§ 2.37 p.m.
§ LORD HAILEYMy Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The question was as follows:
§ To ask His Majesty's Government, whether in view of the very large amount of ground-nuts still awaiting transport in Northern Nigeria, they have taken steps to furnish additional engines and wagons for the Nigerian Railways.]
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)My Lords, His Majesty's Government are extremely anxious to facilitate the removal of existing stocks of ground-nuts in Nigeria, and an improvement in the delivery dates of certain orders has been secured. I am glad to be able to inform the noble Lord that twenty locomotives are being shipped from this country during this week, and that seventy wagons are scheduled for delivery during the course of the current year. Other locomotives and wagons are on order, and everything possible is being done to expedite the execution of the orders.
§ LORD HAILEYMy Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, I hope that I may be in order in saying that, when I left Nigeria about a month ago, there were estimated to be as much as 250,000 tons of ground-nuts awaiting removal, and it was calculated that at the existing rate of removal it would take nearly a year, or perhaps eighteen months, to get them down to the port.
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONMy Lords, can the Minister say exactly what proportion of the 300,000 tons crop of ground-nuts have not been shifted, and whether he estimates that the whole of the existing overhang will have been shifted before the new crop has to be dealt with in the late autumn of this year?
§ LORD LLEWELLINMy Lords, before the Minister replies, I would like to ask this question: Are we to understand that these twenty locomotives are the first to be shipped to Nigeria after all this time? Has nothing yet reached there?
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, the answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, is: No; that is not the case. This is an instalment which is being sent out as a result of a special inquiry which was made at the end of last year during the visit to the Colony of Major-General Feilden, Vice-Quarter-Master-General, who was asked to inquire into the problem of the accumulation of ground-nuts. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, asked two questions to which I am afraid that I cannot reply, since I was not given Notice and they were not covered by the original question put down.
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONI beg leave to ask one more supplementary question, which does arise directly out of what the Minister has just said about Major-General Feilden having made a special inquiry. Is it not a fact that the Nigerian Government, even before the end of the war, had warned His Majesty's Government of the urgent need for replenishing the rolling stock, wagons and engines on that railway if this great ground-nut crop was to be shifted, and were not all the plans and needs before His Majesty's Government right back in 1945?
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, I will gladly reply to the noble Viscount, giving him the details for which he has asked, as soon as I have been able to refer the matter to my advisers.
§ LORD HARLECHMay I ask whether, in view of this appalling position—only seventy wagons to go out now, when we want hundreds—it would be possible to reorganise the river services and use the short haul from Kano to Baro down the Niger, so that ships may be available to shift this vast quantity of oil seeds? If the nuts are not shifted, will it not have a most discouraging effect on native production for many years to come?
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELI can assure the noble Lord that we have carefully examined the possibility of river transport, but the result of this examination has not encouraged us to adopt the view that the method is practicable.