Gambia Poultry Scheme

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 13 March 1951.

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Photo of Mr Anthony Hurd Mr Anthony Hurd , Newbury 12:00, 13 March 1951

I am nearing my conclusion, and I have not a first-hand knowledge of Mr. Phillips. No doubt the Secretary of State for the Colonies has that knowledge.

We must get all these schemes, however promising they look, vetted properly by men who know something about the tropics, about rainfall, or about producing poultry or whatever the project may be. There is always someone, somewhere in the world, who has done, or who has tried to do, something similar, maybe with success, or maybe not. There is always advice to be got which is based on experience. These are the men whose opinions must be sought out and tested before a novel project is started.

In most cases, it would be best to effect a partnership between the Colonial Development Corporation and private enterprise, so as to bring the profit motive into play. That would be the best guarantee against more of these disappointments. It is all very well for a Government Corporation to accept schemes on the basis that if one does not pay, another one will pay. That is terribly deceptive. The manager of each will be thinking that it does not matter if his particular scheme is. "in the red" because somebody else's will be paying well, but there comes a day of reckoning when too many schemes are "in the red" and the total looks very nasty.

Can the House be assured that there are now on the Board of the Colonial Development Corporation practical men capable of making a critical assessment of new projects and of keeping a careful watch on the project that has been started? In this House we have a duty to the taxpayers of the country no less than to the peoples of the Colonial Empire. We know now how things can go wrong, and many of us know, too, that we can place no faith in the practical wisdom and business sense of present Ministers—I wish that we could, because they have heavy responsibilities.

There are, I am afraid—and I speak not merely for those on these benches, but for the country—present today Ministers who have shown themselves incapable of seeing that such enterprises are run successfully. So we must ask the House to approve the Motion. There can be no shadow of doubt that we are right to record our regret and dissatisfaction at the scandalous way in which this affair has been handled.