31 OCTOBER 1958, Page 24

Old Lobengula

Birth of a Dilemma. By Philip Mason. (Ins of Race Relations: O.U.P., 30s.) His Own Oppressor. By B. G. Paver. Davies, 25s.)

LOBENGULA was a merry old soul. He en, oyed drinking champagne out of the Bottle and tc ing criminals, but the White concession-hunt tier' rs et They his kraal found him a wise ruler by his lights. a no called him 'the old buster,' and with that sti with combination of affection for an individual mcnt a determination to destroy the whole environ alcnt which made him, they founded the ambh

ative. attitude of Rhodesian settler to Rhodesian n and Mr. Mason calls it 'that liking for individual ivide dislike of what they stood for that was to c so many hearts in Rhodesia.' book Only the best hearts were divided. His and describes the demolition of the Matabele

negi Mashona societies and the erection of a own nation on their ruins by very single-hearted peak indeed. Rhodes went out into the hills to ched with the rebel chiefs because illogically he re in to win their approval for his vision of a futt

nets. which they would be reduced to junior par dons The hard farmers and miners who for genera ation fought the Colonial Office to win the legalis hies• of forced labour had few such divided

f the Birth of a Dilemma is essentially a history ribal growth of law in Rhodesia, passing from of a law through company law to the first buds

law which belongs to Black and White eq

and might claim to be 'wisdom without desi ught Mr. Paver's book is a very muddled onsli 110' upon 'Black demagogues . . . Fabian fe d all travellers . . . globe-trotting journalists' ar man' the other 'misbegotten mentors of the Black

on whom the Rhodesian mind seems to feed its unnecessary paranoia. He writes an excellent chap- ter on South African nationalism, but only to argue an impossible parallel with African nation- alism. To him, the object of government is to preserve the civilisation of an upper class in a class-stratified society. Too bad about that globe- trotting, fellow-travelling demagogue Rhodes.

NEAL ASCHERSON