Rescue Operation
R. MAUDL1NG'S last act as Colonial Secre- tary was an encouraging omen for his appointment as Chancellor. For his land purchase scheme in Kenya shows a rare combination of Political and economic good sense. By providing what will probably be about £15 million to pro- mote the purchase by Africans of land now in the hands of white settlers, he has enormously eased the economic and racial position in Kenya. And since the scheme is put forward as only a first step, it will no doubt be extended later to the remaining two-thirds of settler-owned territory. The economic benefits to Kenya's Africans are obvious. But, in spite of the fact that Mr. Maudling himself discounts the idea, it is perhaps in its aspect as a 'rescue operation' for the white settlers that we may see the greatest political wis- dom. To leave the settlers in the lurch. we believe, would have been bad politics and bad morals. It would have meant a shoddy abandonment to Poverty of thousands of Britons through no fault of their own. And it would certainly in the long rim have exacerbated racial feeling in all com- munities of Kenya, to the extent probably of pro- ducing massacre and certainly of alienating an independent Kenya by the most obvious method conceivable. Areas of Africa containing white settlers are the most refractory for the develop- ment of democratic independence. The Left-wing solution, of treating the white minority as crim- inal intruders whose rights can be ignored, is both stupid and inhuman. The black seems at least as unprepared as the white for any true 'multi-racial democracy,' though this must remain the aim where the white population is large and rooted. If in other cases the white settler can be pain- lessly extricated and decently compensated, that "'ill save us endless trouble in the future. But how often before have governments undertaken expenditures dictated only by moral responsi- bilities and long-term political wisdom?
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