ABSTRACT
It has been left to a Conservative Government, which is opposed to direct State enterprise at home, to readopt for future railway work in East and West Africa the discredited policy of Departmental construction. The real cost of the Uganda Railway will probably never be known. The record of railway construction in West Africa is almost as melancholy a story as the history of the Uganda Railway. The construction of a railway through an unknown country may be commenced departmentally without the delay inseparable from the carrying out of detailed surveys and the preparation of a contract. The record of railway construction in the Gold Coast, even among illustrations of the working of the Departmental System, stands out as absolutely unparalleled in inefficient results. The Lagos Railway, which started the South Nigerian Railways, was an equally illuminating undertaking.
