DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS BILL (Hansard, 23 May 1952)

§ Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)
I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
Rather to my surprise I find myself moving the Second Reading of this Bill. When, on the day I was fortunate enough to win a place in the Ballot, and the Bill did not arise, four Parliamentary authorities said I had "had it"—and if my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who is 890 momentarily absent, will forgive me for referring to another place—I decided that, if necessary, we must adopt the device of having the Bill introduced on the other side of the Central Lobby.
My only regret that the Bill is being discussed this afternoon is that the attendance in the House is rather inadequate for such an important occasion. The subject title of the Bill is: To establish throughout the United Kingdom and the non-self-governing Colonies and Protectorates a standard of Human Rights and Freedoms applicable to all Her Majesty's subjects without distinction of race, colour, sex, language, religion, birth or other status. In drafting the Bill we have sought to give full expression to that principle. If we have failed in any way to do it, we shall be grateful for suggestions for amending the Bill when, as I hope, it reaches the Committee stage. The Bill reverts to an older and a good custom in the House by having a Preamble. In that Preamble reference is made to the Atlantic Charter, to the Charter of the United Nations and to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations. One might have made reference to yet another document, the Convention of Human Rights which has been adopted by the Council of Europe.
It is, however, particularly upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that this Bill is based. That declaration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10th December, 1948, by 48 votes in favour, with none against and with eight abstentions. The nations which abstained are rather significant in character. They consist of the six nations associated with the Soviet bloc, the Government of Saudi Arabia, which was then very much of a dictatorship, and, not to our surprise, the Government of the Union of South Africa. All the other Governments in the United Nations voted in favour of this Universal Declaration.
It would not be too much to say that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations is one of the great six human documents for liberty since the beginning of time. I would place in the same category only the Magna Carta of 1215, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, the Bill of Rights of 1689, the American Declaration of In- 891 dependence of 1776 and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens of 1789. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an historic milestone on the long journey to fundamental freedom. This is its opening sentence: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. That is one of the greatest sentences penned in human history.
We are bringing forward this Bill because we believe it is now a matter of honesty that the Governments which accepted the Declaration of Human Rights should apply it in the territories for which they are responsible. This Bill applies not only to this country but to the Colonies and to the Protectorates. Article 2 of the Declaration of Human Rights particularly emphasises that the Declaration should be applied to the non-self-governing territories. It reads as follows: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. We sometimes forget in this House that while we are responsible for a population of 50 million within the United Kingdom, we are responsible for over 60 million in the non-self-governing territories of the British Empire. Therefore, I make no apology for including them within the scope of the Bill.
May I anticipate an objection which may be made from the benches opposite, that it is wrong for this Parliament to intervene by seeking to apply these principles to Colonies where legislative authorities are developing? I would concede at once that in any Colony where there is true self-government it would be wrong for this House to lay down a principle of its administration. But in the Colonies which come under this Bill it would be far from the truth to say that there is self-government.
The nearest approach is the Gold Coast which, we hope, will attain to full 892 Dominion status within a year or two. But is Kenya one of these Colonies? It has a Legislative Council, it has an African population of 5 million, but that population is not allowed to elect a single representative to that Legislative Council. With Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, one African territory after another in which the Africans have not the right themselves to elect representatives, it cannot be argued that in such conditions we are interfering with the democratic rights of another country when the majority in those countries have no democratic rights at all.
I recognise that in the United Kingdom the equalities urged in this Bill are broadly accepted. We are fortunate and happy that the sense of the colour bar is not strong here, but there are still cases where it operates. One of the largest housing organisations in London, a private company, which probably lets more flats than any other housing company, has a clause in its contracts not only by which no coloured person may rent a flat, but by which Europeans who rent the flats are not even allowed to have coloured visitors upon those premises.
In addition to that outrageous discrimination, one knows from experience that our friends from African and Asian countries find that the colour bar operates often when they are seeking accommodation, though I am glad to say that we have now reached a stage in this country where people are ashamed to confess that prejudice and it is not often given as the reason.
There is one other sphere in this country where we should do more to remove this discrimination. That is, in connection with university education. I am finding from my own experience that students who come from Africa, unless they have the endorsement of the Colonial Office, find it almost impossible particularly to get into medical schools. The Bill would lay it down that there should be equal opportunity for all students, irrespective of their colour. On the whole, however, one can speak with pride of Great Britain in its treatment of Asian and African peoples who come here. I wish that one could speak in the same way of the Continent of Africa as a whole.
893 I do not believe that it is possible to exaggerate the importance of the human issue which is now being decided in the Continent of Africa. I regard it as the most fundamental of all. I regard it as more fundamental than the patterns of social systems and more important than the structure of a political constitution, because it is the basic fundamental thing of all life.
Are human beings free and equal, as the Declaration of Human Rights lays down, or are there races in the world which have the right to regard themselves as superior? That issue is the big issue which is now being decided in the Continent of Africa. On the one hand, there is a Government, to which I will not refer, which in its legislation and in its administration is applying to the African people the Nazi philosophy of the Herrenvolk that the white race is a superior race and that the African race is little above the level of animals.

§ Mr. C. J. M. Alport (Colchester)
Would the Bill affect that Government?

§ Mr. Brockway
No, and that is exactly why I am making only a passing reference to it.
On the one side, there is that Government. On the other side, there is the great hope which is now offered in West Africa, the great hope which is offered in the Gold Coast, where the Africans themselves are moving towards self-government and where they are showing a constructive ability in it which is a matter for pride for all those who are associated at all with them.

§ Mr. Beresford Craddock (Spelthorne)
I hope that the hon. Member will be good enough to acknowledge that the state of affairs in the Gold Coast is very largely due to the efficient and wise British administration of the past.

§ Mr. Brockway
Yes, I am quite ready to acknowledge that.
There are some Members on the opposite benches who are so sensitive in these matters that they think that any championship of the African people is necessarily a denunciation of the Europeans in those countries or of the Civil Service which has been administering those countries. I assure the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock) that is not in my mind, 894 although he has suggested it in an earlier speech.
I believe everyone would recognise in the Gold Coast the advance which there has been and the technical assistance which is now being given—in that, the British administrators have played a very considerable part indeed—but the principle which I want to lay down is this. We must decide whether we wish to advance along the lines on which the Gold Coast is advancing, or whether we want to apply the colour bar and racial discrimination. When one comes to the latter point, there is between the Government of the Union of South Africa, on the one hand, and the Gold Coast, on the other hand, a great area in Central Africa and in East Africa where the decision between these principles has not yet been accepted.
When I was in Kenya 18 months ago, I was in the company in Nairobi of Dr. Kalabala, the Research Officer of the United Nations in East Africa, and also with a very high official of the office of the Indian High Commisioner—two distinguished men, two men who had gone to universities and colleges and had obtained the highest degrees, men with a culture equal to that of any Member in this House.
I spent one hour in the city of Nairobi trying to find a restaurant where I could sit down at a meal with them. After an hour, I had to go to a low dance hall establishment in the down-town of Nairobi before there was even any place where I could sit with my friends, because they happened to be African and Indian, to take a meal with them. There is no Member of the House who can justify that, and I say that when we have that kind of practice in our Colonies, in Colonies in which the Africans have no representation by election, it is time that the House indicated the view that the colour bar ought not to operate in that way.

§ Mr. Alport
Were any of the hotels at which the hon. Member applied for admission, Indian or European owned?

§ Mr. Brockway
Certainly—both. In fact, one of the restaurants into which I went was owned by an Indian, and I walked out when he would not serve my African and Indian friends. He came to me and said, "I can do no other. The 895 regulations of the licence under which I operate do not allow me"—

§ Mr. Brockway
—"to serve in this restaurant to any African or to any Indian, an intoxicating liquor."

§ Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)
That is different.

§ Mr. Brockway
The hon. Member says that that is different.

§ Mr. Doughty
Yes, it is.

§ Mr. Brockway
I ask Members on the benches opposite, if a European can have intoxicating liquor, why cannot an African or an Asian have it?

§ Mr. Alport
Surely the hon. Member is well aware that the whole object of introducing that legislation was to safeguard the Africans—I am not clear about the Indians, but certainly the Africans—from being sold intoxicating liquor and exploited. Surely, therefore, that sort of legislation is one which the hon. Member, who has the interests of the Africans at heart, would uphold in any sense of balance.

§ Mr. Brockway
I am objecting to racial discrimination in this matter. It is sheer paternalism for European people to say that we are to have the right to eat and drink what we like, but that the African and the Asian people shall not have that right.
I was giving that instance because in that case there was an Indian owner; I was yielding that point. But the hon. Member will be the last to assert that this applies only to those who are Indian owners of hotels or restaurants. We spent an hour going from hotel to hotel, and from restaurant to restaurant—not, in that case, to get intoxicating liquor, but just to get an ordinary meal—and I could not find a place where it could be provided to my friends, because they happened to be African and Indian. That is a thing of which we are all ashamed. At least, I hope we are all ashamed and, if someone is not, I hope he will get up and say so.

§ Mr. Doughty
I am not ashamed.

§ Mr. Brockway
All right, now we have evidence that even in this House there are hon. Members on the benches opposite who stand for the colour bar—

§ Mr. Doughty
The hon. Member has no business to say that.

§ Mr. Brockway
—who stand for the colour bar in the refusal of equal liberties even to break bread between a European, an African and an Asian.

§ Mr. Doughty
I said nothing of the sort about any colour bar. but I said I approved entirely of the regulations—one may call them paternal if one likes—which prevent coloured people getting those things which they should not get. There are also regulations in this country which prevent Europeans getting things they should not get.

§ Mr. Brockway
I will only ask the hon. Member to read HANSARD. I was describing how I was refused a meal, even without intoxicating liquors, with an African and an Indian friend of distinction and had to spend an hour in the City of Nairobi in finding a restaurant where that could be done.

§ Mr. Beresford Craddock
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and I only ask him to be kind enough to explain to the House on what basis these liquor laws are promulgated. Will he explain why Africans are not allowed to be served with intoxicating liquors?

§ Mr. Brockway
No, the hon. Member must not give a wrong emphasis to what I am saying. I only introduced the liquor case to illustrate the Indian case to which the hon. Member referred. My main case is that 18 months ago it was the general practice in Nairobi for Africans and Asians to be denied the opportunity to take a meal with or without liquor with a European in its restaurants and hotels.
Let me add this, because I want to assure the hon. Member for Spelthorne that I am not concerned only with Europeans. I came back from Kenya, unlike many other friends, hopeful about the future of that country. I came back from Kenya even hopeful about it on this issue of the colour bar because I found, not only in association with the African and Indian populations, but with a group 897 of Europeans there—Sir Charles Mortimer, Mr. Derek Erskine and others—who are very courageously standing for equality between the races and, indeed, taking the initiative to try to break down what I have just been describing.
While this applies in Kenya, and in a hundred other ways, the segregation and discrimination, whether it be land, or health, or locations, or residence, or education, it applies in nearly every respect—it has even severer forms in the neighbouring or not far distant Northern Rhodesia. There it is not the custom for Africans and Asians even to travel in the same vehicle. It is not the custom for them to use the same post offices as European customers. Even in the shops they are not allowed to enter through the doors, but must buy through hatches in walls. Those are things which I believe all of us desire to see removed and I again emphasise that Central Africa and East Africa, where these issues are still undecided between the philosophy of the Union of South Africa and that of the Gold Coast, will be decisive areas in this matter.
I think it possible that it may be said that it is unnecessary to introduce this Bill because a Commission of the United Nations is now working out a covenant on this matter. I hope that the United Nations will succeed in working out a covenant which will be applicable in all countries. The greatest possible encouragement to that would be for this Parliament to pass this Bill. It would be a lead to other nations throughout the world.
It is worth emphasising that other nations have already taken unilateral action. The Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia bases its human rights almost entirely upon the wording of the Declaration of the United Nations. The Constitutions of Costa Rica, Syria, El Salvador and Haiti embody these principles of the Declaration. A special committee of the Canadian Senate has prepared a Bill of Rights founded on the Declaration. The Federal Republic of Germany has enacted legislation concerning the legal status of displaced persons in accordance with the principles and spirit of the Declaration.
Perhaps most important of all, in relation to African countries, on 21st November, 1949, the United Nations General 898 Assembly entrusted Italy, as the administering authority over the trusteeship territory of the former Italian Colony of Somaliland on the basis of a declaration of constitutional principles accepting the Declaration of Human Rights.
Therefore, although it will be for the United Nations to adopt a covenant on this matter, when international authorities adopt covenants they do so not for the most advanced nations but for the less advanced nations and Great Britain, with its great tradition and history of human rights, surely has the right to give some leadership to other nations upon this matter. It seems to me that the whole future of the human race will depend upon its attitude to the fundamental problem which I have raised this afternoon; whether the colour of the skin shall decide whether one people is superior to another, or whether one man is superior to the other.
This Bill is put forward in the beliet that what is sacred is human personality, the personality within that skin, whatever may be the colour of that skin and whatever may be the race. All human personalities have the right to grow to the fullest and best and all are equal in their potential development. I hope very much that the House may give a Second Reading to this Bill today so that it may go to Committee, be improved and brought back as a great declaration of our faith by the British House of Commons.

§ Mr. C. J. M. Alport (Colchester)
I listened with considerable interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway). My reason for interrupting was that I felt, leaving out completely the motives that may be behind it, that he does on this occasion and has in the past done a great injustice to the development which has taken place as a result of the association of the British people with Africa during the last 100 years and more.
He said that he could not speak with pride of Britain in Africa. I, on the other hand, find no difficulty in doing so. Indeed, one is reminded of one of the greatest of our achievements merely by going outside the Palace of Westminster and looking at the tablet which has been erected outside St. Margaret's 899 Church in memory of the great effort to emancipate Africa from slavery, the great crusade which was undertaken by those whose names are honoured there, and which we have carried on to the present day.
I would remind the House that the primary reason why we are today in East and Central Africa, and indeed in West Africa, is because of the determination of opinion in Britain in the 19th century to end slavery. It will be remembered that it is recorded that right up to the days towards the end of the slave trade in East Africa about 70,000 to 80,000 Africans a year lost their lives in that evil trade. Although it is perfectly true that this country had a part in the West African slave trade, it was we who ended it there. It was also this country that remained in West Africa in order, as it was put in those days, to bring to Africans Christianity and civilisation.
I regard the developments which have taken place in the Gold Coast, of which mention has been made, with a sense of pride because I regard it, not as some reversal of policy, but as a movement towards the fulfilment of policy. I do not see, in the case of Africa today, this conflict between Dr. Malan and the South African Government on the one hand, and the other extreme of the Gold Coast experiment on the other. I believe that it is perfectly possible, and that indeed it is the only solution for the whole of Africa, to find some real partnership between the races who are the citizens of that continent.
I therefore feel that the hon. Member for Eton and Slough, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, set it in a wrong perspective, in the perspective of continuing conflict and enmity, which is the sort of atmosphere furthest removed from that in which a Bill of this sort should be introduced.

§ Mr. Fenner Brockway
Surely not enmity. Surely my whole plea was for racial equality, which is the basis for the removal of enmity.

§ Mr. Alport
My impression of the hon. Member's remarks was that he saw a conflict between the principles as represented by developments in the Gold Coast and the principles as represented by developments in South Africa.
900 It is worth remembering—I am certain that the Leader of the Liberal Party will remember it—that what is happening in South Africa today is the direct development of the policy and the principle that has been followed in the Gold Coast, which was followed in South Africa at the time of Union in 1909. It was with the object of giving freedom, equality and the rest to South Africa in 1909 that the Union was established and that the political changes that have since developed originated in a good and great Liberal idea.
Therefore, one can say that in some degree—perhaps it is unfair to say it, but it is true—what is happening in South Africa now is in a way the result of the opportunity given to it by carrying a liberal principle to its logical conclusion 40 years ago. I merely use that point to warn all those who are concerned with establishing great principles that the practical result of the establishing of those principles may not always be to their liking.
I have always believed that one of the most important points in putting any law on the Statute Book is that that law shall be capable of practical application in the sense in which it has been considered and passed by this House. I wish to refer to one point made by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough which illustrates the argument that I am trying to put before the House.
The logical conclusion of his principle of equal treatment for all races in Kenya, for example, would be to upset a regulation which was passed to safeguard the African. I cannot believe that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson) would support his hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough, in removing the regulation about selling intoxicating liquor to the Africans.

§ Mr. George Thomas (Cardiff, West)
For white as well as black?

§ Mr. Alport
Not entirely. It was the policy, based on experience, of the colonial Government, acting perhaps paternally, but in good faith and in the best interests of Africans as a whole, that a restriction should be placed on the sale of intoxicating liquor. That has been the practice, and it has certainly been recognised by all British Governments of all parties to be in the interests of the 901 Africans that restrictions of that sort should be applied.

§ Mr. James Hudson (Ealing, North)
The hon. Member has been good enough to call me in aid, but if I were to have to deal with the secondary problem of the supply of drink in Africa, I should deal with it on the basis of equality, and apply to the Europeans the same rules as are applied to the Africans.

§ Mr. Alport
I am sure that the hon. Member would do that, and I would not query his sincerity in the matter, but at all events part of the loaf is better than no loaf, and surely the partial application of the principle, which is applied in this case to one section of the community, would in his view be better than permitting the sale of intoxicating liquor for consumption by the natives.
I wish to go into one or two of the matters set out in this Bill which should be considered, and which illustrate the point which I am trying to make. Let us examine the question of the trade unions. The Bill says that all persons may be members of a trade union and should have equal rights to form trade unions. It is within the knowledge of the House that the main opposition to African trade unions and to the inclusion of Africans in European trade unions comes not from the employers side in the Colonies concerned or from the Governments; it comes from the European trade union members themselves.
I do not for a moment believe that the passing of a Measure of this sort would set that problem to rights in the correct way. I should have thought that the right hon. Member for Lanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) would, through the influence which he can exert through the British trade union movement, be the best channel for putting right something which would appear, from our point of view here, to, be wrong in colonial Africa. The right hon. Member has considerable influence with the mining unions in Northern Rhodesia, for instance. He promised in the debate we had on the Central African Federation that he would use his good offices in that way, and he has done so. That seems to me to be the practical and proper way of tackling this problem.
Surely it is not in the best interests of this House or of the community generally 902 that we should pass an Act which is merely a pious expression of opinion, because that is what it will be considered to be by the general public not only in this country but certainly overseas. I believe that practical action to resolve these problems is what is required.
I would take another example of the sort of practical action which I believe is being taken and should be encouraged. In Clause 9 of the Bill reference is made to: All premises licensed for public entertainment and all premises carrying on the business of the reception and accommodation of travellers and visitors— and so on should be available to all concerned. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough said he spent an hour going round Nairobi to find some place at which he could entertain his distinguished Indian colleagues. I do not say that the version I heard of that particular episode is correct and, I am not doubting his statement at all. But the version I heard was that it is a well-known rule that any European may take into any hotel in Nairobi, Africans or indeed Indians as his guests, and when the hon. Member made application to do so he was told he could arrange a party in one of the hotels. Then, for some reason or other, the engagement was cancelled, but perhaps that may have been on a different occasion.

§ Mr. Brockway
This is the first time I have heard that. It just never happened at all. It has just been created in the minds of the hon. Gentleman's friends in Kenya as a retort to the absolutely true statement I made that I went to hotel after hotel and restaurant after restaurant and could not get admission with my African and Indian friends. It is an absolute figment of the imagination.

§ Mr. Alport
I am perfectly willing to accept the statement which the hon. Member has made. But did he try the United Kenya Club, for instance, which has been set up by East African Europeans in conjunction with Africans and Indians in order to provide precisely those facilities to which he referred? That club was available. It was started under the auspices of one of the gentlemen whose names he gave. It might have been possible to have gone to that club on this occasion, and if so, surely that would have prevented the rather 903 difficult situation for the hon. Gentleman and his friends which undoubtedly arose.

§ Mr. Brockway
I am full of appreciation for that effort. As a matter of fact those premises were not available at the time when I wanted to give this meal. But apart from that, to say that one club has been formed for this purpose does not mean that there is any justification for hotels as a general rule declining to accept Africans and Indians.

§ Mr. Alport
I am not disputing that point. What I am endeavouring to put forward is that there is a movement of opinion in Kenya which has been going on for a good many years and which aims at producing the practical improvement in race relations which I understand this Bill seeks to provide.
My point is that through this spontaneous movement, inspired by good faith, practical solutions will be reached on the spot, where the problems are. They are not in this country or in this House, they are in Africa. It is these movements which are to be relied on to do the job in a most satisfactory way, and everything possible should be done to encourage this movement of opinion to develop in East or Central Africa or wherever it may be.
It should be given the maximum of encouragement and not, as is so often the case, be criticised and attacked, in the sort of speeches to which we listened when the Second Reading of this Bill was moved. After all, in a movement of that sort exists the real solution, as I see it, for better race relations in Africa, rather than by passing a Bill in this House.
Let us take one other item from this Bill. In Clause 10 it is laid down that, … no person shall be arbitrarily deprived of his right of access to books, magazines and newspapers or of his right of participating in the dissemination of written or printed matter. This is no doubt a point which could be dealt with at a later stage, but is it really the intention of the promoters of this Bill that the colonial Government, or indeed the Government of this country, should not be allowed to discriminate or to suppress subversive literature? If they are not to be allowed that right, it is quite clear that a free society will 904 not be given the weapons necessary to protect itself against the assault of a dictatorial totalitarian crowd.
Therefore, it seems to me that whatever may be the admirable motives behind this Bill, it is carrying the matter beyond practical application. It is a great weakness in any legislation that when the time comes to put it into force it is found that it cannot be given effect to.
In Clause 17 of the Bill reference is made to the right of entry into the learned professions, and so on. That brings me back to the point I was trying to make earlier with regard to the trade unions. There has been a good deal of talk in recent debates in this House about the discrimination which is alleged to exist in Southern and Northern Rhodesia against Africans receiving technical training and the difficulty which they experience in obtaining opportunities for apprenticeship.
The Leader of the Liberal Party was right in principle, or at any rate in theory, when he said that this discrimination existed, particularly in Southern Rhodesia. But practice does not match up with theory in this case. Already great new opportunities have come to the Southern Rhodesian Africans of obtaining skilled employment and training. Sir Godfrey Huggins said not long ago that increasing demands for labour in industry and agriculture and the inevitable scarcity of European manpower has meant that the African has open to him, particularly since the beginning of the last war, increased opportunities for learning skilled trades. Therefore, what is the paper theory about the situation does not correspond in any way to the practice.
I remember in the report on the Central African Federation that there was listed 28 skilled occupations in which Africans were already employed and had opportunity for training and apprenticeship. That is the way in which the principle which this Bill seeks to introduce is in fact being brought into effect by practical developments on the spot. That will take time. It is no good thinking that by passing a Bill of this sort we can eliminate in a day, a week or a month the prejudices, the fears and the lack of confidence that exists on both sides. What can be done is, by the 905 passage of time, to increase good will between the two sides in Africa. Then we shall be able to see resolved many of the problems with which this Bill tries to deal.

§ Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)
I have listened with a great deal of sympathy to much of what the hon. Gentleman has said. I feel that there are a good many provisions in this Bill which are premature and impractical. But at this stage we are considering the Second Reading. Ought we not to endorse the principles in this Bill? If we do so, shall we not encourage people who are working for those principles? In the doubtful event of this Bill coming back to the House, I agree that it would have to be expensively amended; but at this stage we are concerned with the principle.

§ Mr. Alport
I entirely agree. I do not know of any hon. Member in this House who would dissent from the principle, which is already well established, of the necessity for partnership between the races in Africa. That principle is already established. What we must not do is to give the impression that we do not realise and understand the grave difficulties which exist in Africa and make it appear that we are prepared simply to make a carte blanche declaration of this sort. We should, rather, encourage all developments which are going on here and overseas which aim at improving the partnership and co-operation between the two races.
Fundamentally, this question of race conflict in Africa derives from several considerations. One is a differing set of values—a different stage of social development between one set of races and the other in Africa. The colour problem is not simply the problem of black against white. The colour problem, as the experience in Uganda has shown, is also a problem of the Indian against the African.
There are many facets to this subject. Until we can ensure that more and more of the Africans are not only able to enjoy the privileges of this equality but to accept the obligations, which are equally important, we will not really solve the problem of race conflict fully. The great weakness in our attitude to race in Africa arises from the fact that communities there have not been able to 906 find a way of providing a proper common ground between the European and the Africans or Indians who have accepted all that the European has claimed in the past to provide the basis of their civilisation.
I should like to illustrate that point by what has happened in the past. There is in West Africa a growing middle class. It is a middle class produced as a result of the economic developments created by great trading organisations such as the United Africa Company. The West African middle class was largely the creation of British commerce or, as some people like to call it, of exploitation.
The opportunity which that class had enabled them to provide the leadership upon which West African constitutional and political progress has been based over the last 20 or 30 years. The difficulty has been that we have been slow to absorb the group of Africans which has been educated and which has accepted the standard of approach to life of the European.

§ Mr. M. Follick (Loughborough)
Does not the hon. Gentleman forget that West Africa had a contact with Europe for over 300 years, but that East Africa has had only a recent contact with Europe? The East African contact was principally Arab.

§ Mr. Alport
I fully realise that, but the European contact with West Africa only touched the coastal fringe. It never penetrated into the northern territories. The Arab contact also seldom penetrated, except for the slave trade, beyond the Swahili Coast.
I hope and believe that some of the examples which I have tried to give of the undoubted progress will help to solve the great problem by which we here are affected but which those in Africa can solve. The men and women on the spot are responsible. They have the opportunity to solve this problem. What we must do is to encourage them. We will not do so by simply nagging at them the whole time or by saying, as the hon. Member for Eton and Slough said, that we are rather ashamed of them. I am not ashamed of them. I am extremely proud of the great achievements not only of the Governments and civil servants in Africa, but of the charter companies and the individual settlers, as well.
907 No doubt mistakes have been made, but that is inevitable when a new civilisation reaches one which has progressed little beyond the Stone Age. On the whole, the effect of British penetration and association with Africa has been for the total good not only of ourselves but far more especially of the Africans themselves. It is by encouraging the gradual subsidence of the suspicion which has existed that we can best help to solve this problem.
I believe that this Bill has a number of weaknesses. The real interest, which 908 I think I have as much at heart as any hon. Member, of trying to ensure a hopeful future for Africa, can best be served by showing to those who have to solve the problem on the spot the understanding and sympathy which alone will enable them to accomplish the great task which they face.