What would "closing down
Page 608 17.
Phat would be involved in a decision to close down' the scheme immediately? If this were done on financial grounds it would require the immediate cancellation of all contracts for the supply of equipment, the dismissal of all the staff in East Africa save those who would be required for the dis- posal of all equipment and the immediate cessation of all work there. It is most unlikely that more than a small proportion of the cleared land could be used by the Government of Tanganyika. The assets in East Africa would consist of a partly constructed port and nearly completed railway in the Southern Province (the purpose for which would have vanished), several considerable settlements ranging from the new town of Kongwa (which is already the second largest town in Tanganyika) and various scattered housing developments through- out the territory. These towns and townships have cach con- siderable public works in the way of water supply, drainage, electric light and the like none of them, in the absence of the groundnut scheme itself, would serve any visible purpose; many hundreds of miles of new roads - some
some, no doubt, of these would be of some use to the community, but in the absence of the groundnut scheme they would also be, to a large extent wrongly sited: some 100,000 acres of cleared area at Kongwa in the Central Province, in what is proving the least promising because the least well watered area of the three, 20,000 cleared acres at Urambo in the Western Province and some 2,000 cleared acres in the Southern Province.
It is very doubtful whether these cleared acres on these sites would in themselves represent a workable proposition from the agri- cultural point of view. There can be no reason for questioning the Corporation's views that if the scheme is abandoned now there will be a loss of £30 million. And abandonment of the
groundnut scheme will mean the end of the Overseas Food Corporation at a time when there is every sign that they are really taking a grip of the scheme. Mistakes have been made but the great majority of our difficulties result from the early years of the scheme before experience had been built up and when all were working to unattainable targets. The Corporation took over effective control of the scheme on 31st March, 1948, and I have been encouraged by the way in which they have overcome many of the problems which they inherited.
Can His Majesty's Government agree to a closing down policy?
18.
Is this course of closing down the scheme a policy to which the Government can subscribe? We embarked on this job with due realisation of the risks which we had to run. In my paper recommending the adoption of the scheme C. P. (47) 10 dated 4th January, 1947) I said: "My colleagues will see that this is a big enterprise; it has to be if it is to meet even a substantial part of our desperate need for fats. My colleagues would not believe me if I tried to pretend to them that such a scheme was free from risk. Of course, serious difficulties and delays, many of them unforeseeable, may arise in the course of a great undertaking of this sort. "
It was because the risks were so high that we selected a public cor- poration to tackle the enterprise. An enterprise of this nature involves considerable risks and I think it would be disastrous for the prospects and prestige of public enterprise if we were to abandon the East African Groundnuts Scheme because some of the risks in the opening years have gone against it. How many of the really large business concerns have been successful right from the outset? Surely commercial experience shows that many of the really great businesses have only been built up after years of extraordinary difficulty years with- out dividends 60ghen capital was written down - but yet
of
writpendous of successful an the end.' Our policy necessary9911997that only public enterprise will be available to take the really
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