Copy
FOLL
30585/4A/51
544083/(14/50
COLONIAL OFFICE,
Church House,
Great Smith Street,
S.W.1.
13 July, 1951.
Dear Nicoll,
My dea
In Hong Kong savingram mumber 125 of the 26th January, 1950 we were asked to let you have any information which we could give about the methods being used in carrying out a survey of the economic conditions of cocoa farmers in Nigeria, We replied in our savingram mumber 247 of the 11th March, 1950 that the Governor of Nigeria was being asked about this survey.
We have now heard from Professor Ashby of the University of Oxford Agricultural Economics Research Institute that the general programme of the Nigerian survey has now been settled and that he is ready to discuss with one of your officers the methods to be used in this survey.
I imagine your original enquiry was made in connection with the proposed Economic and Social survey of the New Territories which you discussed when you were on leave last year, both with Surridge in this Office and Firth of the London School of Economics. I gather, however, that you are now in favour of dropping the large scale survey then under consideration and instead were feeling your way by carrying out small sample surveys,
In the circumstances I doubt if you would consider it worth while to send anyone here specially for discussions with Ashby but on the other hand a suitable officer might be coming home on leave and, if you wish it, we could arrange for him to meet Ashby. In the meantime we intend to thank Ashby for his offer, tell him that we have conveyed it to you and will write to him again when we have obtained your views. Perhaps when (?) the Korean war has ended, Import/Export controls removed and conditions in China become more normal, you may find time to carry out the survey on the original large scale after all!
J.F. NICOLL, ESQ., C.M.G.
Jou
smeirely
Dynali H.P. Hall