New Clause.—(EXTENSION OF POWERS OF CORPORATION TO ADDITIONAL ENTERPRISES.) (Hansard, 27 July 1956)

§ The Attorney-General
I beg to move. That the Clause be read a Second time.
This is the manuscript new Clause which we promised to introduce.

§ Mr. Bevan
It appears to me that the Clause is an effective vehicle for what we intend, and we accept it because we wish to have it.

§ Mr. Lennox-Boyd
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I wish to thank right hon. and hon. Members for their help. There were some genuine anxieties as to some purpose other than the purpose on the face of the Bill. I assured them that those anxieties were not justified, and I hope that I have allayed them.
I thank all concerned for enabling the Bill to go forward as a unanimous gesture to the Colonial Development Corporation. I should like to thank the Parliamentary draftsmen who have facilitated our business very much. We have seen today what we do not always see, but what is highly desirable—Parliament functioning as a Council of State. I wish the Corporation every success in the vital work in which it is engaged.

§ Mr. Bevan
I think that we have justified the Committee stage. The Bill is a better one than it was. There is no reason now for us to argue why it was necessary at all. I join with the right hon. Gentleman in wishing success to the Corporation in its further efforts.

§ Mr. Brockway
The Colonial Secretary has expressed appreciation to the Parliamentary draftsmen for their assistance. As a back bencher, I should like to express my appreciation to the hon. and 860 learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), who gave us such great help in the drafting of Amendments. I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree that in the very short time that my hon. and learned Friend had to do that, he enabled us to propose Amendments which were of value.
All of us want to see the Corporation utilising its powers for the development of the Colonial Territories. In that respect, none of us is opposed to the Bill. If we are critical of certain features, it is because we realise that the industrial enterprises which have been developed in Colonial Territories have been such that the people of those territories fear their advent. If they are not to fear then-advent, then the kind of qualifications which have been proposed from this side must be added to these activities of the Corporation.
We are now moving into a stage of history where political imperialism is being modified. There is the danger that, as places in the Colonial Territories secure political power, political imperialism will be followed by economic imperialism; that is to say, that economic interests may gain a hold on those territories and repeat there many of the evils of which capitalism has been guilty in this country. It was because we wanted to use the Bill to modify its effects in that respect that we moved certain Amendments. We regret that the Amendments which aimed at encouraging African trade unions, and which sought to modify the right of profit-making in the Colonial Territories, were not accepted.
The tendency is for concessions to be made particularly for mineral exploitation over a long period of years in the Colonial Territories. The returns are generally high for mineral exploitation. They have been very high in Northern Rhodesia and they are likely to be high in Uganda, Swaziland and High Commission Territory. This House ought to adopt the principle in connection with the efforts of this Corporation that concessions given for industrial companies in the Colonial Territories should be for a limited period, at the end of which the people in those territories should have the right to take over those industrial concessions to make perfectly sure that they are controlled and developed for the benefit of the people.
861 Therefore, while we welcome the Bill in its broader aspects, we criticise Her Majesty's Government for declining to accept the Amendments put forward from this side to safeguard the position of the African workers and the peoples of the Colonial Territories. We hope that the day will come when legislation will be introduced in this House to guarantee the rights and liberties of organisations of those peoples.