Transport and Distribution, 1933–61

Abstract

The relative slowness of change in transport and distribution that had characterised the period 1910–33 ended and a marked speeding-up in the process of change was noted throughout this sector. The tarring of roads made great progress, beginning in the 1930s and then accelerating in the 1950s; but motorways still lay in the future. The railways maintained their monopoly of much inland transport, invested in electrification and established a firm grip on air transport by their ownership of South African Airways. For passengers the introduction of efficient air transport, both inland and overseas, represented the major development of the postwar years that helped to shift the focus of economic activity away from the coast and to the interior. Coastal shipping was freed from the unfair competition of subsidised uneconomic railway tariffs from Durban to Cape Town and boomed in the 1950s, as did ocean shipping under the impact of sustained economic growth. The telephone system expanded, but suffered from similar disadvantages to the airways in being controlled by a large labour-intensive state-owned bureaucratic organisation, the Post Office, with which it was in competition. Both airways and telephones have suffered from this form of control and so, by implication, has the economy as a whole. The organisation of the distribution of goods remained outside state control and, with the advent of chain stores, made great progress in the postwar days.