Orders of the Day — East African Groundnuts Scheme

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 27 July 1949.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Evelyn Strachey Mr Evelyn Strachey , Dundee 12:00, 27 July 1949

That is a separate point, but I should have thought they tended at the beginning to be mainly employees of the United Africa Company and would, therefore, be mainly business men. There was a distinguished soldier, Major General Harrison, the chief executive officer of the scheme until his health broke down, and now there is Sir Leslie Plummer, who was mentioned by the hon. Member for Newbury. I was making the point that, whatever criticism may be brought against him he is neither a Service type nor a Civil Service type but essentially a businessman, and if we had not appointed a businessman to the position what very sharp criticism we would have had from hon. Members opposite.

The hon. Member for Newbury went on to say that there was no one in this scheme who had experience of tropical agriculture in Africa, but the man running the scheme and fully responsible is Professor Phillips who is perhaps the greatest expert on tropical agriculture in the whole of Africa.