ANOTHER ALGERIA
NTIL the Nyasaland Congress was outlawed and its leaders arrested, and the troops opened fire in Blantyre, the Nyasaland riots were oddly lacking in real violence. It seemed that both the Nyasaland Government and the Africans were taking care not to go too far and might have settled their differences but for the influence of the Federal Government. Newspaper reports of 'African mobs' evoke horrifying pictures in minds brought up on Kipling and Henry Newbolt; but these were fairly good-tempered mobs and were only doing a good deal more peaceably what the Chartists were doing in Britain little over a century ago, and for very much the same reasons —under-privilege and under-representation. It is tragic that the Federal Government seems to be succeeding in drawing the British and Nyasaland Governments into agreement to repeat all the mistakes of that epoch.
The great objection to Federation is that it extends the influence and attitudes of Southern Rhodesia (where Britain has had no power since 1923) to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, where we have vast responsibilities. The policy of violent lunacy which began with the arrest of Southern Rhodesian congressmen seems to have won the day in the whole Federation and has led to the expulsion of Mr. Stonehouse, the proclama- tion of an emergency in Nyasaland and the arrest of Dr. Banda and other Nyasaland Congress leaders. It means that the Federal Government's
determination to retain the present rigid edifice of Federation has overridden the more flexible policies of the Nyasaland Government; that Sir Roy Welensky's obsessive determination to create a Great White Dominion out of a Federation has been foisted on the uncertain counsels of the British Government. To what extent the Federal Government is prepared to defy Britain is still not apparent, but it looks as if it is prepared to go a long way. Nor must we forget that there is a large South African Army to the south and that nothing could please Dr. Verwoerd better than accept an invitation to send it in to assist in keep- ing order. Britain's main concern must be with the Northern Territories and it is absolutely vital to maintain their Protectorate status and safe- guard their African inhabitants from Southern Rhodesian domination, If this means cutting them out of Federation entirely—and the panic, impatience and racial immoderation shown by the Federal and Southern Rhodesian Governments in handling the present .difficulties makes this in-. creasingly likely—it must be done.
It is barely credible that in the same week as Archbishop Makarios made his triumphal return to Cyprus, the old unprofitable roundabout of repression and deportation of National leaders should have been started in Central Africa. The parallel with Cyprus, however, is not exact. Unless the Government changes course, it will have created not another Cyprus but another Algeria.
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