MR. WALKERI beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the business connected with the proposed construction of a railway or railways in Northern Nigeria will be entrusted to the Crown Agents; and, if so, whether the estimate given by the Foreign Office in 1896 of the cost of construction of the Uganda Railway, which estimate was actually exceeded by £2,300,000, was based upon calculations made by the Crown Agents.
§ MR. CHURCHILLNo statement as to the agency by which railways in Northern Nigeria will be constructed can be made until it has been decided whether any such railways are to be constructed and if so what railways. The Crown Agents do not construct railways or make estimates of the cost of construction, and the estimate of the cost of the Uganda Railway was not based upon calculations made by them.