Central African Federation

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 739, 11 September 1953, Page 25

Central African Federation

Extracts from recent commentaries on the international news, broadcast from the Main National Stations of the NZBS

ation ... may be taken now as an accomplished fact as the Westminster Parliament has passed the bill enabling the Crown to make the necessary Order-in-Council, This federation of Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyaseland was, as you may know, the subject of great controversy in England and Africa early this year. There were few echoes of that struggle in our newspapers, but it was mentioned by Lookout several times. I’ve heard one or two items this week that justify my bringing it to your notice again. One was a statement by Sir Godfrey Huggins, till this week Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesa. He _ expressed his opposition to a new party called the Confederate Party, whose declared aim it was to preserve Central Africa for the white population. He warned this party against the introduction of racial hatred. There’s no need for me to go very fully into the arguments for and against federation. Such a state, the supporters of the scheme argued, would provide a solid and, especially at present, very desirable bastion of British strength in Africa; economically the three parts would work in well-there’s copper in Northern Rhodesia, coal and farming in Southern Rhodesia, and abundance of labour for farm and mine _ from the Nyasas whom I’ve seen described as among the most intelligent and industrious of all the peoples of Africa. Federation, too, they said, would facilitate much -needed capital investment, and it would be for the economic and political betterment of the Africans. These arguments were countered; but the main argument advanced against the Federation has been that at least some of the Africans of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia are violently opposed. to it. There was that visit of the five Central African chiefs to London at the beginning of this year. They presented age AFRICAN Feder-

esti Still their case against federation at many meetings, and the London Missionary Society and several of the more*seriovls papers took their side. The matter was bitterly fought in Parliament and many individuals also gave their support to the protest movement. Notable among these was the Rev, Michael Scott, that troubler -of: comfortable consciences, who, since his championing of the Hereros of South-West Africa before the United Nations, is allowed to return no more to Dr. ‘Malan’s South Africa. The chiefs ‘said: "If federation is forced on us, the British Government need have no illusions that it will not be resisted by Africans.. All measures, effective and prolonged, will be taken by us to defeat it and Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia will cease to be happy and contented countries." The chiefs, well aware of happenings in ‘South Africa, were frightened of coming undér the domination of the white settlers in Southern Rhodesia, where racial segregation and discrimination exist. The final draft of the scheme has not neglected the African. An _ African Affairs Board has been set up. It will consist of three Europeans and three Africans, drawn from the Legislature, of which it becomes a standing committee with the right to be consulted on all legislation affecting the African; and there’s African representation also in the Federal Legislature, but the African members will be in a permanent minority. Now this African Affairs Board seems to be the crux of the matter. Will it be sufficiently ‘independent of the source of its existence-the_ elected Legislature-to maintain an attitude that way not be pleasing to that Legislature? ,According to the London Times, the Prime Minister of Southern Rho-

desia said last April that the African Affairs Board should be accepted. "He did not see it could do any harm, and if it were found that it was serving no useful purpose, they could get rid ra oe dg ‘ This protection of the interests of the African is, 6f course, all important, and that’s why I welcome: Sir Godfrey Huggins’s recently-expressed opposition to this new Confederate Party, whose aim appears to be to keep the African firmly in his humble place. The Africans fear white domination, but possibly others are fearful, too. This new party perhaps is conscious of a ratio-one to thirty-200,000 Europeans to about 6,000,000 Africans. In South Africa the ratio’s only one to four, There was a reference in the -final draft of the scheme to a federal police force"which may be used in any territory at the request of the Governor, in addition to, or in substitution for, the police force of that territory." Well, I see little cause for optimism in the future of the Central African Federation. Fear is not a sound foundation for a solid

bastion.

FERGUS

MURRAY

August 22, 1953. ©

SOVIET POLICY

F the unification of North and South Korea should result from the [political] conference, the United States ex: pects that her offer of abundant financial assistance to South Korea may be a bait sufficiently large to ensure that in a free election enough North Koreans

will be eager to have a bite at the piece of cake to carry the day. This

carrot dangled before the donkey can be matched now behind the | Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union seems to have abandoned its wooing of the satellite countries on the old Stone Ag&® principle of "knock ’em down and drag

‘em: off," and to be substituting, at least in East Germany, a policy of concessions. There were announcements © of the impending release of German prisoners still in Russian labour camps (it’s a» long time since the war

ended, isn’t it?) and of the return to East Germany of enterprises run,by the | Soviet. There were extensive releases of financial liabilities and the promise of deliveries of raw materials and manufactured goods to East Germany. At a dinner to celebrate this, Mr. Malenkov traversed the old story of the warlike West and its danger to East Germany, but he didn’t mention the most terrible weapon in the armoury. of the West, a weapon far more to be feared than the hydrogen bomb- that weapon is’ the free election. It is to boost the popularity of the East German Communist Government, which suffered so much loss of face in the June riots, that much of. this Soviet concession is directed. What place in this the reports of the, German abandonment of military stations and. air bases have it is very hard to see clearly. A general softening of Russian foreign relations is not necessarily indicated by the news in Eastern Germany, for it has its own peculiar problems, The Russian attitude in the Korean conference is yet to be seen. Aggression into Korea has been Stopped,- and though Russia and China claim a victory, I think time may reverse that claim.

D. W.

McKENZIE

August 29, 1953.