§ Mr. R. PIERPOINT (Warrington)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether the Foreign Office has any information as to the epidemic of cholera in Alexandria having been partly caused by the bad and scanty water supply; whether any recommendations have been made or plans suggested by the sanitary authorities or the Under Secretary of Public Works in Cairo since 1887, with a view of remedying the defects in the water supply of Cairo, Alexandria, and the rest of the Delta; whether he is aware that in 1895 an American company offered to construct a canal for the Rayan Reservoir project, at a cost of £600,000, to be secured on the profits; and, whether he will lay upon the Table Papers dealing with the subject of a storage reservoir to provide a larger and better supply of water to Cairo and the Delta?
MR. CURZONIn a memorandum annexed to Lord Cromer's Report on Egypt (Egypt No. 1,1896) Rogers Pasha, head of the Egyptian Sanitary Department, states (see page 34) that it is difficult to say how Alexandria became infected with cholera, that the disease was certainly imported (see page 35), and again (page 36) that he has no doubt that the probability, if not the certainty, of the introduction of the epidemic by pilgrims will be fully established. The various projects for Nile reservoirs, including the Rayan scheme, were referred to a technical commission, the majority of which approved, with certain modifications, the proposals of the Egyptian Government engineers for a dam and reservoir on the first cataract at Assouan. 792 The general questions of water supply, sanitation and irrigation are dealt with in Lord Cromer's Report, at pages 14, 18, 29, 30 and 31. These matters are dealt with by the Egyptian Government, and we have no Papers which we could lay before Parliament.
§ MR. PIERPOINTI should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not the fact that the scheme for a dam at Assouan has been practically given up.
MR. CURZONIt may have been temporarily suspended, but it is not within my knowledge that it has been given up.