IN DEFENCE OF THE SETTLEMENT
No area of British overseas policy has in recent years aroused such anger in discussion, such disregard of reasoned argument, such carelessness of the true interests of this country and of the inhabitants overseas with which it deals, as the area we now know as southern Africa. Particularly, the Republics of South Africa and of Rhodesia have become regarded as countries of intimate moral concern to Britain. Other adjacent territories, such as Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi are not thus regarded; nor are important states like Nigeria, or historically interesting states like Kenya and Ghana, the peculiar objects of British moral attitudes. Racial slaughter in Zanzibar occasions little in the way of moral rebuke from our more pretentious vicarious moralists; racial warfare in Nigeria is deplored, to be sure, but politically it was easy enough to put up with; and Nkrumah's national socialist Ghana, even during its hey-day of tyranny, seriously distressed few British consciences. The general assumption of the racial moralists has been: black men are entitled to rule badly, tyrannously, racially, but white men are not. It has always been a curious attitude, for basically it has amounted to an assertion that better standards of behaviour are to be expected from white men than from black, and that therefore the white governments of Rhodesia and South Africa are to be censured for behaviour which, coming from black (or from white or yellow communist) governments would be excused. The Spectator has endeavoured to contend against such hypocrisies, and to argue that no such double standards should inform British policy towards southern Africa.
It has been our argument that Britain could do little to influence the course of events in Rhodesia; and that therefore it was far better for this country to abandpn the pretence of coercing the Smith regime into more enlightened views by means of ineffective sanctions. Now, rather unexpectedly, there is a settlement. It is not, naturally, ideal, but judged against what seemed only a few weeks ago to be the practical political possibilities of the situation, it is a remarkable achievement on the part of the Foreign Secretary and his negotiators. There are many who feel that any deal with Mr Smith and his colleagues is shameful, not merely because any such deal will not immediately give equal rights to the Rhodesian African, but also because they are convinced that an independent, white-dominated Rhodesia will sooner or later break the terms of the agreement. What ought to be recognised, nonetheless, is that the British Government faced the painful and unenviable task of choosing between three courses of action — maintaining the status quo, cutting adrift altogether from the problem, and coming to some agreement such as the present one — all of which were, in one way or another unsatisfactory, in that none of them could place the Rhodesian Africans on a level .with their white fellow-countrymen. In the hysterical abuse poured out against Mr Heath and Sir Alec since the terms were announced, there has been little recognition of the difficulty'.of their position, the painful nature of the choice they had to make, or their honest desire to do what could be done for the African.
Apart, then, from the fact that the settlement, if it goes through, will bring to an end a ridiculous and unreal charade, there is one crucial test to be applied to the terms. Do they offer a better opportunity of future progress to the African than would a policy based on the maintenance of sanctions, or a policy of washing our hands of the whole affair? Whatever happens in the future there can be little doubt that this question must be answered in the affirmative. The settlement does not guarantee eventual majority rule, nor even substantial progress: and of course it might be broken. But it does offer an opportunity of African advance, and that is Something that cannot be said of any alternative policy.
Further, in trying to form a judgment on whether or not the white Rhodesians will keep their word a great deal of attention should be paid to the machinery for preventing retrogressive amendment of the new constitution. Essentially, this provides that there can be no amendment to the settlement without support from two thirds of the assembly and a simple majority of each of the racial groups in parliament voting separately. At the same time the new bill of rights will be justiciable, and will provide substantial protection against any further development of racial discrimination. Since there is no conceivable parliamentary method of overthrowing these entrenched provisions, there can be retrogressive amendment to the new constitution only by extra-legal, and extra-parliamentary means; by, in short, a coup. While coups are far from unknown in Africa, it is not particularly likely that we will see one in Rhodesia. Consequently, although Sir Alec did not secure a guarantee of repeal of the Land Tenure Act and of other discriminatory legislation going back for nearly half a century, he has not only stabilised the existing position — including halting the eviction of Africans from mission lands in pursuance of the Land Tenure Act — but he also provided some hope for the future; and he has done all this in a manner and with machinery unlikely to be reversed or overthrown.
For whatever reasons of their own, it is clear that the white Rhodesians are deeply anxious not to be drawn any further into the clutches of South Africa. The only practical result likely to follow the prolongation of the sanctions policy would have been more and more integration with Rhodesia's powerful southern neighbour, with highly undesirable and probably disastrous consequences for the Rhodesian African. The settlement offers the only opportunity of rescuing Rhodesia from the orbit of South Africa. While it is, therefore, perfectly reasonable to doubt both the intentions and the honesty of the Smith government and its likely successors, it is also clear that only such a settlement as this offers real hope for the future, especially as it is designed in such a way as to encourage progress, at however slow a pace, while providing strong hedges against both internal change and external influence of an undesirable kind. It might have been moralistically more gratifying for Britain to maintain her aloof ineffectiveness in the face of further steady deterioration of the political, social and racial situation in her former dependency. We could have prolonged our useless disapproval of what was happening under Mr Smith. But none of this would have been either practical or helpful. The government has taken both the most courageous and the most practical course.
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