HC Deb 16 April 1907 vol 172 cc763-4
MR. J. M. ROBERTSON (Northumberland, Tyneside)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in the case of an official appropriation of land at Khartoum, the Governor, Stanton Bey, has informed the natives concerned that the price paid to them is simple backsheesh, given at the pleasure of the Government.

SIR EDWARD GREY

I have no information on the subject. If the hon. Member will supply me with particulars of what appropriation of land is referred to, I will inquire what the circumstances and conditions of the appropriation were.

MR. J. M. ROBERTSON

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the natives at Khartoum have requested the Government to establish schools for girls, and have been referred to the Protestant schools controlled by missionary organisations, where the children are taught solely on Christian lines.

I beg further to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Soudan Government has appropriated for public purposes 1,800 feddans of land north of Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, and has paid for it, not at the market rate, but at prices fixed by the officials at their pleasure; and whether at Khartoum North (Halfayah) the Government has forcibly appropriated land from native owners at £2 per feddan and has sold it for prices of £15 or more per feddan to the Model Farming Association.

I also wish to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, since the conquest of the Soudan, the administration has confiscated the lands and property formerly, and in large part before the time of the Mahdi, owned by the Wakf—, that is to say, the Moslem ecclesiastical organisation which received bequests and gifts from Moslems for religious or charitable purposes; and, if so, whether the property thus confiscated could not be devoted to purposes of education.

SIR EDWARD GREY

The Answer to these Questions is that I have no information, but will make inquiry. With regard to female education, I have to refer the hon. Member to Chapter 42 of Lord Cromer's Report for 1906.