86. Mr. Hector Huģhesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will specify the state of trade union organisation and the progress of the Cooperative 206W movement in the African Colonies, giving the numbers and kinds of the various unions and branches and the central organisations to which they are, respectively, affiliated.
§ Mr. Georģe Hall:In Nigeria there are over go registered unions embracing all the principal industries, the majority of which are members of the Trades Union Congress of Nigeria. Sierra Leone has nine unions, one of which is a branch of the National Union of Seamen, covering mining, waterfront, railway and general workers and seamen. There is a central organisation known as the Sierra Leone Trades Union Council. In the Gold Coast there are 12 unions covering the railway, mines, municipal and transport workers, and in the Gambia there are three general unions.
In East Africa, trade unions have been, or are being formed, among the railway workers of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika and in Uganda there is an African Motor Drivers' Union. In Northern Rhodesia there are three unions in the mining industry.
As regards the Cooperative movement, progress varies in the different African territories. Among those in which active movements exist are Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Tanganyika and Kenya. The societies are mainly producers' societies. I have recently emphasised in a circular dispatch to all Colonial Governments the importance of developing the cooperative movement in all its branches and have asked all territories to send me an annual report on progress.