HC Deb 09 August 1904 vol 139 c1557
MR. NORMAN (Wolverhampton, S.)

To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what has been the cost of the Boundary Commission commanded by Captain Elliot in surveying the frontier line between the Niger and Lake Chad; and will he state briefly what the Commission has accomplished.

(Answered by Earl Percy.) The complete accounts of the expenditure incurred on this Boundary Commission have not yet been received, but the total expenditure may be estimated at from £9,000 to £10,000. Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot, R.E., and the officers who assisted him have made a careful survey of the whole of the frontier, some 900 miles in length, no portion of which had been accurately mapped before; and have, in conjunction with the French members of the Joint Commission, determined the positions of a very large number of towns and villages in the regions traversed by them, which were previously unmarked on any map or which had been open to dispute.