COLONEL WILLIAMS (Dorset, W.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state what progress is being made with the Uganda Railway, and if any portion of it is already open for traffic; and when it is anticipated that the whole line will be finished?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. G. CURZON, Lancashire, Southport)The rails are laid, buttraffic is not as yet opened, up to the forty-fifth mile. The line has been staked out to the eightieth mile, and the general alignment is fixed for nearly four hundred miles. There has been a good deal of ill-health among the labourers and staff, and an exceptionally wet season has also been experienced. But these difficulties are now being surmounted. It is still too early, however, to venture upon any precise forecast of the completion of the entire line, which will be over six hundred and seventy miles in length.