Classical Pattern
Now we must watch the classical colonial pattern being worked out in Southern Rhodcsal. One hour's rioting obtains more tangible conces' sions than months and months of talking. What chance has any nationalist leader of persuading his movement to accept a policy of non-violence when the African people can see clearly that 3s long as they arc patient they are fobbed. off with specious promises. but the moment their patience runs. out and there is trouble change rapidly follOWs? . . There is a moral for Northcre. Rhodesia here: It is quite clear that there will be Constitutional change very shortly. Now k the time to push it through before there i any further unrest.
THE writer is Cohn Morris. in the ealtill CAfrican Examiner, a journal which. after some vicissitudes, has now detached itself from Sir Roy Welensky's coat-tails, and settled down to provide an informed commentary on Coital) African affairs; and the point which Mr:- Morris makes is one that Mr. Sandys and Mr: Macleod would do Well to consider. • WC pointed out last month that it %wok! he abstird to hope that Northern Rhodesia will remain quiet in view of the concessions that the Nyasalanders have gained at Lancaster House. There is, of course, still no evidence that Or' Banda intended violence at the time he vo.s, imprisoned; but as the Federal GovernMentt insisted that he did, they can hardly complain: if Africans now feel it was the threat of violence that won the concessions. Now, the same thing, has happened in Southern Rhodesia. Vic,. Africans there were quiet: therefore (the Gov", ernment insisted) there could be no real nation' alist pressure. As soon as the pressure revealed itself, in a couple of days' rioting, Sir Edgar Whitehead offered concessions that ought to have been made long before. The concessions happen to be in the traditional too-little-too-late pattern, but the fact that they have been offered is naturally taken as an indica' tion in the Rhodesias, North as well as South, that force brings results—and only force. The Government cannot expect the unfortunate Ken- neth Kaunda to retain his leadership of the nationalist movement in Northern Rhodesia. if it appears that a policy of non-violence is simply exploited by the authorities to enable them to remain inactive. Surely Mr. Macleod, to at least, realises that if Kaunda goes, his succes- sor will be much less easy to deal with?
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