PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
6T
Reference :-
C.O. 885
20 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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14. With regard to the financial question the Committee state that it is impossi- ble at this stage to furnish more than a very rough estimate of cost, but they have made some provisional calculations, and are of opinion that an expenditure of not less than £5,000 per annum must be anticipated.
15. Mr. Harcourt thinks that the best plan would be to ask the Nyasaland Government to provide the money required for the current financial year, and to consider, in connection with the Estimates for next year, whether Uganda and the Fast Africa Protectorate should not be called upon to contribute to the cost of the Commission. He has ascertained by telegram that the Government of Nyasaland anticipates a saving of at least £4,000, and probably more, on the Military Vote this year, so that the necessary expenditure in connection with the Commission can be met without any addition to the total authorised expenditure of the Protectorate for the year.
16. Mr. Harcourt has now given an outline of the scope, composition, and cost of the proposed Commission, and, if the general scheme meets with their Lordships' approval, he will submit detailed Estimates as soon as practicable. But he would point out that the matter is urgent, as he anticipates that, as a result of Sir D. Bruce's recently published work, much pressure will be brought to bear on the admin- istrative authorities of the, East Africa Protectorate as well as on the Secretary of State for the Colonies to exterminate the big game, and that, unless such requests are to be complied with, an investigation such as has been indicated will have to be undertaken.
17. Pressure, indeed, of this kind is already being put upon the local authorities in Nyasaland, and, in a despatch received at the end of February, the Acting Governor, referring to the apprehensions entertained as to the effect which was likely to be produced by the multiplication and diffusion of tsetse in the Protectorate both upon livestock and also with reference to sleeping sickness, observes as follows:--
These apprehensions, whether well-founded or not, are shared by a large number-probably by a large majority of the unofficial public of Nyasaland, and formed the subject of a prolonged debate at the recent (November) Session of the Legislative Council. As will be seen from the report of the proceedings of that Session,
a strong expression of opinion was put forward by the Unofficial Members of the Council in support of the policy of immedi- ately throwing open the whole of the Angoniland Districts to free shooting for the purpose of exterminating the game in that neighbourhood, on the assump- tion that tsetse cannot live apart from game, and that, with the destruction of the latter, the fly would incidentally disappear.
18. On the other hand, there is a powerful body of naturalists and big game hunters in this country, led by the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire, which will unquestionably oppose to the utmost any wholesale destruction of big game, the necessity of which has not been amply proved.
19. The matter is also of importance, from a financial point of view, to the Governments of the East African Protectorates, which derive a considerable revenue from the big game, directly in the fees for licences to shoot game, and indirectly in the Customs dues, railway charges, &c., paid by the hunters on behalf of themselves or the native followers employed by them.
20. Finally, in submitting a scheme which may have such important and far- reaching results as the present one, Mr. Harcourt desires to take the opportunity of expressing his entire concurrence with all that his predecessors have said regarding the value of investigations of this kind.
21. The epidemic of sleeping sickness in Uganda, and the recent outbreak of rinderpest in Uganda and the East Africa Protectorate have impressed upon him not only the necessity of such investigations, but the desirability of undertaking them at the earliest possible moment. Sleeping sickness is no new disease, and he under- stands that two cases of it were brought from the Congo Free State to London for treatment as long ago as 1898. The disease was at that time unknown in Uganda, and, if steps had then been taken to obtain the knowledge which has since enabled the local authorities to cope with it with a considerable measure of success, they would have been in a position to deal with it on its first appearance in the Protectorate, and possibly to suppress it altogether. The enquiry was, however, only set on foot when the epidemic had already assumed large dimensions, and, although the knowledge gained has enabled much to be done to control the spread of the disease, many thou- sands of natives have perished in the meantime, the revenue of the Protectorate has
47
suffered severely, and a large area of productive land has been thrown out of culti- vation.
22. As regards the outbreak of rinderpest in Uganda and the East Africa Protectorate, this must almost certainly entail an immense destruction of cattle in the two Protectorates, were it not that the knowledge gained by the investigation of the disease during the great epidemic in South Africa offers a reasonable prospect to the local authorities of being able to deal both effectively and economically with it.
23. Leaving out of consideration the humanitarian side of the question, it appears to Mr. Harcourt that in a continent like Africa, where epidemics occur so frequently, and where it is so difficult to control them, the investigation of disease is the best guarantee of economic progress, and that no expenditure is probably more profitable in the end than the money spent on this object.
am, &c..
14545
SIR,
No. 32.
I
TREASURY to COLONIAL OFFICE.
(Received May 4, 1911.)
G. V. FIDDES.
[Copy to Governor, May 15, 1911. No. 121. L.F.]
Treasury Chambers, 4th May, 1911. I HAVE laid before the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury Mr. Fiddes's letter of the 28th ultimo (12137/1911), relative to the appointment of a Commission to enquire into the relation of the African fauna to the maintenance and spread of human trypanosomiasis and into the trypanosome disease of domestic animals.
In reply, I am to state that, in view of the facts represented in the letter under reply, my Lords agree to the appointment of the Commission in principle on the understanding that no expenditure will actually be incurred until their Lordships have had an opportunity of considering the detailed estimate which Mr. Secretary Harcourt has promised to supply, and that for the current year the cost can be met from the funds of the Nyasaland Protectorate without involving an excess on the gross authorised expenditure.
I am,
16910
SIR,
No. 33.
&c.,
G. H. MURRAY.
FOREIGN OFFICE to COLONIAL OFFICE.
(Received 24 May, 1911.)
[Copy to Governors, East Africa Protectorate and Uganda, 5 June, 1911.
Confidential. LF]
[Answered by No. 35,]
Foreign Office, May 23, 1911.
WITH reference to the letter from this Department of the 23rd March last, t on the subject of the proposal to raise the limit of weight at which elephant tusks may be traded in, or exported from, Africa, I am directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to transmit to you herewith, for the information of Mr. Secretary Harcourt, a copy of a despatch which has been received from His Majesty's Acting Agent and Consul- General in Cairo enclosing one from the Governor-General of the Soudan setting forth the views of the Soudanese Government on the letter from the Colonial Office to this Department of the 25th February last (2940/1911).‡
• No. 31.
↑ No. 27.
† No. 25.