§ Mr. FREWENasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that, in the local currency of Northern Nigeria, cowries have been hitherto full legal tender for all dues and taxes, so that cowries being regarded as standard money have constituted the hoarded wealth of millions of natives, and that for the first time during this financial year the cowrie currency has, and without warning, been demonetised by the Government over an important section of Nigeria, including the great province of Kano; whether the cowrie has been replaced in the Nigerian currency by British silver coins which are to-day the only unlimited legal tender currency there, so that the British Treasury is to-day buying silver at less than 2s. 2d. per ounce and selling it, when coined, to the natives at the rate of 5s. 6d. per ounce; whether the natives are beginning to hoard this silver currency, which is as inconvertible into any standard money as cowries are, its convertibility being as with cowries subject to the fiat of the local administration; whether, to protect the natives who hoard these depreciated token silver coins, His Majesty's Government will guarantee the conversion of this British silver currency into gold without limit as to amount at the rate of twenty shillings, or ten florins, for the sovereign; whether steps will be taken to introduce into Nigeria the Indian rupee, which is already the currency of the East Africa Protectorate and Uganda and much contiguous territory, which coin, unlike the shilling, being unlimited legal tender over a vast portion of His Majesty's dominions and convertible into the sovereign at fifteen to one, is unlike our token coins not subject to depreciation in the money of our standard; and what this year was the 1040W deficit covered by a grant-in-aid and, reckoning the absorption of coined silver in the Nigerias at some £700,000, was there a profit on the issue of this silver over the grant-in-aid?
Mr. HARCOURTNo action has been taken with regard to the demonetising of cowries, which have never been "legal tender" in the strict sense of the term, but which have been, and continue to be, accepted by the Government in payment of taxes, and are still current among the natives. The Government is striving, and with success, to replace this unsatisfactory form of currency, which varies greatly in value in different parts of the country, and is subject to constant fluctuations, by British coin, and also by a subsidiary nickel coinage of small denomination. It is true that silver coin is legal tender to an unlimited amount, but except in this respect the law as to the tender and currency of coinage is the same in Northern Nigeria as in the United Kingdom. The natives of Northern Nigeria, as in other parts of West Africa, have a very decided preference for silver coin, but if they should desire to exchange their silver coin for gold, the Government would be very ready to meet their wishes. In the circumstances, there would be no advantage, and indeed many disadvantages in attempting to introduce a rupee coinage into West Africa, where British silver coin has been current on the coast for generations, and is now readily accepted in most places in the interior. The grant-in-aid to Northern Nigeria for the present financial year is £347,000. I am unable to accept the hon. Member's calculation that the annual absorption of silver coin in Northern and Southern Nigeria combined amounts to £700,000. I have not received the statistics for 1910, but the amount for 1909 was £256,446, and the average for the nine years ending with that year was under £200,000 a year, of which the greater portion was no doubt absorbed by Southern Nigeria, which is not in receipt of a grant-in-aid. It is, therefore, evident that the profit on the issue of the silver absorbed in Northern Nigeria is very much less than the amount of the grant-in-aid to that Protectorate.