to £840, to pick up a man who is drawing even less than that, and then again to raise the post to £1,200. It is an absurdity, it is ridiculous If it were done in any other business, it would be regarded as ridiculous. These things do not happen under normal conditions. It is the first time in our history that anything of the kind has happened, and the cases we have mentioned are not the only ones. We have the position of men in the service who have to carry the service, who have to do the work of the service, men who are senior to the officials who are getting such rapid promotion. These things cause a feeling of bitterness and grievance in the hearts of those men, and I say that that sort of thing cannot be glossed over; the bitterness is not going to be put right by pretty words. Even though the Minister has a majority in the House, that fact does not remove the grievances under which these people are labouring. The grievances remain and they are legitimate grievances.

Are all these people Afrikaans-speaking?

We have nothing to do with that. We are concerned with the unfairness and the injustice, irrespective of race or language. I am just as much concerned that justice shall be done to English-speaking officials as to Afrikaans-speaking officials. I am just as much concerned with the one as with the other, and the Minister cannot say that I am trying to make fish of one and flesh of the other. I discussed the question of the appointment of a Public Relations Officer. We have Railway officials who are competent, men who have shown their ability and efficiency, men who have rendered faithful service for very many years, men who are able and competent to advise the public on any subject affecting the Railways, men who are competent to tell the public either from public platforms or in the press, or in any other way, what the Railway Administration is, what it does, what its policy is, what its future is, and what its future intentions are. Why go outside the service to appoint a man when there are men in the service who have rendered faithful service? Appoint an English-speaking official if you have not got an efficient Afrikaans-speaking man. This is a matter which not only applies to the Afrikaans-speaking section but also to the English-speaking officials who have devoted their lives to the services of the State. We have commercial agents who travel about to give the public information about tariffs and other Railway affairs. The Minister has confidence in these people as Railway officials, to advise the public. They are sent all over the country to give information to all kinds of bodies on Railway affairs, and yet the Minister appoints a man from outside the service to advise the public in regard to what is going on in the service. The Minister must not take it amiss if we become suspicious, the more so if that man is a man who for years was connected with the party political press. Does the Minister blame us? If the Minister had appointed a Railway official to that post, if he thought the post was necessary, we would not have found fault with it. There are competent men in the service, men who know the service, who have grown up with it from childhood’s days, and I make bold to say that the man who has now been appointed will go right through his period of service and will never get to know as much about Railway affairs as the Railway man who has gone through the service from the very bottom. Why pass your own people and appoint someone who all his life has been connected with politics? That man had chosen his career, why not leave him there? The Minister should consider his own people. I said before that what the Minister did in that respect was nothing but evidence of distrust in his own staff—could he not have selected one man out of his 80,000 people to do that work? No, the Minister goes outside and appoints a man who belonged to the party political press. Can the Minister justify it? He says that other countries do the same thing. Well, perhaps conditions in other countries are different. The Railways there perhaps do not belong to the State as they do here; in other countries they are private concerns. We have nothing to say about the necessity of making the appointment, but we certainly have something to say about the man appointed, and we have the strongest objection to the Minister going outside the service. We feel that a great injustice has been done to the staff in that respect. The Minister told us that he had appointed a number of unilingual officials including Afrikaans-speaking officials. We ask him kindly to lay the names of these people on the table of the House. Let the Minister mention the name of one single official in the service who is unilingual Afrikans-speaking who occupies an important position?

There is no such thing.

But the hon. the Minister said it across the floor of the House. With all due deference I want to challenge him to tell us when he ever appointed an official who was unilingual Afrikaans-speaking to an important position in the service.

What about stationmasters?

There are no unilingual Afrikaans-speaking stationmasters. The Minister says he does not discriminate. I would like the Minister to be kind enough to lay on the table of the House a list showing the names of senior officials who had not taken the Red Oath who have been promoted since the 1st September, 1939, and a list of officials who had taken the Red Oath who have been promoted since the 1st September, 1939. If he does that we shall show him where he has discriminated. Let him give us that list. The Minister told us that he had the right and that it was the custom on the Railways to change the grades. Quite correct., but it is only a half truth. Grades or posts are moved up or down according to the value of the posts and according to the importance of the position. If the post of the stationmaster at. Wynberg becomes more important on account of an increase in traffic—if it has become more important in 1943 than it was in 1940, the Administration sends out a committee and that committee enquires into the position and the station is regraded, according to the changed conditions, and if necessary the grade is raised. Similarly, if a station, owing to a falling off in business, goes down in importance, it is reduced, but a grade is not pushed up to the top and then brought down to the bottom again. A grade is determined because of the importance of the post,, not because of the importance of the man who has to occupy the post. I quite agree with the Minister that it becomes necessary from time to time to change grades. Two years ago he improved the grades of certain stations, but those posts have not been filled to this day. I have already asked the Minister how many vacancies there are for stationmasters, and the Minister’s reply was that there were 286 vacancies. Some of those vacancies have existed for more than a year and the people who should be appointed are losing seniority and are losing promotion because the Administration fails to appoint them. The outside staff—the people who carry the Railways to a very large extent—are being kept back in their appointment while the people who sit close to the Minister, who sit closest to the fire, are appointed weeks before their time. The people who are closest to the General Manager fill their pockets and fatten their jobs. I would almost say they do as they like. An hon. member on this side pleaded the cause of station foremen who have to work twelve hours per day under very difficult conditions. There are station masters today who have been waiting two years for promotion to places which are actually vacant, and where they should be sent, but they do not get their promotion although the members of the Minister’s own staff are getting promotion after promotion. The Minister said here: “There will be a ‘heresy hunt’,” but we did not propose that. Or does the Minister think that there is good reason for such a thing? If he had a clean conscience he would not imagine that there would be such a thing as a “heresy hunt”. All we want is that the true facts be laid before the House. Now, I want to make a few comments on the General Manager’s report. It is perfectly true that the General Manager has to report to the Minister, and he does so daily; he does so about all sorts of matters, and that is how it should be, but I think the Minister went very far when he took his stand beside the General Manager and defended the General Manager in regard to his report—a report which the Minister himself laid on the Table of this House. I trust the Minister will reconsider that aspect of the matter. It is a very important and very serious matter. The Minister said that in any case the best man would be appointed. We are thoroughly in agreement with him there that that should be so, but we deny that he has appointed the best man, and if he says he has appointed the best man then I can only say that he has shown a lack of confidence in that man’s seniors. There is one thing he said with which I quite agree. He said that the Railway officials had carried the Railway service over a very difficult time and had done so in a most efficient manner. I want to thank him for that tribute which he paid to the Railway staff. If there is one body in this country which we can be proud of it is the Railway staff, and I want to associate myself with what the Minister has said. The accidents which have occurred since the beginning of the war show a very satisfactory position in relation to the increase in the work, and Ï doubt whether there is another Railway system in the whole world which shows up better in that regard than ours does. But it should be remembered that that work has been done by men who have to work twelve, fourteen and sixteen hours per day under very difficult conditions. And if a man doing that work makes a mistake he is punished. That man, who is far away from headquarters, does his work with a grievance in his heart. I admire those men. The work they do shows how well disciplined our Railway officials are, but I want to ask the Minister this: When he considers these matters I want him to take into consideration the loyalty of his staff. I want to ask him to remember that loyalty when he makes unfair and unjust promotions. We say emphatically we do not begrudge any man, Afrikaans or English-speaking, the promotion he is entitled to, but we do not agree to one man being carried over the heads of his seniors by means of an elevator.

At this late hour I do not want to delay the House unduly in my reply. I would just like to make this special point before dealing with the other points which have been raised. A great many members opposite in the course of the debate brought up questions dealing with individual cases, cases of hardship, cases of disciplinary proceedings against somebody, promotions and so on. I would like to explain that very often it takes quite a little time for the facts of the case to reach me. The information has to be received from the North, and it is quite impossible for me to reply immediately to all questions. When it is not possible to get a reply within the compass of the debate, hon. members know that they always get a reply in writing from me. But I would like hon. members to bear with me in that respect. Sometimes it is quite impossible for me to reply to specific points during the course of the debate, because the facts are not in my possession. The hon. member for Westdene (Mr. Mentz) raised the question of the Karrier Cob-drivers, and in that connection I would just like to tell him exactly what the position is. I tried to explain the position briefly previously, but as the hon. member does not seem to be satisfied, I will tell him again what the position is—

I can assure the hon. member that the matter will still be watched. We have an inspector on the job, and I hope there will be no further trouble from that particular source. In regard to the question of altering the leave conditions for Karrier Cob-drivers, I do not think that would be practicable. It is much better that we make their conditions of service right than that we upset the conditions of leave of a special section of the staff. In regard to the driver against whom a charge was levelled, I can assure the hon. member that in the Railways there is ample provision made for appeals through two or three different channels in the case of any disciplinary punishment being inflicted on any Railway servant. In regard to the question of chronic disease, that is a matter where every case has to be dealt with on its merits. It is impossible to lay down a general rule.

Are you prepared to investigate those cases you have just mentioned?

Does the hon. member mean the Karrier Cob cases? If there is any chronic disease resulting from injury, the rules and regulations which exist will certainly be applied. Then I come to the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop). I would just like to say in regard to the point he raised that railwaymen may be doing Cavalcade work, but it must not be assumed they are not being paid by the Cavalcade authorities for this. The hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) stated that Col. Clark passed over 28 officers. What the hon. member means is that 28 officers throughout the service were senior to him.

That is the same thing, is it not?

What I am emphasising is that this was a technical appointment, and obviously he did not pass over people who were not technical men. So far as this particular appointment is concerned, there were only three or four other possible men in the running for this particular situation. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Haywood) also asked questions about this officer—and with his permission, rather than read out all the information I have here, I would like to give it to the hon. member in writing and he can study the details at his leisure. The hon. member will then, have the full history of Col. Marshall Clark from the time he started in the Railways. With regard to the question of the General Manager’s remarks, I would like to emphasise this, that it is not only a question of the General Manager answering attacks or objecting to names being bandied about the House, but there is this further aspect of the matter, and that is that it is quite obvious that if senior officers on the Railways are to be subjected to severe criticisms for everything they do in their official capacity, it is going to undermine discipline in the Railway service.

That has been going on in this House for years.

The point is that if everything that the senior officer does immediately becomes a matter for criticism in the House with the names attaching to it, then you are going to undermine discipline completely. The foreman will say: “We need not worry about the inspector; if he says anything we will report him to a member of Parliament and then his name will be dragged across the floor of the House.” I am giving the reason why the General Manager disapproves of the names of senior officials being bandied about the House.

Do you actually approve of the General Manager’s remarks?

It is not for me to approve what the General Manager says.

Do you think it was discreet on his part to make these remarks?

I do not sub-edit the General Manager’s report.

Surely it is for you to express your approval or disapproval; is he your chief or are you his chief?

I am not called upon to express my opinion as to whether the General Manager in making his remarks was discreet or otherwise. What I did say and what I say again is that I agree with every word the General Manager says.

Hear, hear.

Do you approve of his saying it in the report?

Certainly.

Of course, he is entitled to say these things to me—for reasons that I gave yesterday and it is not necessary to go over the same ground again.

Are you his chief or is he your chief?

It is rather interesting to find how extremely sensitive our friends opposite are. I thought that if there was one thing to which a member of Parliament was subjected, it was criticism. They go on to public platforms and they are subjected to all sorts of criticism.

But this statement was not made on a public platform. The General Manager did not make this statement in his private capacity. He is an official reporting to his Minister.

The hon. member for Piketberg said that I had to learn the A.B.C. of Parliamentary procedure and I don’t know what else. All I can say is that I hope he will learn the A.B.C. of Parliamentary practice and good taste.

The only taste he has is in his tongue.

That joke falls flat.

With regard to the remarks he made in connection with grading and the specific question he put to me I would say once more that yesterday I tried to be quite open and frank and fair with the hon. member. I do not think my remarks leave any room for misunderstanding. I told hon. members on the other side what my difficulties were, what my policy was, and I think they should be satisfied. I still stand by what I said yesterday. Then I come to the hon. member for Durban (North) (Rev. Miles-Cadman). I want to assure the hon. member that I never said anything which was intended to discourage him from talking in this House. I would like to say this, that the man who was transferred from Danskraal to Durban and who was in effect put on to Mr. Dellis’s work for a day, was not transferred because of Dellis at all. He was transferred from Danskraal because he was no good. There was no actual transfer of a man from Danskraal to take Dellis’s place. I think there is some misunderstanding there.

But why should Dellis be penalised because the other man is inefficient?

There was no penalisation. We do not penalise men when we transfer them. What penalisation is there in asking the man to transfer somewhere else?

In any case, he is single.

The point is that hon. members opposite are so prejudiced against the Minister of Railways that they cannot believe in anything being fair, and when I promote an apprentice to a full-paid job at Danskraal, I am told that I am penalising him. I do not want to be involved in a lengthy debate on this point. I would like to say that if Dellis does not want to have a Railway job at any price, then I can do nothing for him, because I have no control over the Controller of Manpower. He is the nigger in the wood-pile as far as Dellis is concerned. The hon. member for Bloemfontein dealt with cases which were raised in the general debate and I have already indicated that it is extremely difficult to indicate the detail of all these cases, but if the hon. member will permit me, I will send him a full dossier in regard to Col. Marshall Clark, and in regard to the question of senior officers’ appointments. In regard to the question of Mr. Elmer, I do not know how he was interned. That was done by the Chief Control Officer. As far as the hearsay evidence I have is concerned, Railwaymen had nothing to do With it, but I am not emphatic on that point. Now we come to the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp). The hon. member is under a misapprehension. He alleges that in the course of a reply to the Hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel) I said that 10,000 people were in receipt of less than 10s. per day and that that conflincted with what I said yesterday. That is not so. What I said yesterday was that no married railworker got less than 11/11d. I think that was the figure.

11/10d.

What I said in reply to the Hon. member for Wonderboom was this. I gave him a list of 10,000 people who were receiving less than 10s. per day but they included apprentices, juniors, girls and all sorts of people. That had nothing to do with the married railworker, as a class. The figure of 10,000 which I gave dealt with an entirely different class. No married railworker today gets less than 11s. 11d. but a great number of people, 10,000 odd, get less than 10s. because the great bulk of them are apprentices and juniors who are working up to the higher scale. Then the hon. member raised the question of Mr. Auret, and I promise the hon. member that I will have Mr. Auret’s case looked into. I can assure the hon. member that his transference had nothing at all to do with the fact that he was associated with Spoorbond. But I shall look into this case. Then I want to deal with the Question of the memorandum to which the hon. member referred. I have the document here. It is not a memorandum at all. I see the exact quotation he made. It is the minutes of a meeting of senior officials which was held at headquarters in June, 1940. Mr. Watermeyer was in the chair and these are the remarks which he made to the senior officers about the importance of seeing that there were no disloyal elements in the Railways. That was the remark which was made in his opening address. The remarks made by Mr. Watermeyer were perfectly proper remarks in 1940.

You denied the existence of the memorandum.

This is not a memorandum. These are the minutes of a meeting of senior officers.

I do not think he knows the difference.

This is a report of what Mr. Watermeyer said to the senior officers at that meeting.

Where is the memorandum which Mr. Hoffe handed in?

The General Manager denies any knowledge of this whatsoever and the House must accept that. With regard to Ottosdal and Piet Retief, I have noted the remarks of the hon. member and I assure him that they will not be overlooked. Then I come to the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart). He raised the question of the alleged over-payments which we are recovering. I would like to point out that notwithstanding the instructions that he got hold of, casual workers who are paid at outside rates of pay are definitely not entitled to free pass facilities. That particular instruction was cancelled on January 10th, under Weekly Notice No. 2,651. Here it is—

It should not therefore have been paid to these casuals, and in the case of over-payments we usually recover. The hon. member works very hard to see that, we do pay if there are under-payments, and it is only reasonable that there should be a refund by the employees if there is an over-payment. The hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Klopper) asked for the names of unilingual Afrikaans appointees, and I have already advised him that there were 57 such appointments, and I shall lay the names on the table of the House.

The names and the grades.

Very well, I shall do that. In regard to the question of taking the oath, it is the Government’s policy that no coercion shall be brought to bear on any Railway servants and it is the policy of the Government not to publish the names of any people who did not take the oath.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.