§ Resolution reported—"That it is expedient to authorise the issue, out of the Consolidated Fund, of a further sum not exceeding £600,000 for the purposes of the Uganda Railway."
§ (2.35.) MR. BRYCE () Aberdeen, S.said he would like at the outset of this discussion to say a few words upon this Vote. It was perfectly true that the time had passed when criticism could remedy anything that had happened already. The money had been spent. The extravagance was past, and some one might say that there was no great use of crying over spilt milk. But if those who spilt the milk were allowed to do so without having any observations addressed to them on their conduct, things would not be better, and might be worse. They have now had for the second or third time an extraordinary instance of miscalculation on the part of a Government Department. He did not think there had been for years past anything to parallel the want of wisdom and foresight in reagard to this railway. The estimate had been fallacious. Every time that Ministers had come and asked for further expenditure they had apologised for what had happened, and promised that things would be better, and yet, in a year or eighteen months, a fresh demand had been made. The first estimate was £3,000,000. They had now spent, including the estimate which 924 they were asked to vote that day, £5,550,000, and the railway was being conducted at a very heavy annual loss. What excuses were being made for that extraordinary miscalculation? The first was, as he gathered from what was said by the Under Secretary, that the expense incurred in making the part of the railway near the coast, over very level and dry ground, led those who were conrolling the works to form an inadequate estimate of the rest of the line, because they argued from what was being spent on that part of the line, that the total expenditure would be somewhere within their original limits. That was an extraordinary miscalculation for anyone who knew anything of tropical countries to make. It was not merely because the coast area for about 270 miles inland was comparatively level, but also because it was comparatively dry. But everyone who knew the tropics knew that it was when they reached the highlands of the interior that the rainfall became heavy, and the first thing that should have been determined was the rainfall to be expected in the interior. The country in the interior, as the House knew, rose to a height of eight or nine thousand feet, and the great tropicall rains came up from the Indian Occan, impinged against these mountains, and fell. These torrential rains had proved ever so much more severe than was expected, and to say that the experience gained near the coast was taken as an evidence of what would happen afterwards, was to show an extraordinary want of knowledge and foresighat. They were also told by the Under Secretary that the weather experienced was most exceptional. He supposed no Member of the House had ever travelled in any country without having been told the weather was exceptional. This country had been in our hands for ten or twelve years, and the Government had had admirable opportunities of surveying it and making all these preliminary inquiries. It did seem perfectly extraordinary that they should have been taken by surprise in this way. The Under Secretary had said that they did not know the country, but why did not they know it, and why did they not have a proper survey? Could anything be imagined more short sighted than to enter upon an 925 Undertaking which, on the most hopeful hypothesis, was bound to be most costyly, without having a proper survey? The tribes which had rendered a large part of the territory unsafe had practivally disappeared, and it would have been perfectly possible to carry out a complete survey from the shore of the lake all the way down to the coast. Why was not that done? It might have taken a little time; the commencement of the railway might have been delayed a year; but how much better it would have been in the in the long run to spend that time in preparing a survey than to embark on an undertaking of this kind with imperfect knowledge. He could not understand how, above all things, one fundamental principle had not forced itself upon the minds of those who were responsible. Why not have given the work out by contract? The Under Secretary said that he doubted whether any contractor would have undertaken such an uncertain work. Did he try? Was it properly advertised? Was every reasinable effort made to get a contractor to come in and offer? Was everything done that could have been done to relieve the Foreigh Office of responsibilities, and troubles, and uncertainties connected with such a work, and to put it into the hands of those whose business experience and professional skill enabled them properly to deal with it? If it were the case that the knowledge was so imperfect, it was surely all the more reason why time should have been spent in surveying. He could not understand why, if the Foreigh Office had to do the work itself, it should have entered upon it without the fullest knowledge of all the obstacles that had to be encountered. He could not understand how a Department like the Foreigh Office should be considered capable of turning itself into the business of a contractor and engineer and undertake a future. They had work ot this character.
They had to think of the future. They had been told already that there was a heavy annnal loss in working the line. Of course that was to be expected. The Under Secretary pleaded that we were saving something in the conveyance of stores. No doubt we were, but we were not saving anthing which could be represented as a large reduction of the very heavy loss that was being experienced. What prospect was there for the future? It was said in the debate two or three ago that we 926 did not go to Uganda for commercial objects. That, no doubt, was perfectly true. He would not go into the general reasons as to why Uganda was taken, and what sort of dominion it was likely to prove. But let him say that he could not accept the rosy views which the Under Secretary was bound to present to them. Anyone sitting on the Treasury Bench was bound to be an optimist. But was there really any reason to expect a considerable commercial development within any time that we could foresee of such a country as Uganda and the country between the Great Lake and the Sea? It was quite true that Uganga— and the same could not be said of most of the country toward the Sea—that Uganda proper, and to some extent the countries immediatley surrounding it and atretching west, were baturally rich countries. They were fertile, were not indeed healthy, but were capable of being rendered more healthy, and they could rendered more healthy, and they could produce a great variety of tropical produce. But apart from the difficulty of transporting these tropical products, there was one real and underlying diflicnlty which applied to all these tropical territories, and which those who had not been in the tropics and had not seen the native on his native steppe, very imperfectly realised. That was the difficulty of labour. The native did not want to work. Why should be work? With a very little trouble he could produce what he wanted and live contented. People in these matters were rather misled by the example of India, where they had had civilisation for thousands of years, and the people had contracted habits of steady industry. There the people were always at work, and they were able to pay for our commodities; the population was increassing fast, and there was a porportionate increase in their exports and in their demand for imports. But in Uganda we had nothing of the kind. We had a comparatively thinly populated district, and the people led an easy happy-go-lucky life. They did not want to work; they had not the habit of working. They did not want our commodities, they were satisfied with what they had got. No doubt these things would change. The solvent and assimilating influences of civilisation would in the course of a century or two completely change of a century or two completely change the character of these people, and that civilisation which we saw 927 in the Strand would be found in Uganda. It would not be so interesting a world, but he supposed things would be so. But these things belonged to the future. The prospects of producing in Uganda sufficient to create an export trade, the prospects of a market to create an import trade, lay in the comparatively distant future. He knew that high authorities like Sir Harry Johnston entertained a high opinion of the country. He did not deny the country would improve, but would it improve itself enough for us to see our way to make this line a paying concern, and actually, as in a burst of optimism the noble Lord assured them, pay for the loan within 15 or 20 years which we were now making for the purpose of this railway.
*THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord CRANBORBE,) RochesterI did not say that was my opinion, but the opinion of very much better judges than myself, and I quoted Sir Harry Johnston and Sir George Goldie.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid he was glad to see that the Foreign Office contained a man who viewed with critical scepticism these optimistic views. It was very unfortunate that we should be making all these loans; we were complicating and confusing our finance by the different colonial loans for different purposes. They disturbed the general position of the country, and people did not realise the various liabilities into which they were being led by these steps. He could not see that they could refuse this money. It was quite true, if anything was to be made of the country, they must have railways and steamboats. He would not to further into these matters. He believed the Member for Cleveland, who had been in the country, would be able to tell them something more about the causes of delay and the making of provisional lines. But he did think that without refusing to vote the money, it was their duty to have a discussion, and by debate to mark their sense of the mistakes that had been committed, and to endeavour to convey to the Foreign Office that it must not in the future undertake work of which its imperfect knowledge and defective experience render it, with all the talent it possesses for its own proper work, entirely incompetent.
(2.52) MR. BRYNMOR JONES () Swansea, Districtsaid he entirely agreed with many of the observations which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman, but he did not think that he had adequately expressed the opinion of some Members on that side of the House with regard to this railway undertaking. He did not look upon it, as the right hon. Gentleman apparently did, as one which we were forced reluctantly to carry out because we had taken the Uganda Protectorate.
§ MR. BRYCEI did not say anything of the kind. I merely said I would not discuss the question of the Protectorate.
MR. BRYNMOR JONESsaid he was sorry if he misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman, but he certainly thought he spoke as if this country were, on that ground, committed to the railway. Personally, he approached the question from the point of view that these railway lines were a necessary accompaniment of our general policy. If we were going to extend our Empire we must have these railroads in order to develop the extensions. He did not think any excuse was needed for a further debate on this Resolution; indeed it was necessitated by the statement made by the noble Lord on Tuesday night. Memories of hon. Members in regard to these matters were shosrt, and he might, therefore, be forgiven if he reminded them what the position was in 1900 in regard to this scheme. The original undertaking commenced in 1893. First there was a survey for the line, and work was actually commenced under the auspices of the Foreign Office in 1895. In 1900 a very large supplementary grant was asked for, and a Bill had to be brought in in that year. There was nothing at all in the statement made by the Minister in charge of that Bill, the predecessor of the noble Lord and the present Secretary of State for War, which indicated that there was to be any further request for money beyond the mere assertion that, in winding up a large undertaking of that kind, it was quite possible that some small additional charges would have to be provided for. He was under the impression that at that time a true estimate of the total cost had to be made—such an estimate as people in private life would have been justified in expecting to be prepared by 929 the skilful and careful men in the employment of the Government. It was not until last session, however, when they were told that the railway was approaching complection, that a hint was given that so large a sum as £600,000 more would be required. What did the noble Lord say on the preceding Tuesday night? He first stated that he had to make the demand owing partly to causes over which the Government had no control, and partly, as he frankly admitted, to mistakes which ought not to have occurred. Of course, he was prepared to agree that the work of constructing a new railway in a country not well known was an adventurous undertaking. But he found in the noble Lord's memorandum no statement of circumstances which men of skill and knowledge might not have been forewarned about. Then with regard to the admitted mistakes, it seemed to him that they ought not to allow that occasion to pass without inquiring what mistakes were made and by whom, and what had been done in regard to the persons making them. He had had considerable experience in arbitrating on disputes affecting undertakings of this nature, and he had seen that private employers were vigilant enough to deal properly with engineers and others in their service who were guilty of mistakes which landed them in losses. Had this Committee of the Foreign Office been as vigiland in dealing with those who made the mistakes, which the noble Lord admitted had been made? The noble Lord told them on Tuesday that there was not in 1900, five years after the underataking had been commenced, and When over 300 miles of the line had been made, a complete and detailed survey by means of which the quantities could be made out. Whey did not the predecessor of the noble Lord at the Foreign Office tell the House of Commons that that was the case? He could quite understand that the first survey, made in 1893, might have been very hasty, and not very carefully thought out. It was not such a survey as would be made for similar undertakings in civilised countries. There was bound to be some vagueness in it, but after 300 miles of the railway had been made it was difficult to understand how it was that the Committee 930 of the Foreign Office allowed the then Under Secretary to come to the House for a very large Grant without telling it frankly that the surveys had not been complected in the ordinary engineering sense. Why, he would also like to know, was an estimate based upon such imperfect material placed upon the Table of the House of Commons on that occasion? They were entitled, he thought, to ask the noble Lord to seriously consider whether this Foreign Office Committee had performed its work properly. The notion that a Committee sitting in London could make a railway in Uganda in a way in which a railway ought to be made, on purely businesslike considerations, was one open to considerable criticism, but he would not go into it at that moment; he would content himself with pointing out that among the representatives of industrial constituencies, in which the very large and important concerns were carried on, there was a growing feeling of uneasiness as to the way in which our public offices were doing their practical work.
§ The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen had referred to the continual under-estimating, or, as it might more properly be called, mis-estimating, in the constructing of the railway. They now found, with regard to this undertaking, that the public officialsempolyed by the Government had committed mistakes, which, if committed by the employecs of an ordinary employer, would have been met with vigilance, and probably wityh severity. In the Paper which had been somewhat belatedly laid upon the Table of the House on Tuesday, he found miscalculations which were wholly unwarranted, and which were certainly not excused by anything appearing in that document. for instance, formations and earthworks. were estimated in 1900 at £844,607, and were now estimated at £1,152,403. If a blunder of that kind had been committed with regard to only 250 miles of railway by an engineer employed by any ordinary firm, would there not have been at least considerable disturbance in the affaris of the firm? No excuse had been given with referance to that. The rains might have something to do with it, but surely the rains ought to have been taken into account in 1900. If the engineers had taken the troble to find out from skilled persons whar was likely to happen.
931§ the rains would have been provided for. Again, the permanent way was estimated at £1,379,000; now it had risen to £1,453,000. He should like to know why that was. Surely the engineers ought to have known what the permanent way would cost. He only mentioned these things in order to justify the anxiety which was felt in the country in regard to the manner in which Government Departments,— not alone the Department of the noble Lord—carried on their work. The country felt that it was not as well served as private employers were. The noble Lord said that they had a good article in the Uganda Railway. He had his doubts about that, and: they were based on the Report which was issued last year by Colonel Gracey. He frankly admitted that the matter could not be judicially or fairly treated in detail in a public discussion, but he noticed one or two statements in the Keport which caused him to doubt whether they had got such a good railway as the noble Lord tried to persuade them they had. Colonel Gracey reported that from mile 16 to mile 102 there ought to have been a totally different alignment; and practically recommended that the line should be relaid. Colonel Gracey was a member of the Foreign Office Committee.
*LORD GRANBORNEsaid that perhaps ho ought to correct a mistake he made on Puesday, when he said that when Colonel Gracey inspected the line he was a member of the Committee. He was now a member of the Committee; but was not a member when he inspected the line.
Mr. BRYNMOR JONESsaid that Colonel Gracey was sent out as our independent expert, and the result of his examination was a very damaging Report. He was glad that Colonel Gracey was now a member of the Committee; and he was not attacking him in the least. The part of the line which Colonel Gracey reported on adversely as regarded alignment was the easiest portion, being nearly level. There seemed to be great uncertainty about purely practical matters. Colonel Gracey reported that some of the temporary diversions went so far afield that the rail head was completed before they were. Then as to the temporary inclines, of which he had some photographs, were the to be removed?
MR. BRYNMOR JONESasked what was the point of making them at all. Colonel Gracey also reported that 250 miles of ballasting would have to be done, at a cost of £125,000. Why had not the question of ballasting been raised before? Either it was, or was not, necessary. If it were not necessary, he could not understand Colonel Gracey saying it was. He ventured on Tuesday to make a comparison between the Uganda Railway carried out by the Foreign Office Committee and the Beira Railway carried out by a firm of contractors. The Secretary of State for War said that the conditions were dissimilar but the right hon. Gentleman did not prove that, because there were only two degrees difference involved. The noble Lord said that the Beira Railway was the worst constructed railway in Africa. He ventured to deny that. He had made inquiries on the subject, and he thought the noble Lord would be sorry he had made that statement when he knew that the railway had been built absolutely according to specification, and that it had been passed by a Government Department. He could not help thinking that the noble Lord had been misled by the fact that during the recent war in South Africa a change in the gauge was being made. When the Yeomanry were sent to operate in the northern part of the Transvaal, he understood there were difficulties; but these difficulties were not due to the construction of the line. The line, in fact, had to be re-constructed in order to remedy a mistake on the part of the engineer in regard to the gauge, with which the contractors had nothing whatever to do. He ventured to think that before they voted this large sum of money they should be very vigilant indeed in regard to how it was going to be spent. He would not move the Amendment standing on the Paper in his name, but content himself with the protest he had made.
(3.17.) MR. THOMAS B AYLEY () Derbyshire, Chesterfieldsaid that on a previous occasion he had asked what were the concessions which had been granted to Companies in Uganda. The noble Lord had frightened many hon. Members on that side of the House when he used on that side of the House when he used 933 the. word "concessions." He was glad to think, from a perusal of the Paper presented to the House, that, so far, not very much harm had been done. They had a fear that if the Government began granting concessions they might have the same experience in the future as in the past. There was one concession in regard to certain pearl fisheries on the coast of the Protectorate—
*MR. SPEAKEROrder, order: That lias nothing to do with the Vote of £600,000 for completing the Uganda Knilway, which is the question before the House.
§ MR. THOMAS BAYLEYsaid he would not pursue the subject further, since it would, he believed, come up under the Protectorate Vote. [Lord CiiANBORNE: Hear, hear.] In the Appendix to the Memorandum, at page 5, there was an estimate of £80,747 for surveys. Now, these surveys had been going on for a goocl many years. In fact the Memorandum stated that there had been three surveys. He should think that a great deal of the trouble the Foreign Office had had in making this railway would have been saved had they spent more money at the beginning in the survey. Before they were finished with this railway they would have to spend £10,000,000 [MINISTERIAL cries of "No, no!"] Yes; next year they would have to come for a Vote of nearly a million, for orders had been given for material which was wanted to the extent of £500,000 or £600,000.
§ MR. THOMAS BAYLEYsaid that on page 7 of the Memorandum it was stated that the cost to end of September, 1899, for rolling stock was £240,332, and if that was added to the value of the rolling stock under supply, it amounted to £455,707, which must be paid for next year.
*LORD CRANBORNEthought that the hon. Gentleman was under a misapprehension. The Return was divided into warious sections. The first was as to the 934 cost for rolling stock up to September, 1899, and the next was the basis on which the original estimate was framed. If the lion. Gentleman wanted to find out the details of the new estimate, he should look a little further on at page 8.
§ MR. THOMAS BAYLEYsaid that the cost of rolling stock up to September,1899, was £240,332, and he thought the great bulk of that must have been paid for; but the Government must come for another estimate next year. The other day he had asked the noble Lord to give the House the terms and conditions of the commission which was paid to the Crown agents for the Colony. That question was raised two years ago, and it was promised to be gone into. Very large sums had been paid in the past to the Crown agents for the Colony as commission, and he had no doubt that they would continue to be paid. What he wanted to know was, what these Crown agents did for the very large commission which they were given. He was very glad that the House had had this discussion on this Vote. The railway was absolutely necessary, but its construction should bo conducted in a proper business manner. Any business man would look into the accounts, see what the railway was, and what it was expected to do before he year after year, regardless of an enormous number of loeo-and trucks and passenger carriages—ten times as many as would be required for years. The traffic would have to grow, or they would have to take up the rails. They all hoped that the traffic would grow, and that the railway would form an outlet for employment. But until it had grown they had no right to spend so much money on rolling stock and in making stations. He should most decidedly go to a division.
§ (3.23.) MR. LOUGH () Islington, W.said that when this Vote was under discussion the other night he expressed the opinion that all these details, although important in themselves, were not nearly so important as the general question of the position of the enterprise as it at present stood. The railway was nearly completed; they had jot an estimate of the working expenses 935 each year, and they could look at the prospects of the railway for the future. They had spoken of it as the Uganda railway. He ventured to say that that was a mistake, for it never touched Uganda at all. It should he called the Mombasa and Victoria Nyanza Railway. It was a great factor in our occupation of that country. The railway had become the central feature in our administration of the country. There was a saying that Egypt was the Nile; and it would be equally true to say that this railway was the British East African Protectorate. It should be remembered that the House had already this year voted £657,000 for Uganda, of which £250,000 was for the railway; and now the Government came asking for £600,000 more. The fact was that these payments would go on annually increasing. By far the most interesting figures in the Return laid on the Table of the House were those in page 4, to which he would be very glad if the noble Lord would direct his attention. There was a statement, without any comment, that the working expenses in 1900 amounted to £350,393, and in 1901 to £378,891. Just above that they had the receipts, including the general traffic and the Protectorate stores, and these amounted to £80,797, so that there was a loss 011 the working expenditure of £300,000. What he wanted to know was where did this loss in working expenditure come out of? It could not come out of the grant in aid to which he had referred; it must come out of the sum which the House was voting as capital expenditure.
§ Mr. LOUGHsaid that that was a very important admission on the part of the noble Lord. It should be voted as a charge for the year, because there could be no return for these working expenses. In the table already quoted, he had sought to find some explanation of these large working expenses. In the second column on page 5, he believed, the working expenses were put down under the head of "general charges," which amounted to £484,000. That was where the loss came in. He turned to the explanation given on page 11, under the head of "general charges." That explanation was that the chief engineer had "only 936 estimated those charges up to the date of the rails reaching Lake, surmising that after that date a large proportion of the staff would be charged to Revenue Accounts; but it had been decided that until the rails were on the permanent alignment, all must be charged to capital." So that here they found that the large loss on working expenditure was not voted for annual payment, but was charged to loan, That seemed to be extremely extravagent. It was hard to find an exact parallel in this country to the working of the Uganda Railway, but there was a line in Scotland, 438 miles long, where the expenses were £340,000 a year. There was another line in Ireland, 550 miles long, and the working expenses were £340,000. Those were instances of regular working lines upon a most expenses scale. Why should the working, expenses of this railway in Uganda be-anything like £380,000 a year? This-was a matter upon which they certainly should have a better explanation. It meant, in addition to the capital expenditure, that the British taxpayer would have to find this £300,000 a year extra, and that would make their expenses in Uganda nearly one and a half millions a year. Although part of this money had; been raised by loan, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to deal with it.There had been a hint of new expenditure upon steamers on one of the lakes in connection with the railway, and he should like the noble Lord to say if that expenditure was covered by this estimate?
§ MR. LOUGHsaid the expenditure provided was in connection with the railway at one end, but he wished to know if further expenditure was not going to arise at the other end near Mombasa. Unless some steps were taken in this matter, he was sure that no reduction would be possible for some time to come. Allusion had already been made to the views Sir Harry Johnston had expressed in a work which had recently been published. This work gave an exceedingly interesting summary with regard to the railway and the total expenditure that might be incurred, and he agreed that the total cost of the railway would be covered by the present 937 estimate. Before the railway was finished the total capital outlay would be about £11,500,000. Sir Harry Johnston said there had been no absolute discovery of mineral wealth, although ostriches, coffee, sugar, India rubber, tobacco, and timber were to be found, 'nit they were not produced in remunerative quantities. This was the country in which they had sunk £11,000,000 or £12,000,000 with no prospects of getting it back again. That was the question towards which this House ought to look. He had heard something about the natives stealing bolts and nuts, but they would never find them again. The policy they were pursuing in Uganda was a great question towards which hon. Members would have to turn their attention. What was to be the filial result? There was practically no population to use the railway, and the goods traffic there was infinitesimal. Sir Harry Johnston recommended that this £12,000,000 should be turned into a national debt, to be repaid by the inhabitants by instalments beginning ten years hence. He thought that would be the worst secured national debt in the world, and it would become a heavy barrier to any colonists going out there. They need not question any more the difference between Imperial ideas upon this question, for there really was no difference. He wanted their Imperialism to be shown to be a little cheaper. For this expenditure there was no return, and no possibility of any. He suggested that they should send out some practical business man, and tell him that this country could not afford a, loss of £300,000 a year upon this railway, and it must really be brought down to £200,000. This expenditure ought to be cut down in the interests of the taxpayers of this country. They could not afford to spend such a large amount of money in Uganda, and he hoped the noble Lord would satisfy the House by holding out some immediate prospect of a reduction.
*(3.35.) MR. HERBERT SAMUEL () Yorkshire, N.R., Clevelandsaid he rose to take part in the debate, not only because he had long taken an interest in the affairs of East Africa, but also because he was, he believed, the only Member of tin's House who had visited the kingdom of Uganda and had travelled on the railway throughout its length.
938 Two questions, separate and distinct' arose upon this Vote. The first was the question whether or not this railway was necessary. The second was the question whether its construction had been carried out with a due regard to economy. As to the necessity for the construction of the railway he entertained -no doubt whatever. The railway was the inevitable consequence of annexation, and it was impossible to govern this Protectorate efficiently and cheaply without such means of communication. The journey from the coast used to take three months marching, and the cost of carrying goods was then about £200 per ton. Under those circumstances it was obvious that either the cost of government by the liritish in that Protectorate must have been very great, or else that the government would have been inefficient. The construction of this railway was inextricably bound up with the question of annexation. It was true that the annexation of Uganda was not to be justified merely on the grounds of commercial profit. The soil was for the most part very fertile, and there could be a very large trade in produce with the neighbouring countries. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen had said that the natives were not willing to work, but that was not so, and there was at present a demand for English goods. They liked our linen goods, soap, and umbrellas, and were willing to work in order to obtain the means of purchasing the commodities by which they set store. There were many other things which could be imported, and many products which could be exported in exchange. But, on the other hand, the world's supply of tropical produce at the present time was so large that it was very likely that there would not be any remunerative trade in these products from Uganda for some time. The main reasons for the annexation were different. There were political reasons. An active party had existed in Uganda, led by the French Catholic priests, which openly advocated the annexation of the country to France. A German had actually succeeded in making a treaty, which had subsequently to be disavowed, establishing German influence there. If this country had not taken over Uganda it would have been undera foreign Power now, and a wedge would have been driven between the Soudan and British East Africa. The condition of 939 the natives during the eight years the British flag had been flying over Uganda had vastly improved They were a highly interesting race. They were a very intelligent people, skilful handicraftsmen, eager for education. They greatly appreciated British rule. He had an opportunity of speaking to many of the native chiefs through interpreters, and they invariably volunteered statements that they were grateful for British rule, and appreciated the benefits which that rule had conferred upon them. One of them told him that now they would have no more wars, and they were only anxious to help the British Government to keep the country happy and prosperous. Before the British went there the country was the scene of continual internecine conflicts, and the kings used to be guilty of barbarous cruelties in the wanton execution of natives, as Spekc, Stanley and the missionaries had testified. The slave trade was rife, and the minor chiefs made many cruel exactions from the peasantry. All those evils had now been stopped with a firm hand. There were now many mission stations throughout che country, which were much welcomed by the people. This seemed to be the one tropical country where, in recent years, missions had been a genuine success. Schools had been established there, and there were hospitals in the various districts. [An HON. MEMBER: Are they voluntary schools'?] Yes, they were voluntary schools, and he only wished that the Government could see their way clear to make a grant to that class of voluntary schools at all events.
It appeared that all those benefits counted for nothing with some hon. Members. The hon. Member for Battersea said that he would rather spend £ 10,000,000 upon a railway in Essex than £1,000 upon a railway in Uganda.
MR. JOHN BUKNS () BatterseaHear, hear.
MR. HEKBERT SAMUELsaid he was sorry to find himself in conflict with the hon. Member upon this question, for he generally found himself in accordance with the views of the hon. Member upon domestic questions. It appeared to him to be a monstrous doctrine that the duties of this country were limited solely to the people of this country, and that 940 because a man's skin was black you should not help him; because he lived in another continent you should pay him no attention. The principles of progress could not be limited merely to our own shores, and he ventured to-say that if this was to be the new humanitarianism, if these were the doctrines of modern philanthropy, if these were the new principles of sociaL reform, they had fallen oft' very greatly from the time when humanitarianism was a world-wide creed, and allowed no, distinctions of race and country. He had always held that one of the most glorious pages in the records of that House was the page on which was inscribed the Vote of £20,000,000 for the freeing of the slaves. Such expenditure as this stood on a similar footing. It was money spent for the uplifting of the backward peoples of the world. Charity ought to begin at home, no doubt, but he had yet to learn that it ought to end there. Approving of the general policy of annexation in regard to Uganda, he must therefore approve also of the construction of the railway.
§ As the Under Secretary for Foreign A flairs had said, this railway was a good article, and it appeared to him to be a well-built railway, and competent judges had confirmed this opinion. One of the most remarkable assets they had in regard to this railway was the railway workshops which had been built at Nairobi, and which, employed 600 artisans. These workshops were well-equipped with modern machinery, and he believed that they made everything that was required for the railway except wheels and rails. This was all being accomplished by Indian labour on the spot, under the direction of English engineers.
§ Turning to the question of expense he thought this was a case where the greatest economy should have been observed. For many years to come there was likely to be a very small revenue from the railway. The territory through, which it passed was very thinly populated. They might go for miles without seeing a, soul. The stations were almost all groups of corrugated iron huts in the midst of unpopulated plains. It was true that around Nairobi there was a great highland plain about as large as England in which the climate was perfectly healthy,. and in which Europeans were likely to-settle. Sir Charles Eliot, the Chief Commissioner of British East Africa, had said 941 that in time it was likely to become another New Zealand. There was also the prospect of the formation of a large Indian colony by the shore of the lake. It was possible that valuablemineral wealth might be discovered, and it was possible that valuablemineral wealth might be discovered, and it was certain that the new steamers now being built would bring from the thousand miles of coast lands round the lake large quantities of tropical goods. But this was in the future, and it would take many years to develop these resources so as to become a source of profit. He had had many opportunities of talking to English people in East Africa and Uganda upon the question of the cost of the railway. He had approached the question absolutely without bias; if anything, his sympathies were rather with those who had constructed the railway, because he knew well what diffculties they had had to contend with. He had spoken to a large number of people upon this point— administrators, traders, missionaries, doctors, soldiers, engineers—and the unanimous opinion of every single one of them was that there had been great extravagance in the building of the railway, that there had been frequent waste and some laxity of financial control. He never heard an opposite opinion upon this point form any single individual. He was not stating his own view, for he was only in the country for a about two months. and he was not an engineer. But he had no hesitation in saying that this was the view of European public opinion throughout Uganda and East Africa. They believed that due regard had not been paid to economy, and that a great deal of the nation's money had been constructed at great cost, the whole of which would bring no return. When he travelled on the railway in March and April of this year. the permanent line was nearing completion; but one travelled for miles and miles, for hour after hour, on temporary lines passing over embankments, through cuttings, over bridges; and on the hillsides below one could see hundreds of coolies at work building the permanent line. They had been building not one but two railways. The expense of this temporary line had been incurred simply on account of the haste to get to the lake. Then there was the rope incline 942 which cost £31,1,000, and which cost between £6,000 and £10,000 a year to maintain, but now that the permanent line had been completed, the incline had been completely dismantled. It was like one of those great life going down to the sea short, and was a very expensive thing sea shore, and was a very expensive thing to construt and work, He could never see what advantage there was to get to the lake in 1901 at such a great expense instead of waiting until 1903 for the permanent line to be completed, and if instructions had not been sent to the engineers to get to the lake at an unduly early period many hundreds of thousands of pounds might have been saved. In the future they would have to undertake a further expenditure. The twon of Nairobi, with about 9,000 inhabitants, had been built by the railway for its own headquarters. That town was built on a plain surrounded On the hills the residences of by hills. the British administrators and several of the chief English officials of the railway had been built. These were fairly comfortable bungalows on the hill sides. Down on the plain were rows and rows of corrugated iron buildings in which the railway officials were housed, and also the African natives who were employed on the railway. All these houses would have to be moved away from their present sites in the near future because they had been buit on a dead level which it was impossible to drain, although great ditches had been cut across the plain at great expense. The consequence was that in the rainy season the place became unhealthy. When he was there bubonic plague was rife among the Indians in Nairobi. Considerable expenditure would have to be incurred in order to move that town from a site which ought the never to have been chosen up to an equally convenient site close at hand. He asked the noble Lord why the town of Nairobi had been built on this particular site.
§
He very much doubted whether sufficient efforts were made to secure African labour for this railway Practically the whole of the labour had been imported from India brought from India, and he had heard but two railways. The expense of this many persons who had experience of the natives declare that if proper steps had been taken by men acquainted with the habits and feelings of the natives
943
a large number of unskilled labourers could have been obtained in the country for this work. There had been one, and only one, considerable saving on the estimate, and that was with regard to ballasting. He found the following statement on page 9 of the "Memoranda relating to the Uganda Railway"—
By working slowly and with indigenous labour it has been found that a lower rate may be taken, which accounts for the less demand under this head.
§ He found that the reduction on the estimate was 20 per cent., because they had been willing to work more slowly than before, and because they had obtained a considerable amount of native labour. All these things ought to have had more careful attention from the Government than they had had. A very large expense had been caused by the failure of the contractors to deliver viaducts at the time the contract specified. There had been heavy expenditure owing to the difficulty of getting the necessary bridges in time. He asked the noble Lord whether there were any penalties under the contracts, and whether they would be enforced, so that this country might be recouped in some degree for the loss it had been put to in consequence of the delay in supplying the viaducts. He was told many times that if the Government would order an inquiry to be held into the way the money had been spent they would discover very many strange things. There had been one or two open scandals which had come before the law courts. He believed if an inquiry were held it would be found that a great deal of money had been absolutely wasted. He did not suppose the noble Lord would order an inquiry to be made, nor did he press for it, for the cost of it would be simply throwing good money after bad.
§ He could not, however, end his remarks in this note of criticism. While holding that the Foreign Office was to blame for the financial side of this undertaking, at the same time they had undoubtedly carried out a great and necessary work, and they had carried it out well in the face of immense obstacles. By the construction of this railway they had made the administration of British East Africa and Uganda possible. That would not have been possible otherwise. And they had brought succour and support to that handful of brave and lonely men—the adminis- 944 trators and the missionaries of the Uganda Protectorate—who, in the face of great difficulties, surrounded often by serious dangers, and doomed almost inevitably to frequent periods of ill-health, were striving, and striving successfully, to introduce the principles of enlightened government and the teachings of a higher morality into what had been one of the darkest spots of the Dark Continent.
§ *(4.5.) LORD CRANBORNEI can forgive the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down for the criticisms which he has made against any details of the expenditure on behalf of the Uganda Railway when I consider the greater part of his speech and the complete answer which he has given to the observations of so many of his hon. friends. [An HON. MEMBER: He agreed with them.] The hon. Member for West Islington said that the district we have to deal with is inhabited by nothing but barbarians.
*LORD CRANBORNEI do not think anybody laughed at it, though. The hon. Member thinks that the country produces no commodities worthy of the attention of the merchant.
*LORD CRANBORNEThe hon. Gentleman who has just sat down corrected him in both particulars, and explained that the people of Uganda were by no means the nation of pure barbarians which he seemed to think, but that, on the contrary, they were a progressive people with a great future before them, and that the country was fertile, producing many commodities which, in time, we hope, will bring some remuneration for the expenditure to which we have been put.
The hon. Member for the Cleveland Division made certain criticisms which it will be my duty to meet. He said that when he was travelling in the country he met a number of people who all agreed that there had been a great deal of waste. I do not doubt that in any enterprise of this kind a certain amount of waste must necessarily take place, but I confess I rather distrust the kind of gossip—I do not use the 945 word in an offensive sense to the hon. Gentleman—which is picked up from various amateur critics who are not qualified to form an opinion, and to which the traveller, of course, is always subject. I distrust that all the more because some very considerable authorities do not seem to share the hon. Gentleman's opinion in that particular. I quoted on Tuesday the statement of Sir George Goldie. [An Hon. MEMBER: What about Col. Gracey's opinion?] I will deal with Col. Gracey in a moment. I will not repeat the quotation I read from Sir George Goldie, but he definitely says that the charge that the railway has been uneconomically made cannot be sustained. You may not agree with him. You may think that the railway was built on too extensive a scale. You may think that he was over sanguine in his hopes of return for the expenditure, but a man of his enormous experience has an opinion which must be taken into account.
*MR. HERBERT SAMUELMay I ask whether he went over the latter part of the railway, of which I spoke?
*LORD CRANBORNEI did not say he was, but I do not know that the hon. gentleman is a practical engineer either. I take Sir Harry Johnston. I am not going to repeat the quotation I gave from him the other day, but he certainly says that he thinks the appointment of Sir Guilford Molesworth and his assistants was thoroughly justified by the results which have been produced. Col. Gracey's report, to which so much attention has been called, and very properly called, does not express the view which the hon. Gentleman seems to think. If hon. Members will look at page 7 of the Report they will find a long paragraph in which he points out the immense difficulties that must necessarily belong to an enterprise of this kind. Then he goes on to say—
I have mentioned all this lest it should be thought, from rny criticism of certain minor details, I have been unable to appreciate the excellent work that has been carried out by the staff of the Uganda Railway.946 So that he does not by any means condemn the staff of the railway, root and branch, as might be supposed from some of the observations that have been made. On the contrary, he takes the view that, considering the immense difficulties which confronted them, on the whole the work which they put out is excellent [AN HON. MEMBER: He does not say that.] The hon. Member for the Cleveland division said there had been a great waste of money. A passage was pointed to in Col. Gracey's report in which he criticised the rope incline. It is abundantly true of engineers, as it is true of other men, that there are among them many different opinions, and there will be. Even within the covers of this Blue-book, hon. Members will see that the opinion given by Col. Gracey is by no means shared by others. If they turn to page 52 of this Blue-book, they will find a paragraph in which the opinion of Sir Guilford Molesworth is cited. If they look at the middle of the quotation they will see these words—It will be necessary, in order to insure rapid progress of the railhead, to make use of a temporary rope incline, by which the permanent way materials may be lowered pending the completion of the work on the permanent line.What the writer of this memorandum says in the next paragraphs—i.e., that a year has been saved in the operation of carrying the rails through to the Lake, is a proof of the soundness of the decision arrived at. That is really the answer to the hon. Gentleman. The longer the line takes to make the longer will it be necessary to pay for the coolie labour imported from India. It is therefore important to get the work done as soon as possible.
*LORD CRANBORNEI prefer to trust the opinion of those competent engineers, rather than that of the hon. Gentleman, whose opinion after all must be that of an amateur.
*LORD CRANBORNEIt is the opinion of Sir Guilford Molesworth, and 947 if the hon Member for Swansea will look at page 62, he will see what is stated by him. Sir Guilford Molesworth approved of the decision of the Uganda Railway Committee to adopt the device of the rope incline. He stated that it would be necessary, in order to secure rapid progress to the rail-head, to make use of a temporary rope-incline, and by this means a year had been saved in carrying through the undertaking. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Member for South Aberdeen has criticised the various reasons I put forward for the Estimate of 1900. I will not weary the House by repeating what I said the year before last, but let me make this observation. The right hon. Gentleman says, how absurd it is to talk of the weather being exceptional. I would ask, is not the weather in Uganda, always exceptional? No doubt the weather is perpetually surprising; but, at the same time, I think it must be admitted that the weather is sometimes worse than at other times. The right hon. Gentleman may deny that, but there can be no doubt that the weather that year was exceedingly bad. The more experience we have of the weather in Uganda, the more entitled we are to speak with confidence that the weather was exceptional at a period when the railway was at a critical stage; and it did make an enormous difference in the cost of the construction of the railway. In England, if navvies cannot be employed owing to the bad weather, they are discharged. That course, however, cannot be followed in Uganda. The coolies employed on the railways are imported from India, and they have to be paid whether they work or do not work. When the weather is so bad that no work can be done, the cost thrown on those who are making the railways is very great indeed. The right hon. Gentleman, and others, have put the questions, "Why did the Foreign Office hurry on the railway?" "Why did they not wait for the complete survey of the line?" It is perfectly true that they did hurry on the railway, and did not wait for a complete survey; but everyone who has taken an interest in this question knows that there was a 948 political necessity for hurrying on. I would remind the House that there were at least two other Powers competing with Great Britain for the possession of Uganda, and it must be evident to all that the sooner we established control and our authority over that territory the better it would be for our sovereignty.
*LORD CRANBORNEThe mere paper acquisition of a vast territory in East Africa was not sufficient; and the sooner it could be developed the better. Besides, any one who recognises the importance of having ready access to the higher waters of the Nile, in view of our Imperial position in Egypt, will acknowledge how necessary it was to have the railway rapidly completed. It was for that very reason that the Foreign Office did not wait for the survey, as they would have done under normal circumstances; and that it was which induced the Government also to take the work in hand themselves instead of employing a contractor. I ventured to say on Tuesday, and I repeat it this afternoon, that the fact that the estimate was originally too low does not mean necessarily that too much money has been spent in the end. Assuming that every estimate was exceeded, the question is not whether the estimates were good or bad, but whether too much money has been spent. The Uganda railway has been by no means so expensive as the Cape line and the Natal line. The Cape line cost pounds;10,000 per mile, and the Natal line pounds;13,000 per mile, while the Uganda line only cost pounds;9,500 per mile. The hon. Member for West Islington, who was very eloquent on the working expenses of the railway, has got hold of a mare's nest. The hon. Gentleman referred to the table on page 4 of the Memorandum, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman understood it. The figure he took was pounds;378,000 as the working expenses of the line in 1901, and he asked how that money was to be defrayed. It will be defrayed out of the very grant which the House is now being asked to vote. It is in its bulk part of the capital expenditure on the railway.
*LORD CRANBORNEIt represents, in it its major part, the cost of bringing material up from the coast to rail head; and if the hon. Gentleman will read carefully the recent account of how this excessive expenditure arose, he will see that in almost every item a large part of the excess is due to what it cost to take the material from the coast to rail head. The traffic earnings amounted to pounds;80,000 last year. With regard to the working expenses, it is calculated that the net loss will be pounds;78,000 a year. But, of course, as the Protectorate develops, and trade and commerce increase, we have no doubt that the margin of loss will be a gradually diminishing quantity.
MR. BRYNMOR JONESsaid there was a great ambiguity about the tables. The difficulty was that no distinction was drawn between the cost of carriage of railway stores and the cost of carriage of Protectorate stores.
*LORD CRANBORNEThe first table excludes the carriage of Protectorate stores and railway construction stores; while the second table includes the carriage of Protectorate stores, but excludes the carriage of railway stores. The hon. and learned Gentleman has asked me to explain in the cost of the earthworks. Well, in the first place there was an under estimate, because of the want of a detailed survey, of which I have already spoken; and, in the second place, the bad weather, which stopped progress, was responsible for almost half of the cost. The cost of the bad weather per unit involved an under-estimate of 20 per cent, on the earth-works alone. The hon. Gentleman referred also to the permanent way. As regards that, the rise in the prices of material and freight from England accounted for pounds;16,000; the replacement of wooden sleepers by steel sleepers over the first eighty miles, pounds;17,000; and the rise in the price of coal and in the cost of carriage from the coast, pounds;35,000. There was also a small increase in the length of deviations, and a certain under-estimate of the cost of taking up deviations, making a total excess of £73,000.
950 In conclusion I will only say that I am perfectly confident that in any work of the kind blunders would necessarily be made; and I will go so far to admit that the probability is that there would be a certain amount of waste involved. That is not new to the House of Commons. Let the House consider, for instance, the Manchester Ship Canal. I used to be a Lancashire Member. And I know a great deal about it. Why, the under-estimate for the Uganda Railway is incomparable with the under-estimate for the Manchester Ship Canal. It is our universal experience, whether in our public or private capacity, that engineering works are always under-estimating. On the contrary, I much regretted it; but as I explained on Tuesday, although there were circumstances over which the Government or the engineers had had no control which were responsible for a large part of the excess, yet, I do think that the under-estimate in certain important particulars cannot be defended in that way. Mistakes were undoubtedly made, and on behalf of the Government I regret them. I hope the House, after listening to the eloquent defence of this enterprise by the hon. Member for the Cleveland Division, will be good enough to grant the money we now asked for, and enable the Bill to be introduced.
(4.35): THE MASTER OF ELIBANK () Edinburgh, Midlothiansaid he wished to make it quite clear that the original cost of the Cape and Natal Railways was pounds;7,000 per mile, and that if the noble Lord mentioned pounds;13,000 a mile the margin must have been spread over the several years since the line was constructed. On the same calculation, the cost of the Uganda line would amount to pounds;18,000 or pounds;19,000 per mile. He had always been in favour of the Uganda Railway. He thought when they annexed large provinces in Africa, in any shape or form, the sooner they joined point to point, as the Russians did in the East, the better. When he was in Rhodesia ten or eleven years ago he considered that the country was a barren and use less acquisition. Now it had 1,400 miles 951 of railway, along which townships had sprung up; and in Fort Salisbury there was a population of some 2,000 white men. Personally, he would never hesitate to vote money for the construction of a railway in any province that might be annexed. For instance, he was in Khartoum this year. What was the result of the railway? Why, in the bazaars of Omdurman, Birmingham and Manchester goods were being sold. Though he believed the railway would pay in course of time, he thought it was open to legitimate criticism that the expenditure on the Uganda Railway was so heavy and extravagant. That made it very difficult for them on that side to support their votes before their constituents; but if a division were taken he intended to support the Government.
§ MR. JOSEPH A. PEASE () Essex, Saffron Waldensaid the noble Lord had not met the gravamen of the charge against the Government, and had made no case whatever against the excessive expenditure on the Uganda Railway. From 1892 to 1895 he did what he could, in a humble way, to try to press on the Liberal Government of the day the necessity of proceeding with the railway, on the ground that the French were endeavouring to secure an interest in Uganda which ought to be secured for the Empire. The Germans were then entering into an arrangement to construct a railway from their sphere of influence, and he thought it advisable that the Government should also construct a railway in their sphere of influence. The railway was advocated mainly on humanitarian considerations. The district between the coast and Uganda was alive with slave caravans, and the construction of the railway had prevented enormous mortality. Not only did it destroy the slave trade in the interior, but it saved a vast amount of life in connection with the transit of commodities from the coast. It used to take between two and three years for transit from Mombasa and back. Natives had to carry 70 Ibs. on their heads over the 1,200 miles there and back; and only one in eight returned alive to the coast. It was to the credit of the Empire that it faced that situation, and acknowledged its responsibility.
952 When Africa was apportioned they took upon themselves certain responsibilities towards the natives, and the railway was the result. As regarded the question of expenditure, it seemed to him absurd for the noble Lord to contend that there was any justification for pressing on the railway in recent years; and nothing that the noble Lord had said justified the excessive expenditure which they condemned. There was an allusion in the memorandum to pounds;379,000 as being the gross working expenditure. To the ordinary individual that would appear to be a most extravagant expenditure, taking into consideration that there was only one passenger train a week from the coast to the Lakes, and only two passenger trains to Nairobi. That appeared to him to be a matter which required looking into. The officials no doubt desired to have as much money as possible to spend; but the House of Commons was the trustee for the British taxpayer, and should see that there was no extravagant expenditure. They thought that the Government was responsible for a good deal of the extravagance that had occurred; and they denounced it, though many of them agreed as to the desirability of constructing the railway.
§ (4.43.) MR. JOHN BURNSsaid the noble Lord was not to blame personally, nor was he responsible departmentally, for the sad and lamentable revelations made on the Opposition side of the House, which were supported by quotations from various reports, and strikingly confirmed by the only hon. Member who had happened to pay a flying visit to the country. But the noble Lord was politically responsible for the pounds;600,000 the House was going to vote. He was responsible for the many blunders he had himself admitted to have taken place, and he would be responsible for many more unless he was prepared to boldly face the situation revealed in the discussion and to set his house in order, and either bring home or dismiss any official who in the future carried on the administration of the Protectorate in the same wasteful, extravagant, and unbusinesslike way. If the noble Lord had couched the whole of his speech as he did 953 the concluding sentences of it, he would have been perfectly content; but while the noble Lord admitted blunders, and admitted waste, which he curiously said was not new to the House of Commons—
*LORD CRANBORNEsaid that what he intended to say was that gross under-estimating was not new to the House of Commons.
§ MR. JOHN BURNSsaid that the noble Lord admitted blunders, waste, and excessive expenditure over estimates; but the country was determined that it should be the duty of every Member of the House of Commons to take greater notice of expenditure, especially in those Parts of the world where criticism was necessary both in the interests of efficiency and economy. The noble Lord expressed some modified regret at the blunders which had taken place, but he had not said a word about the future. He gave no promise of reform, and no suggestion that the experience of the past would induce him to keep a tighter hand on his officers, especially in the dark and outlying places of the earth. The railway was originally intended to cost three millions, and to this date it had cost nearly six. That was an excess of expenditure over the estimate the noble Lord was responsible for now. In the completion and the future administration of the railway, the noble Lord ought to keep to the closest line of the estimates. If he did not promise reform in these matters, what reason had the House to assume that the absence of the sense of responsibility on the part of his officers out in Uganda would not continue in the future? What reason had they to believe that his officers at the outposts would change their course of action, if they knew that Ministers here were prepared to back them up and defend them at all hazards? What guarantee had they that the expenditure would not go on as extravagantly in the future as it had done in the past? He did appeal to the noble Lord to make some promise that, if not this session, next session, when this question came before the House, he would do his very best to see that this railway was economically finished and satisfactorily worked, and that the whole administration would be put on better 954 lines. He was intensity amused at the deft way in which the noble Lord tried to balance the hon. Member for the Cleaveland Division and other Members with whom that hon. Member was not agreed, in every particular as to the extravagant and wastefull way in which this railway had been built and the administration was carried on
§ MR. JOHN BURNSsaid he never heard more damaging criticism made about the work of a railway and the conduct of a Protectorate than the hon. Member for Cleveland made, verified as he was by personal observation.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELI did not say anything about the administration of the Protectorate.
§ MR. JOHN BURNSsaid he would deal with that later on. This balancing of one set of opinions against another in this House had been tried before. Admitting that there might be some differences of opinion between the hon. Member for Cleveland and some other Members, they were in substantial agreement as to the way in which this railway had been made. The noble Lord was prepared to accept the hon. Member's difference from his colleagues on this side of the House on a small matter, but when it was necessary to throw over the hon. Member in regard to a material particular, he talked about the tales of gossip which were told to travellers. It was perfectly true that the hon. Member for Cleveland must have had tales told to him. But the facts disclosed in the Blue-book showed what the administration of the Protectorate had been, and it should be remembered that it was not the interest of any official to put the worst side out. Very frequently striking defects were covered over by officials with the charity which covers a multitude of sins. He ventured to say that if the noble Lord would look at his own Blue-book, and read, in addition to the views of Sir George Goldie and Sir Guilford Molesworth, the statements contained in the Report of Colonel Gracey, he would be able to correct his own opinion. Above all, if he would read the literature 955 published by competent men on the question of opening up South Africa, even Sir Harry Johnston, Sir George Goldie, Sir Guilford Molesworth, and make allowance for the optimism which travellers indulged in, especially when they were of the Stanley type, he would find underlying all this optimism that there was a tragic story to be told with regard to the making of that railway and the present administration thereof. The hon. Member declined to accept Sir George Goldie's view of the situation at all. For years Sir George Goldie was his employer. He had nothing but praise and admiration for him as a gentleman, and he had no fault to find with him as a business man, but he would no more think of taking his opinion on the construction of a railway, the repairing of a ship, the engagement of coolies, the formation of an embankment or an escarpment, or anything of that kind, than he would think of taking the noble Lord's opinion on golf or cricket. The noble Lord would pardon him if he was rather persistent on this particular subject. He happened to know a good many of the men who had been out there. Speaking broadly and generally, they all came to the same conclusion as to the expense of the Uganda railway.
§
He entirely endorsed the criticism of the hon. Member for Cleveland, which was confirmed by the Blue-book, as to the cost of the railway. The hon. Member for Cleveland differed from him on the broad principle that induced this country to go to Uganda. He did not intend to discuss that matter at length, but he thought they were all agreed that the real reason that took us to Uganda was that we might get command of the head waters of the Nile. We were anxious to get there to keep France and Germany out, lest they might turn off the tap of the river Nile. If anyone were to make it now that suggestion would be regarded as the most fanciful and idiotic it was possible to make. That was the fatuous reason that took us to Uganda. All the authorities who had been to the head waters of the Nile stated that they were not commanded at all by that district. Distinguished travellers had proved that if they were to be commanded at all it was rather in Abyssinia than in the
956
district in which the Uganda railway was extending. If, as he had been told, the object of the annexation was to command the head waters of the Nile, that had turned out a mere fiction. The hon. Member for Cleveland told them that, given annexation, the railway was necessary, but he also stated that the railway was badly made at an extravagant cost. Then with a pleasing, light, and airy touch, such as might be observed in one who gave lantern lectures to his constituents, the hon. Member gave a description of the country. He also told the House that there was on the part of the natives, a desire for flowing garments and umbrellas, and that there was a great demand for soap. The fact that the country was fertile was no reason for building a railway. Acre for acre England was possibly one of the most fertile and productive countries in the world. He would rather spend a million of the country's money on the construction of railways here to help our English farmers than see this country command the head waters of the Nile. If the noble Lord could command these head waters, and provide the natives, who were well-dressed, with flowing garments, umbrellas and soap, did he think that the expenditure of pounds;6,000,000 of money would be justified? He would rather spend that money in solving the Irish problem, and that was just the round sum that would save Ireland next session from the internecine war that had been going on there for centuries. pounds;6,000,000 formed really the outstanding difference between Ireland and this country, and on the question whether that money would be better spent upon people in Africa, who loved flowing robes, umbrellas and soap, or upon people at home, he had made up his mind. The hon. Member for Cleveland said that we went there probably from humanitarian reasons. He said that the people were intelligent and adaptable, that they loved British rule, that the children of the place were flocking to school, and that there were plenty of hospitals. When he listened to this philanthropic sentimentalism he was reminded of the poet's words—
I do believe in freedom's cause,
As far away as Paris is.
§ He believed in freedom's cause, and in the saving of the people who were unemployed at this moment, to whom these pounds;6,000,000 957 of money would be an inestimable boon. If they wore going to carry out philanthropic humanitarianism where it was most needed, there were women in London and in the slums of other cities who might be rescued from a calling which they pursued for economic reasons. This money which was being spent on the construction of a railway in Uganda would do much to alleviate the sufferings of the poor of this country. The hon. Member for Cleveland had referred to the condition of the town of Nairobi. It was a most scandalous blot on the administration that there should be thousands of labourers living on an absolutely dead level plain, incapable of drainage, and where no end of disease must inevitably take place, while a few European officers were living on the higher ground where they could get better water and climate. What was the reason that these poor labourers had been put on this plain he could not understand. They would have to be moved; and if a reason was wanted why they should be moved, one had only to turn to the reports of the death-rate and the sickness among the labourers, whose conditions of life had been scandalously neglected by the engineers who were responsible for them. There were 2,367 deaths of labourers up to 1901; 6,354 had been invalided and taken back to India in that year; and 12,644 of these poor labourers had been admitted to hospital. This indicated a neglect of sanitary precautions which ought not to be tolerated for one moment longer by the noble Lord who had charge of this particular branch of the Administration.
*LORD CRANBORNEThe hon. Member ought to give the total number of labourers employed. The death-rate is 11 per 1,000.
§ MR. JOHN BURNSsaid 11 per 1,000 was too much. It was an awful death-rate, and it could have been avoided if proper precautions had been taken. The Reports of our own Foreign Office gave unmistakable evidence of the deadliness of the climate, while the Reports of the German Foreign Office showed that bubonic plague was indigenous to Uganda, and decimated the population. When, therefore, it was said that there was a probability of 958 Europeans colonising there, all he could say was that any Englishman who attempted to do so ought to be sent either to a lunatic asylum or to a home for inebriates. He had not criticised this branch of foreign affairs because he thought the reason for going to the Lake could be revised; they could not undo that policy, but they could modify it in important details. Had we not almost enough territory wherewith to occupy our attention, politically, industrially, and commercially? This Uganda policy was a link in the long chain of rash, costly, deadly Imperialism that involved this country in the most costly war of modern times. He believed in Imperialism of the old-fashioned type—the establishment of coast trading stations and commerce extended by winning the confidence of natives by fair dealing. Results should impress the Government with the folly of these schemes for extension of Empire. Unless the Foreign Office was seriously impressed by the criticisms which had been delivered in the light of sound information, this expenditure of these six millions would double, and, finally. the only asset would be two long rusty steel ribbons stretching from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza abandoned in despair because our policy of universal grab had landed us in trouble nearer home. Our rivals were delighted to encourage us on these mad-cap expeditions, because in them we lost men and wasted money; but some day when we had to wrestle with the beasts in the European Ephesus, weakened in our outposts and dependent on alien troops, we should want the money and men that have been squandered by this Uganda policy.
§ Resolution agreed to.
§ Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by Lord Cranborne, Mr.Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Deputy Chairman.