A Policy for East Africa
In the ten days that have elapsed since the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr James Griffiths, made his important statement tO the Commons on constitutional changes in the Colonial Territories in East Africa, cautious but unmistakable expressions of satisfaction have been coming in from Uganda, Tanganyika and Kenya. What Mr. Griffiths said waethat, in the opinion of the British Government, the constitutional discussions should go forward separately in each territory rather than on a general East African basis. That is a sound and sensible decision. Nevertheless, the policy of unity for the three territories has its supporters, the East Mrican_High Commission exists, a number of important common services are already working, and there is no good reason for making the barriers between these separate parts of the Commonwealth higher than they are already. Mr. Griffiths' statement has had the effect: of reducing unity in a guiding principle, winch in this case is what it should be, rather than an immediate requirement, which it should certainly not be.. There is Aittle point, for example, in involving the relatively harmonious Tanganyika communities in the less satisfactory racial problems of Kenya—no more point than there would be in asking Kenya to compromise with the present unrepresentative system of Tanganyika. The immediate need of the peoples of these three territories is to know where they stand in constitutional matters. Mr. Griffiths has tried to meet that need, and he has told them that, in the eyes of the British Government, they stand separately. But he also used a number of phrases which have already led some of the most articulate Africans, concerned with the limitations on their representation, to complain that East African unity is not the only subject the Colonial Office is in no hurry about. But the fact remains that the Minister has made one of the more sensible statements about African affairs.
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