SIR,—That the surgeon Sir Godfrey Huggins knows what is best
for the patient will no doubt be proved when the referendum vote on Federation,- taken on April 9th, is known. There is no doubt, however, that a very large number of votes will also be cast against Federation chiefly by the older Rhodesians and Africaners, and for reasons- exactly opposite to the objections raised by the British Labour party.
That the British Government wishes to form a strong British block in Central South Africa, and thereafter give it Dominion status, is the chief argument of the pro-federationists, but what-they rarely mention
is that this Dominion must be a blast( one just as soon as the Africans have been educated up to franthise status. Sir Godfrey has said that our choice lies between a black State within federation or a black State outside federation. What, asks the Old Rhodesian, is going to be the attitude of a black majority to a white minority, our children, in the years to come ?
Southern Rhodesia, which was taken by force of arms, has 140.000 whites and 1,500,000 blacks. The whites have freehold title to half the land. They are asked to federate with two mandated territories, Nyasaland with 2,000,000 blacks and 6,000 whites almost all of whom are officials, and with Northern Rhodesia with 1,500.000 blacks and 40,000 odd whites, 18,000 of which are workers in the copper mines and half the remainder either officials or railway-men. There remain probably not more than 5.000 adult white males with a private interest in the two countries.
Sir Godfrey has said that there will be no white settlement in Nayasaland; and Barotziland, a very large province of Northern Rhodesia, has a treaty with Queen Victoria to the same effect. which he will uphold. In Northern Rhodesia ninety-three per cent. of the land is held already by Africans, and the remaining seven per cent. may only be held under lease by Europeans. There is no freehold title for Europeans in mandated territory: The Old Rhodesian asks himself: Why must I take these black nations into the social framework which I have built for myself and my naive population, and submit such things as agriculture and, immigration to the rule of a Federal parliament, the former meaning the sharing of orderly marketing so hardly won and the latter perhaps unhappiness and industrial unrest to a happy native population told by half-educated Africans that they are unhappy ? What again will happen if I don't ? White immigration in Southern Rhodesia is at a far faster percentage-rate than black natural increase, and the anti-federationist looks forward to a Southern Rhodesia Dominion at no very distant date, with his native population as a junior partner happy in the, prosperity that the white man has brought into existence.
Why cannot a black Dominion be formed from the Sudan to the Zambesi ? The Old Rhodesian does not care for the Colonial system of administration, with its allowing of fire-arms and too much political consciousness for the uneducated. He regards Mau Mau as the direct result of this, and suspects that he is being asked to take • over a position already getting out of hand:- and at the same time his hands are to be tied before dealing with it. - Why else is he asked to federate with another race whose customs, traditions, culture, moral standards, family life, economic outlook and almost every other aspect of life are entirely divorced from, and contrary to, his own, by a race that does not want to federate with him ?—Yours faithfully,
G. W. HUGHES.
Melrose P.O.. Hunters Road, Southern Rhodesia.
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