HC Deb 23 July 1896 vol 43 cc468-9
MR. R. W. PERKS (Lincolnshire, Louth)

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) what legal authority the Committee charged with the construction of the Mombasa-Uganda Railway possess of acquiring by compulsion the lands through which the proposed railway will pass, in the event of the present owners of the land required for the railway refusing to sell by agreement; (2) under what local ordnance or other legal instrument it is proposed to confer upon the Railway Committee the right to levy tolls and otherwise manage and control the railway; and (3) whether the British Government, through the Committee, will assume towards employees, sub-contractors, and others concerned in the construction of this line the obligations usually undertaken by a duly incorporated Railway Company?

* THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. GEORGE CURZON,) Lancashire, Southport

The Indian Land Acquisition Act of 1894, has been brought into force by notification from Her Majesty's Commissioner and Consul General for British East Africa. The second question will be considered whenever any portion of the railway is approaching completion. The obligations of the British Government towards those employed in the construction of this line will be generally similar to those assumed by the Government of India in relation to the execution of public works.

MR. PERKS

asked whether there was a power of applying the Indian Act to any conquered territory?

* MR. CURZON

said the Indian Act was applied in accordance with a Zanzibar Order in Council to British subjects and British Indian subjects.

MR. PERKS

desired to know whether the people along the route of the Uganda Railway were British subjects?

* MR. CURZON

said the route of the railway was 650 miles long, and he did not know to what portion the hon. Gentleman referred. But if the hon. Member was drawing a distinction between the ten-miles strip which had previously been under the Sultan of Zanzibar, and the land in the interior, the answer to his question was that in regard to any subjects of the Sultan in the ten-miles strip powers of dealing with them had been obtained from the Zanzibar Government, so that whether the persons alluded to were subjects of the Sultan of Zanzibar or were the persons whom he had described, the cases were alike met.