EAST AND CENTRAL AFRICA

HC Deb 25 July 1961 vol 645 cc239-345

4.17 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

I beg to move, to leave out "£3,671,010", and to insert "£3,670,010" instead thereof.

In case there should be any misunderstanding in the Committee, let me say that the purpose of my Amendment is not to aid the Chancellor in his new economies. In our view, this is the very last field to which the Chancellor should turn to seek economies. As was said in a newspaper called West Africa last weekend: Nothing could be more short-sighted than to meet a temporary balance of payments problem, brought about by mismanagement, with economies which would do serious long-term damage both politically and commercially. Yet there is a suspicion that the British Government regards financial aid to Commonwealth countries as something that can be turned on and off according to the United Kingdom's economic climate. That suspicion has been borne out today by what the Chancellor has said about cutting down on the expenditure which he expects will be undertaken to aid these territories in the years to come.

Today, we have heard the epitaph of ten years of Tory rule, and that epitaph will not be very pleasing to hon. Members opposite or to those who have been misled by them during the last ten years. The mismanagement which we have suffered in our own internal affairs is now being reflected in the affairs of the Commonwealth itself. Both the Colonial Secretary and the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations have something to answer for an their own account in connection with the Votes that we are discussing today.

We have, for example, to take the position of Tanganyika, which was raised during Question Time today. I gather from what Mr. Julius Nyerere has said, that the Government propose to give some financial aid to the people of Tanganyika to launch them on their way, as a patrimony. The annual income of Tanganyika is between £12 and £16 per head per annum. That is the position from which they start. They have also suffered, and Her Majesty's Government have gained, from the movement of the balance of payments against them in primary commodities over the last few years. The United Nations has done a survey on Africa since 1950 and repotted that, with the exception of 1954, the terms of trade in respect of primary producing countries have become steadily more adverse. So it is not as though the position were that the Government had got themselves into their economic difficulties because of the adverse terms of trade overseas.

The present Government have had the advantage, denied to the first post-war Government, of very favourable terms of trade which have persisted during the last decade. This has had its effect on the economic well-being of those countries for which we are responsible. Indeed, it is true to say that much of the benefits, or at least some of the benefits, which the British people have derived over the last ten years have been clawed back from the poorest people in the world. Her Majesty's Government have not hesitated to take advantage of that situation to distribute largesse to the people, particularly in election years. I do not think that the Government have a particularly glorious record over that matter.

Of course, the Government have increased the amount of aid each year, as the Chancellor told us. But the amount of aid given in the form of colonial development and welfare loans and grant, in the form of C.D.C., is only a tithe—indeed, I am being generous, it is not a tithe—of the favourable balance of payments on which the Government have lived during the last decade. Every investigation and report by the United Nations on this matter has told us that it is far more valuable to these countries that we should stabilise prices in order that the terms of trade do not turn adversely against these territories in their primary products, like coffee, cocoa and pyrethrum. Give them stable prices and the Government can keep their aid.

The Government have taken advantage of the unstable prices to give a little back in the form of aid, and then in this House they have claimed credit, moral credit, for the additional aid given by means of these loans and grants. The Government have been performing a confidence trick on the people in the Colonial Territories just as they have performed a confidence trick on the people of these islands during the last decade.

We have undertaken the experiment of having this combined debate on East and Central Africa because we think that there are a number of related problems which it would be worth while for the House to spend time considering today. We believe that they are sufficiently related to make a debate of this sort worth while. One thing has become clear in Africa. It is that with certain exceptions, the problem of these nations securing their freedom is now reaching its final stages. What is concerning, what should concern, what must concern these nations more and more is how they are to lay the foundations soundly for their economic development.

We have seen that in terms of their development the amounts which they can invest are not beginning to match their needs. Again, I quote the United Nations Survey of Africa, which states: The economic development programmes at present in operation are essentially pre-industrialisation programmes. They aim at providing the proper framework of basic facilities and social services (accounting together for over 80 per cent. of the expenditure under the plans) in the hope that these will induce spontaneous private investment. That is the object of the present economic development plans. They are a genuine effort to try to provide the basic framework upon which private or public investment, or both, could be erected. Unless this framework is provided we know, from experience and from history, that the private investor, at any rate, will certainly not take up his opportunities in these territories. So I am right to claim that it is essential for these territories—it is essential if we are to resolve our moral obligations as their trustees—that we should enable them to provide this basic structure on which they can build.

That is why I have no hesitation in saying, on the very day on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced his economies, that we are, by his decision, resolving, this House is resolving, that we shall postpone the raising of the standard of life of some of the poorest people in the world: and we are doing it precisely for the reason and in the way I have described to the House—through the advantage we have taken of their own balance of payments difficulties.

This year, on page 48, there is a reference in the Colonial Report, to the difficult financial position of the East African territories. It is well known that in a number of these territories, for example, in Tanganyika last year, torrential rains at the wrong time damaged the crops, lowered the revenue and lowered the proceeds. In Kenya, there has been a drought for two years. Last week, I read that one of the Yenya farmers' associations had called on the Government to recognise the existence of the crisis which this drought was bringing about. But, so far, I have heard no response to that cry.

In Uganda, the price of robusta coffee fell within a period of four months from 155s. a cwt. to 105s. a cwt. Later, it recovered slightly. The Government have had the advantage of this position the whole time and they have not hesitated to take advantage of it to relieve themselves of their own problems. I say that the House has every right to tell the Government that, despite their difficulties, which they have, by their own mismanagement and lack of leadership, brought largely on their own shoulders, they have no right to take it out of these people. That is why I say to the Colonial Secretary and to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relation's—in one sense in the hope of strengthening their arms against the Chancellor—that the House does not wish our burdens to be translated to the backs of these people.

I have a lot of material about the way in which the poverty of these territories, which is extreme in the absolute sense, has been added to because we have been securing an uncovenanted advantake over the last few years. But I think that I have said enough to make my point on that, and now I will turn to the particular illustration of Tanganyika.

So far as I can understand, the basic plan in Tanganyika, where, as I say, the average income is between £12 and £16 a year, is to provide about £24 million in three years. This plan has been pared to the very bone. It is cut down in such a way that 60 per cent. of the expenditure would go to economic services and only 6 per cent. to the social services. It should delight the heart of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden) that the very poorest should be denied any improvement in their social services at all. The hon. Member would feel at home in Tanganyika.

Apart from education, 6 per cent. will be devoted to improvement in the social services. What are the Government ready to do? I can rely only on unofficial information. This afternoon, the Colonial Secretary said that he had put new proposals to the Prime Minister and, therefore, he could not disclose what he had said. But I wish to disclose what I understand to be the position, at any rate, up to the date of the last discussion.

I understand that what the right hon. Gentleman has offered the Government of Tanganyika in terms of Commonwealth assistance loans is £700,000 per annum for the next five years. They are, of course, to get the unexpended balances of the colonial development and welfare grants which are always voted. There are a number of smaller sums which would be voted, the unexpended balances of schemes which have been committed, but the actual patrimony we propose to give, after we have lived on these people for the last decade, is £700,000 per annum for the next five years.

It is not just with phasing that the Colonial Secretary should concern himself, whether they get the same sum in each of the five years. Seven hundred thousand pounds is the actual cost of one V-bomber. Last year, we laid down two guided missile destroyers. They cost £12 million each, £24 million for the two of them when we laid the keels. That is the whole sum which Tanganyika is asking for to get through her pre-industrialisation programme and to begin to raise the standard of life of her people.

The Government say that we must lay down the guided missile destroyers. One Leander class frigate—and I know a little about these things, but not so much as the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, although I follow them fairly closely—will cost this country £7 million, yet we are offering Tanganyika £700,000. Do the Government Front Bench feel very proud of that? I say to them that they should be ashamed of their mismanagement of Britain's affairs, which has brought us to the pass in which the Colonial Secretary has to make such a miserable offer to the Prime Minister of Tanganyika.

Of course, Tanganyika has not been an entirely free agent. Her balances and reserves have been invested in this country. She has shared in our fortunes. Alas, she has not had the benefit of the hire-purchase boom or the credit facilities we have enjoyed, but what she has been able to share in was the knowledge that all her reserves were invested in gilt-edged securities, in support of us, I suppose. We know what has happened to gilt-edged over the last few years. What we are asking Tanganyika to take over as her birthright is depreciated gilt-edged standing at a lower level than has been known in modern times. That is the patrimony which the right hon. Gentlemen are bequeathing to that country.

I understand that a proposition has been made to them, which I repeat and ask the House to support, that the Government should be willing to take over the gilt-edged, the Tanganyika sums compulsorily invested in this country, at nominal prices and hold them until the date of maturity. The Government would lose nothing, but Tanganyika would gain a great deal. If she cannot get more out of a hard-hearted and skinflint Government than she has so far got, she will be compelled to use those sums to carry on her investment programme. We are also bequeathing a railway which runs at a loss and a port which runs at a loss. She will get no financial support for those.

It is not just the injury which the Government are doing to the long-term prospects of British people, but the injury done to the good name of our country overseas. Yesterday, I was discussing the new Russian loan to Indonesia, assistance of £120 million over a period of years for that country. Here we are, with all the advantage of history and all the accumulated services, all the civil servants and school teachers and everyone else in Tanganyika. If hon. Members opposite like to put it on a cold war basis, if nothing else will appeal to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, what would Russia give to have Tanganyika full of Russian school teachers, Russian civil servants and Russian experts?

We propose to throw all this away. Fortunately, Mr. Nyerere is not a man likely to be bought by this sort of consideration. He is too decent. He has not staged a rebellion, or a revolt. He has believed in the good name of Britain, but his reward is probably the most mean financial settlement that has ever been proposed to any territory on coming to self-government. I must not remain too long on this question, but I think that the House will agree that it is a shocking condemnation of the Government's mismanagement of their economic and financial affairs.

In passing, I wish to say a word or two about Zanzibar, which I hope to have the privilege of visiting shortly with the Parliamentary Secretary, thanks to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I am sorry to learn that the Afro-Shirazi Party is boycotting the General Election because of disturbances which have taken place. That party should recognise that those disturbances are now being fully inquired into and that nothing can be gained from a boycott of the Legislative Assembly. If any Assembly of this sort is to function the Opposition must play their part in every sense of the word. I hope that the AfroShirazi Party will take its place in the Legislative Assembly, opposite the Gov- ernment, and bring its influence to bear as it ought in these matters.

I turn to Uganda. I think that the Earl of Munster and his fellow Commissioners did a valuable service by producing their Report of the Uganda Relationships Commission, which was published a month or two ago. No one can foresee Uganda's future. I trust that the Kabaka will accept the proposals that are made that he should behave in all senses as a constitutional monarch, retire from politics and allow the people of his territory of Buganda to exercise their democratic rights as they wish. The Earl of Munster—who, I should say, is a former Conservative Minister, in case anyone thinks that he is a wild Socialist—said in his Report, in paragraph 123: Buganda tribalism is a real and potent force, and some safety valve for it must be provided. I hope that the Kabaka will listen to those words, with which I absolutely agree.

I do not at the moment agree with the Earl of Munster's recommendations that in the new national Assembly, which is to cover the whole of Uganda, the Lukiko should be able to nominate a group of members direct from itself whereas the rest of the country should have direct elections. The Opposition can be blunter than the Government. We say that in present circumstances, with the Kabaka's nominees and representatives being the only ones to go into the new national Assembly, there is no likelihood of building up a real democratic system.

I hope I carry the Colonial Secretary with me, as I know I carry some hon. Members opposite. I trust that he will use more diplomatic words than I have used in saying to the Kabaka that it is the view of this House that the Lukiko should not itself provide these representatives, but that there should be direct elections from Buganda to the national Assembly as from the other parts of the territory.

I must leave that matter there and turn for a moment to the question of Kenya. What has become quite clear is that there is general support now for the release of Mr. Kenyatta, except perhaps on the back benches of the party opposite. Europeans, Africans, and those of all parties are saying that it is essential that Mr. Kenyatta should be released and able to take his full place in the political life of the community.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite will, I know, find this a bitter pill to swallow, but, in fact, if our fellow countrymen out there are ready to swallow it, I do not see why they should baulk at it. One European after another is now saying that Kenyatta's release is vital for the future progress of Kenya. I ask the Colonial Secretary what is the Government's policy about this matter. It really is no use the right hon. Gentleman saying that considerations of security are to dictate the decision on the release of Mr. Kenyetta, because we do not believe it.

It is not considerations of security that are keeping Mr. Kenyatta under restriction at the moment; it is considerations of the internal politics of the Conservative Party. What is the right hon. Gentleman doing to find the right moment to release Kenyatta without having another explosion round his ears to follow on the other dissensions which, at the moment, are tearing the Tory Party apart?

Mr. Patrick Wall (Haltemprice)

Nonsense.

Mr. Callaghan

I am delighted to hear that there is unity in the Tory Party on the question of the Common Market.

Mr. William Yates (The Wrekin)

Wait for the Recess.

Mr. Callaghan

I quite agree that the Government will be saved by the Recess. There must be no one who is praying more for the Recess than the Colonial Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sure that the Colonial Secretary will be very relieved on the day the House rises and his right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) will not be sitting there brooding over him, ready to tear him apart. It is a poor show when the affairs of Kenya have to be dictated by the date of our Recess.

I want to ask another question of the Colonial Secretary. There has been an increasing demand among all pasties for internal self-government. Some say this year, some say very quickly. The Chief Minister, or the Leader of the Government—is he called?—I am not quite sure of these titles, which change so rapidly, nearly as often as our own "stop-and-go" economy—says he hopes that there will be a Prime Minister in Kenya before the end of this year, and K.A.D.U. and K.A.N.U. seem to be united about this. What is the Government's policy? Have they got one? Are they ready to bring internal self-government in this year, in the sense in which it is being demanded, because I am certain that the Kenya economy and the political situation there will not settle down until there is internal self-government and they become responsible for their own affairs?

Of course, there are some fears there, and I sympathise with them. The European farmers there have very considerable apprehensions about their own future, and the Colonial Secretary has done nothing to relieve them. Indeed, one criticism which I make of the Colonial Secretary this afternoon is that having decided on his policy, which may or may not be the right policy, he has made no attempt to convert those who are opposed to him. Maybe he never could agree with the European farmers in Kenya, but he might have made an effort.

From my conversations with them, I think that the brush-off he gave them stung them just as much as the basis on which he talked to them. In some ways, I may have been saying very much the same sort of thing to them as he has been saying, but they are willing to talk to me again, and feel that there is some sympathy and understanding of their position, while the Colonial Secretary has betrayed no understanding of their position and no comprehension of their legitimate fears in this matter.

The House should understand, whatever our views about the large farmers and settlers who have been there thirty or forty years, that a number of the young farmers were persuaded to go out there after the end of the war, to put their capital into the territory, to get 100, 200, or 300 acres, provide a new home, build up something and be sure about the future. Now, they say that they were invited to go out, that they thought they were going to live under the British constitution and under the British flag, and that now they find that they are not. Without being harsh on them, I think that it was a little short-sighted of them to expect this, but there was no reason why they should not have expected it, when this was what the British Government were saying. All of us remember Mr. Lennox-Boyd's statement about the way in which the British regime was to be maintained in Kenya, and that the British flag was to fly, the British constitution was to operate with British standards and all the rest.

I never believed it. After all, I knew Mr. Lennox-Boyd, and these young men did not. There is no doubt that a number of them genuinely feel that they were mislead because the British Government either did not understand or misjudged the pace of development towards self-government in these territories. So I say to these young men, when they come to see me, "Do not look over your shoulders to Westminster and Whitehall. Do not trust the Tory Party, at any rate." I remind them of what Sir William Harcourt said: The Tory Party never yet took up a cause which it did not betray. I say to them "If you really want to make a future, look to Nairobi. Work with the Africans. Your job, as young men coming to this country and making your future in this country, is give leadership all technical help you can from your expert knowledge of farming, and you can be a tremendous asset to that country, and I believe that the country will welcome it."

These young men are very much more embittered about the Conservative Government than I am, and the hon. Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) need not think that I am letting the side down, because what I said is balm compared with the vitriol they poured over the Colonial Secretary and the Government. I am certain that we are giving them the right advice to make their future there. I think that some of the incautious statements made by African politicians from time to time are bound to arouse apprehensions in their minds. I very much regret the statements that no land titles will be given to Europeans. I do not believe that they are responsible statements, nor do I believe that they are ever likely to be translated into action.

We also get some extraordinary statements from the European leaders in Southern Rhodesia from time to time, and, when they are made, we are told to dismiss them because these are purely for electoral consumption, but if an African leader makes a statement like this at a public meeting, it is taken up by those outside, who point to the damage that is being done.

There is a double standard of behaviour. It is expected that Africans should behave in a more civilised and Christian way than European politicians when addressing the electorate. I think that it is a great compliment to the Africans that this should be so, but it seems to me very odd that we should apply this double standard in this way. I now understand that K.A.N.U. and K.A.D.U. are to discuss the question of land titles jointly. Mr. Kenyatta, whose influence is growing every day, has intimated to these two parties that they should discuss the question of land titles.

What we must say to these young farmers who are looking for our help is, "Go and talk with them about it, and see how far your fears are overcome. If you feel that you have a legal claim against the British Government"—and some are arguing in those terms—"you had better pursue it through a court of law", but I would not encourage the Colonial Secretary to give a guarantee to them that whatever an African Government may do, we should bail them out.

As I have argued before, this is, in some ways, an incitement to irresponsibility, and I believe that it is our job to tell them that if they feel at the end of the negotiations that there are things which have been done wrongly or badly, by all means let them come here to see the Colonial Secretary. I think that he will give them a sympathetic hearing, which I believe the House would want him to do in these circumstances.

I turn for a moment to Northern Rhodesia. I think that its Constitution is even worse now than when I first read it. I said then that I could not understand it. Apparently, I was not alone, and other people have been trying to understand it ever since. A number of mistakes have been made. The Guardian this morning tells us that there is a major error in the voting proposals, and there is an editorial devoted to it. The Colonial Secretary was kind enough to send me a letter before this debate, and I thank him for it.

I quote the final conclusion, in which the right hon. Gentleman says that, even if the formula could be interpreted in the way which the Guardian suggests, I assure you that there has never been any intention whatsoever that the percentages should be calculated in the manner suggested in the reports to which I have referred. If the wording of the despatch does leave any room for doubt in this, and it has not been suggested before that it does, the Regulations will make the point clear. I hope that that will be clearly understood in Northern Rhodesia. This is the view of the Colonial Secretary. This is what he intends to do. The regulations will make clear that, in fact, the error or weakness discovered by a lecturer in or teacher of mathematics—and I was not so far wrong when I said that I doubted very much whether I should be able to do the arithmetic—will not be allowed to persist.

The Colonial Secretary has not circulated these constitutional changes among hon. Members. I am grateful to him for sending five copies of them to us. I should think that he is a little sensitive about circuating them. I have a good mind to read them out so as to get them into HANSARD. I wish that we had the American system here so that they could be inserted in the record. How the simple untutored people who make up the electorate of Northern. Rhodesia are supposed to understand these proposals when they are just barely able to get the vote is beyond my comprehension. I can analyse them, but the effort of cerebration is so great that when I reach the end of my analysis I am unable to criticise them. That is the position in which I find myself this afternoon.

I wish to mention another point which is a very serious blot and which has undoubtedly weighed the scales on the side of the United Federal Party. It is the requirement that a candidate will need to secure either 400 votes or one-eighth of the votes cast, whichever is the less, for election. In every constituency there are bound to be fewer Europeans than Africans. I think that that is agreed. Therefore, if a candidate has to obtain 400 votes, or one-eighth of the votes cast, whichever is the less, it will obviously be easier to get 400 votes of a larger African electorate than of a smaller European electorate. The African will have to get 400 votes, or one-eighth, whichever is the less, of a small European electorate. The European will have to get 400 votes, or one-eighth, of the votes—those are the fatal words—of a much larger electorate.

I am sorry to indulge in this arithmetic. I should not have dreamed of foisting it on the House, but it would be difficult to criticise unless I did so. The Under-Secretary of State will emerge unscathed if we are not careful, because it is difficult to bring these facts out on the Floor of the House. My considered conclusion—and it is a considered conclusion; I do not say it lightly—is that the hon. Gentleman has been pushed a long way away from his position of last December in relation to the Northern Rhodesian constitution. He has been pushed in the direction of the success of the United Federal Party.

As the Guardian leader said this morning, Normally it is not a defect in an electoral system that one cannot forecast the result … I agree with that. The right hon. Gentleman has said this more than once. But that is not the position here. The rest of the Guardian's sentence is this: Mr. Kenneth Kaunda's supporters want an answer to the simple question: Will there be a representative majority?". Whether one can or cannot forecast the result, one should be able to say that it will be a representative majority. That is exactly what the right hon. Gentleman cannot say, because these permutations and combinations can be understood only by someone capable of playing Bingo or filling in the football pools.

Mr. Stan Awbery (Bristol, Central)

Will the Colonial Secretary send each of us a copy of the document to which my hon. Friend has referred?

Mr. Callaghan

If I may reinforce my hon. Friend's plea, there seems to be no reason why this document should not be reproduced. It would not strain the resources of the Government's printer, the Stationery Office. But it would strain the resources of my hon. Friend if he attempted to understand it. It is a good job that he has three months in which to do it.

I wish to say a further word or two about the Central African Federation generally. I am very sorry that since October last year no move has been made towards fulfilling the conditions which the Monckton Commission laid down as necessary for the successful continuation of the Federation. Paragraph 81 of the Report states: We recommend a major operation to reduce the functions exercised by the central authority, to change the composition of the Assembly, to widen the franchise, to improve the machinery of co-operation between the constituent states, and to introduce safeguards against racial discrimination and for the protection of minorities. The Colonial Secretary's formal answer is that the conference has been adjourned, but if there were a real will to make the Federation work it should not be beyond the wit of the Governments concerned, including the Federation Government, to make a declaration of intention. Is it the intention to increase the franchise of the Africans in the Federal Assembly? Is it the intention to reduce the functions of the Central African Federation and to hand them back to the Territories? Is it the intention to change the composition of the Assembly and to put in more Africans? We should at least have had some indication that this was where we were starting from, but all this time has gone by and we have had no indication about it. The atmosphere has become more and more sour.

Paragraph 88 of the Report reads: If some form of federal association is to continue, … Africans must … have a much higher proportion of the seats in the Federal Assembly. That is covered in a previous paragraph. I am sorry to have troubled the House with it. Paragraph 114 states that members of the Commission are content to recommend that there should be an African majority in the Legislature and an unofficial majority in the Executive Council.…. If the Central African Federation has gone sour in the last ten months, it is as much due to the inaction of the Federal Government, of the Colonial Secretary and of the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations as to their actions. We should have had declarations of intention on all these matters.

Finally, I wish to mention the contrast between these three Territories and East Africa. I was delighted to see the successful outcome of the talks between Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika about the future of the East Africa High Commission. The attitude of the Government on this matter has been cautious, correct and circumspect. They have said to these three Territories—and I hope that hon. Members will note this—" If you wish to federate, it is your decision. If you wish to come together, we shall do nothing to stand in your way. But equally we shall do nothing to force it on you." What a pity it is that we did not learn that lesson in connection with another part of Africa.

What these three great Territories, comprising between 25 million and 30 million people, have decided is that they will come together, that theirs shall be a rudimentary assembly to be established with legislative powers, that there will be common services maintained through a special organisation and that there will be the beginnings of a merging of these three Territories. I welcome that. I am sure that anything which can be done towards that end will not only assist the economic development of these Territories and perhaps overcome the problems of Uganda in relation to the Lukiko and the Kabaka, but may also help with the problems of Zanzibar and that coastal strip. I hope that this East African Federation, which has started on a long road, will be successful, and I am sure that every hon. Member will join with me in wishing it the best of success in its enterprise.

I do not despair of that. I do not know how many more speeches on colonial affairs I shall make. Probably the House would be glad if I stopped now. However, I believe that, looking ahead, there is no reason why we should limit our vision, whether it be a matter of practical politics or not, to a Central African Federation torn by dissension and disagreement yet rich in many of the material resources, such as minerals and tobacco, on the one hand, and an East African Federation, with a population three times as great as that of Central Africa, on the other. I do not know whether hon. Members realise that if an East African Federation came into existence there would be within it 25 million people against the 8 million people in Central Africa. I do not know why these Territories should necessarily expect to remain separate. I am looking some years ahead, but if we look at the geography there is no reason why they should not come together. The combined area of these six countries will be very little larger than that of the Sudan or the Congo or Algeria. It will be far smaller than territories like India. There seems to be no reason at all why we should erect or expect to erect a series of little States in this part of Africa, all of them working separately.

Even if the Central African Federation is dissolved—and I do not wish to embark upon that this afternoon; we shall have to come back to it later—there seems to be no reason why the six Territories should not at some time see their future together, and I believe they could have a harmonious future. They have many things in common. They have a language in common over a wide area. They have economies which are complementary to each other. They have social and educational institutions of a similar nature.

I would like the House to say to these three East African Territories: we are founding something which could grow and bring peace, solace and a proper form of development to everyone in these Territories, from Bechuanaland in the South to the tip of Tanganyika in the North. It would be a unit which would be quite possible. We in this House, whilst we cannot begin to take a decision, might turn our eyes in this direction and see whether the solution to some of these problems might not lie along such a unity as I have suggested.

5.2 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod)

Perhaps the most startling statistic that one can use to introduce a discussion on Colonial Affairs is to consider how many people now live in the dependent Territories compared with the number at the end of the war. In 1945 516 million people lived in the dependent Territories of the Crown. At the time of the last General Election that figure was 80 million. Now it is 43 million. Of those 43 million, 13 million have already signed the documents and agreed the conferences that will bring their independence to them, and the remaining 30 million are dispersed in more than 30 territories in the five Continents of the world.

We are considering the most difficult problems left to us—the problems of East and Central Africa—but although I will follow the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and limit my speech to them, I should like to say two or three sentences about the remaining colonial possession in Africa, Gambia on the West Coast of Africa. As the House probably knows, we have a conference going on at the present time in London—indeed, it went so well yesterday that it almost ended the same day as it began—and I should not like them to think that when they are here as guests in London we have forgotten their problems.

We are talking of East and Central Africa and, as did the hon. Member, I will start with Tanganyika, which is the largest both in population and area, of the remaining territories for which I have for a time a responsibility. Independence will come to them on 9th December this year, and many tributes have justly and rightly been paid to the way in which they have moved towards their independence.

I should like to make just three points on that matter. First it is said, and said with justice, of Mr. Julius Nyerere that he is a man outstanding in his generation and that he is remarkable amongst the ranks of present-day statesmen in Africa, and perhaps beyond. I merely want to make this point. Five years ago Mr. Nyerere was regarded as an extreme African nationalist racial leader, and I believe there are other Territories that we are discussing today to which that reference has point.

Secondly, in Tanganyika there has been a most exceptional and distinguished roll of Governors in which the names of Cameron, Twining and Turnbull perhaps stand out.

Thirdly, there is one phrase that for a long time has stayed in my memory. In 1954 it was said in the Trusteeship Council, during a debate on Tanganyika, criticising the apparent lack of constitutional progress: "It may be that where there is no violent conflict there is no progress." Tanganyika has proved that wrong, because Tanganyika has gone more swiftly, perhaps, than any other country without violence and in peace towards her independence.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the question of Tanganyika finance. I do not want to deal with this in great detail. I saw the Prime Minister of Tanganyika a few days ago. I would say that the hon. Gentleman's figures are not wholly right because he missed one useful word in the short answer that I gave this afternoon, when I said that I had put an improved offer to the Prime Minister of Tanganyika. But although it has been possible to push forward with C.D.C. schemes and to provide help towards H.M.O.C.S. payments, what interests the House is the Tanganyikan three-year development scheme.

The position is this. The average rate of spending over the last three years has been about £4½ million. The World Bank Report estimated that an appropriate figure would be £6 million. Mr. Nyerere, very understandably, with his Government, aims higher still, although along the same general lines of development, and hopes for £8 million, or £24 million over the three years. We have had some discussions on the help that we could provide towards that.

Subsequent to those talks Mr. Nyerere visited the United States of America, and I should particularly like to read, because it is extremely encouraging, the last sentence of the Press communiqué which was issued: President Kennedy expressed the friendly interest of the United States in Tanganyika's future and made clear the intention of the United States to join the United Kingdom and others in helping Tanganyika to meet the objectives of its three-year development plan. That is the consortium approach—and my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) made the point at Question Time today—which seems to be very welcome indeed.

The key question is this: Would it be right for Tanganyika to go ahead with the plans that she has? I should like to tell the House that I made it clear in writing and in conversation to Mr. Nyerere that I think it would be reasonable and prudent for them so to do. Naturally it would be pleasant if we could ourselves and alone provide all the finance for the development programme for this splendid country, and for all other countries too, but naturally, we are not in a position to do that. With respect to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, I do not think he ought to bring Soviet aid into this question. I think I am right in saying—I should like to check it—that this island alone provides to the underdeveloped countries more aid than the whole of the Sino-Soviet bloc put together. Therefore, even though we may not in all territories be able to do as much as we wish to do, we have nothing to fear from this comparison.

Indeed, if we look at all forms of assistance—I am talking about assistance to Colonial Territories alone—the level was £35½ million in 1957–58; in 1960–61 it is £69 million, or twice as much, and for the current financial year it will be in the region of £80 million, although that last figure does not include the very large territory of Nigeria which has now left the Colonies. In other words, although the numbers in these territories have dropped by half the amount of assistance that we have been giving has been more than doubled. As the hon. Member will realise from a careful study of my right hon. Friend's statement this afternoon, he did not suggest that in this field—I agree with its importance—there should be any cutting back.

If we look over the channel from Tanganyika a few miles, about the distance from Dover to Calais, to Zanzibar and then the same sort of distance to its sister island Pemba, we find there one place in the Colonial Territories where there has been recently the most severe and serious disturbance, and I think that the danger of racial tension remains there between the Afro-Shirazi Party and the Zanzibar Nationalist Party. I was glad to hear what the hon. Member said, and I should like to echo it. I hope that the Afro-Shirazi Party will take their seats in the Legislative Council, which they are at present boycotting, and will pursue by constitutional means the ends that they seek. All the same, this tragedy of Zanzibar can, at the same time, be taken to underline how peaceful, on the whole, those fierce years of 1960–61 have been in Africa.

The great emergencies of Kenya, Malaya, Cyprus and Nyasaland have come to an end. Although in many territories there have been disturbances and in many territories there have been difficulties that have called for the use of police, I doubt if we have had a time, certainly since the end of the war, in which the Colonial Territories have been so peaceful as they have been in the last two years.

One of the consequences of Tanganyika becoming independent was that it was necessary to find ways of reconciling with that independence our association with the common services of East Africa, because it would have been wasteful beyond words to have destroyed the common currency, the common services, the railways and many other matters which the territory share among themselves. So it was of great importance that towards the end of June we had a very successful conference in London to see how those services could continue after Tanganyika became independent.

I said at the time that I thought this conference had a significance going far beyond its immediate decisions, and I believe that that is true. The one thing that was noticeable all the time, and this applied, I think, to everyone, African and European, who attended this conference, was how the gates to the future were deliberately left open—deliberately, I think, all the gates to a possible federation were left ajar. I have always held the view that although it is essential that federation for East Africa, if it comes, should be a grass roots movement which the people of East Africa themselves want, and not something which we should try to impose on them from Westminster, yet I believe that almost all the problems, great and small, that there are in East Africa would be far easier to solve in the context of a federation.

I want to say a word about Uganda. Since I became Secretary of State I have tried there to pursue a double approach —the approach of general elections for the Protectorate and the approach of ensuring that special regard was paid in the Kingdoms and agreement districts of Uganda, particularly Buganda, to the traditions of the rulers and of their people. I like to think that we have had some success in that policy.

Not everyone thought that we could hold elections at all, and fewer still thought that we could hold them in peace, but they were held in peace, and Uganda has gone forward in peace. It has now a chief Minister and an advanced form of constitution, and I am planning, as the House knows, to have a conference in September at which I hope we shall begin to draw the threads together of the constitutional advance of Uganda itself, on the one side, and the fruits of the very valuable report which Lord Munster and his colleagues have provided for us, on the other. I shall not go into details. I agree with the hon. Member that the proposal in relation to the Lukiko is one of the most controversial. I am aware of that, but he would not expect me to pontificate on that before the time comes for the conference in six or seven weeks.

I now turn to Kenya. I think that to most hon. Members in the House, and this is certainly true of myself, that even though we may differ about Kenya, we care more about Kenya than any other Colonial Territory. I have always felt that myself, partly because I have friends and relations in Kenya, and that is why it has always been a great bitterness to me that the policy which I believe to be right and which I have pursued has so many opponents in Kenya itself.

There are two problems that I would wish to discuss with the House, security of title and law and order. I discussed the problems of law and order recently, not in the East African Commission to which I have referred, but in subsequent talks with members of the Kenya Government and with Leaders of the Opposition, and we produced communiques afterwards. I was greatly encouraged to find that the African leaders themselves recognised the importance of the land issue, including the question of property rights, and agreed that this subject should be dealt with as well as that of constitutional advance in the discussions which are shortly to be held. In answer to the hon. Member's question, I believe that those discussions are likely to start on Thursday of this week.

The Governor intends to associate those—perhaps members of the coalition, perhaps members of the K.N.F.U.—who are representative of the interests directly concerned with the discussion on land at the appropriate stage. The view that I put forward in relation to the problems of land in Kenya is, I think, well known to the House. All those who have property, and this applies increasingly to a great number of African farmers who are making a substantial contribution to the economy, as well as to the Europeans to whose efforts the present position of Kenya is so largely due—all property owners want their rights to property to be respected, but the difficulty is that paper guarantees themselves are not a satisfactory answer. By far the most important thing, if we can secure it, is to be sure that those who will inherit our responsibilities in Kenya understand both the wisdom and the justice of ensuring that those who contribute so much to the economy of the country can do so secure in the knowledge that their rights are respected. That is why I attach so much importance to the talks which are starting under the Governor's chairmanship, and if the outcome should be a clear, acceptable and reassuring statement that will do more than anything else to restore confidence and hence to fulfil the conditions which are a prerequisite to further progress in other fields.

There is the other side of policy. I think it right to pursue, as we have done, policies of development and resettlement. I think it right to try to associate, as I have done, international finance with these different policies. I think it right —I hope to be able to announce the details to the House in a short time—to accelerate the plans in accordance with proposals made to me by the Kenya Government.

Everyone will realise that the Kenya Government had a very difficult time when they took office. I, for one, pay high tribute to them for the way they have operated the new constitution and tackled the complex day-to-day questions in Kenya. Of course, there have been tragic and worrying incidents. But, looking back and remembering the forecasts which were made, I think it fair to say that, on the whole, Kenya has moved through the months since the election with remarkable calm.

The Governor has at his disposal a strong, competent and well-equipped police force which, with other forces which can be made available, are, in his judgment, fully adequate to deal with security. Never have I been for a moment complacent about the situation in relation to security, but I believe that, if we can succeed in broadening the base of the Government, we shall be able to move forward in Kenya with the good will of all races in secure and happy conditions.

The hon. Gentleman asked me a question about Mr. Kenyatta. Naturally, this is not a matter on which I can, as it were, share my thoughts with the House. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that and will recognise, too, that this is and has been a burden of decision for a long time upon me and upon the Governor. I do not think I can add to what I said to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) a few days ago. Perhaps I may repeat what I said then. I have a duty to fulfil and so has the Governor. We shall discharge that duty in the best way we can, and I shall inform the House as soon as possible of any decision. I assure the hon. Gentleman that nothing except the proper considerations of law and order and the well-being of Kenya will enter into the considerations of either the Governor or myself.

The hon. Gentleman referred also to full internal self-government. As I said earlier, talks will start on Thursday of this week, perhaps not with any fixed agenda. I think it is too early to say or to try to prophesy which particular stage of constitutional advance will be reached in so many months or so many years ahead.

Mr. Callaghan

I must press the question about Mr. Kenyatta on the Colonial Secretary because it is the imperative view of most people who have studied the problem that he should be released. Did the right hon. Gentleman's statement that he would inform the House as soon as he had reached a conclusion mean that the House will have a statement on the matter before we rise for the Summer Recess?

Mr. Macleod

If, by the time the Summer Recess comes, there is anything at all of which I should inform the House, or if I have reason to believe that in the months of the Recess anything would happen of which I should inform the House, I undertake that I will, however late it may be in the Session, make a statement on those lines.

The question of Northern Rhodesia rightly occupied much of the hon. Gentleman's time. If I may say so, I thought that he was very fair in his judgments. This is an extremely difficult problem. There are two charges brought against us. The first rests on the appalling complexity of the Constitution. The prosecution may put its papers away because I shall plead guilty to that. The second is that what has been done since February is not in the spirit and framework of the White Paper. I wish to meet those two charges at once.

There is a very important point in relation to the charge of complexity. It is not an accident that the simplest constitution for which I have had responsibility was that for Nyasaland and that the most complicated was that for Northern Rhodesia. It is not an accident that there are simple constitutions in West Africa and in the West Indies, where these problems have been overcome, and in Uganda and Tanganyika. It is not an accident, on the other hand, that easily the three most complicated Constitutions produced in the last few years are my predecessor's Constitution for Northern Rhodesia, my own for Northern Rhodesia and my own for Kenya.

It is precisely these two Territories in which the problem of the multi-racial society exists. We are there trying to do something which is very complicated. We are trying to give considerable representation—in this case, more or less equal representation—to a community which, although very small in numbers, is very considerable in the importance it has both in relation to Government and in the economic running of the country. It follows almost at once that one is in complexities of this kind. Indeed, we can see them coming in the Southern Rhodesian Constitution which will be the subject of the referendum in a day's time.

I want the House to consider for a moment how these problems can be made—if they can be made—more simple. It is convenient, perhaps, to look at it in terms of this country. We have moved through these complexities towards the simple system. It was only in 1950, with the abolition of the business vote and the university vote brought in by right hon. and hon. Members opposite, that "one man one vote" came to this country. It is only eleven years old. Those who reflect that it is a cure for all ills may care to reflect also that, at every election since, the number of seats of the party which brought it in has gone steadily down.

If we were to try in this country what we are doing in Africa, if we were to try to represent, shall we say, the Labour Party in Northern Ireland or the Tory Party in the South Wales coalfields, how should we do it? We could not do it just by saying that there shall be a certain number of seats, because then the Labour or the Unionist people would pick the candidates and at once would come the charge of "stooge", which is one of the most unpleasant features of African politics today. So at once—this is the point—one must have hurdles of some sort. One must either have primary elections or one must have a complicated method of hurdles. Complication is inevitable in what one is trying to do.

I turn now to the second charge. Has what has been done been in accordance with what was said in February this year? Everyone will know that in February a White Paper was produced and the Governor started a number of discussions in Lusaka. Subsequently to that, the Government produced a despatch, which I published. The great dispute at that time was not, in fact, so much on the matters now in dispute such as the hurdle or the Asian seat but on the 60:40 principle as against the 50:50 principle.

In June, these were the headlines in The Times: Mr. Macleod sticks to 50:50 principle. Constitutional proposals for Northern Rhodesia. African majority possible. That is accurate.

The Daily Telegraph had the head-lines: N. Rhodesia rule left open. European or African majority possible. 'Can work', says Sir Roy Welensky. That, again, is accurate.

The Guardian said: Chance of African majority less It would be fair to add that the chance of a European majority was less, too. Of those who put it in more personal terms —because this, I am afraid, often happens with the Press—the Daily Express said, "Welensky Wins", the Daily Mail said, "Macleod Wins" and the Daily Herald said, "Macleod Wins on Points."

I do not think that anybody who looks at these changes can argue that they were outside the spirit and framework of the White Paper. If I may, I will quote for a moment from the editorial of The Times. It said: But it is possible to ask and answer certain questions. The first of these is whether or not the proposals fall within the framework of the February White Paper. The answer is that on the whole they do. The other quotation, in relation to the racial hurdle which it was necessary to carry out—paragraphs 18 and 19 of the White Paper—is: The arrangement seems fair, consistent with the principle of racial parity and in consonance with the spirit of the White Paper if not perhaps with the letter, which, however, seems to have been left almost purposefully vague.

Viscount Lambton (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Will my right hon. Friend say whether he wholeheartedly supports that section of the Constitution which ensures that every candidate must have 400 votes?

Mr. Macleod

Yes, indeed. It does not actually say 400; it says 12½ per cent. or 400, whichever is the less.

If one works on a reasonable basis of assuming that there would be something like a 70 per cent. poll, that means that an African would have to obtain something like 280 votes and a European would have to obtain 400 votes. I believe that that is so.

I am glad that the hon. Member mentioned the question raised in the Guardian this morning. It certainly gave me a very unpleasant shock at breakfast time. I cannot seriously think that people will believe that anyone is expected to get a minimum percentage not only in the election in which he is himself a candidate but in the neighbouring election in which he is not. I confirm, as I have already written to the hon. Member, that that was both the wording and the intention of the Government's dispatch.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)

According to the Guardian, the documents which commit this error have already been printed and distributed. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that these documents will be withdrawn and that a correction will, if necessary, be made?

Mr. Macleod

I am not sure to which document the hon. Gentleman refers, but it may well be the explanatory pamphlet issued by the Northern Rhodesian Government. I will send the hon. Member, and the hon. Member who raised the question, a copy of it.

What I find most interesting from my correspondence, and obviously I have had a good deal of it, from Northern Rhodesia, is a point that has aroused the fiercest criticism—the introduction of the Asian seat. All my letters have been loaded with this point. Frankly, I find this surprising, because if we look at the Monckton Report we find that the Commission recorded specifically, I think in paragraph 48, that it was one of the points, indeed the first point, made to it by the Asian and coloured witnesses. They said that they were given no political representation. Part of the Monckton recommendations is that there should be such political representation.

In Kenya, for example, there are reserve Asian seats and there are reserve seats in the Council of Ministers. The same is true in Tanganyika. I received similar representations in different parts of the Federation when I was there. This protest is, in fact, against the stream in general, at least of Asian thought, in East and Central Africa. For that reason I hope very much that the Asian communities, in particular, and the coloured communities will be ready to look more closely at this proposal which, as I said in answer to a Question a week or two ago, deserves more consideration than it has received.

With all the difficulties that there are at present, I remain optimistic quite frankly about Northern Rhodesia, and this largely because of the calibre of its political leaders. I put the political leaders in alphabetical order, and probably none of them will be particularly grateful to me for lumping them together. But for a country with a small population to have as leaders of its political parties Mr. Katilungu, Mr. Kaunda, Sir John Moffat, and Mr. John Roberts, is remarkable. I think that all these people have from their different viewpoints a real understanding of the political needs of Northern Rhodesia, and this is one of the reasons for the confidence which I have always had.

I should like in the few sentences more with which I want to keep the House to glance back for a moment to the very first proposals that I put before the Conference on 19th December, 1960. The other parties have moved a long way since then. In paragraph 9 I said: The representatives of the African National Congress said that their Party could not accept anything less than a clear majority of the Africans in the Legislative and Executive Councils, and they demanded 'one man, one vote' without qualification. They have moved a long way since then. The United Federal Party representatives challenged the view that there was any justification either for a substantial increase in the number of Africans in the Legislative Council, or for any extension of the franchise. They favoured greater representation of African opinion being brought about by associating the Chiefs more closely with the Central Government. They have moved, and I am very glad that they have, a long way since then. But the proposals that I put before the Conference originally said this: It seems to me essential that the next stage of constitutional advance should provide for a substantial increase in the number of Africans in the Legislature … I asked the Conference to consider whether at this next stage we should move into arrangements which will produce in practice something like equal numbers of European and non-European members in the Legislative Council, or something short of that, or something going a little beyond it. I said finally: I am sure, however, that there must be an extension of the franchise, to allow greater representation within the voters' roll of African opinion in particular. So I am entitled to claim that what I put forward originally at the Lancaster House Conference is what I have carried out. I regret very much—I say this frankly—that it has proved necessary, because of the way that we drew up our original scheme, to have the qualifying minimum percentage on a racial basis. I should like, if it were at all possible, to avoid it, but it is not possible to avoid it and at the same time to ensure that a genuine appeal is made to both races. If one looks at the speeches, particularly that of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, in the debate of 22nd February, 1961, it will be clear that we were all there talking in terms of a racial qualification vote.

The story that I started talking about —from 516 million people living under the Crown independent territories to the present real total of 30 million—is a great success story and one in which, I think, the whole House should take a great deal of pride. We have differed much on this issue, and no doubt shall continue to differ on many matters. We are faced now with the last and great challenge in East and Central Africa—the multi-racial societies. Africa is now full of examples of the tragedy of going too fast in some areas and of going too slow in others. It is this which is above all a challenge to our statesmanship.

We have had many successes—Nigeria, Tanganyika, and many more. It would be intolerable to us all if we had to admit that we could not solve the problems of the Territories where the people of our blood have made such a matchless contribution to the economy. It is therefore in East and Central Africa that the Government's policies, must be tested and it is in those policies that we must, and in my view, will, succeed.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)

Both my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and the Colonial Secretary have drawn a picture on a very broad canvas, and I should have liked to have followed them in the debate. I shall not do so, first, because it would not be fair to other hon. Members who want to speak and, secondly, because I shall have to commit a compulsory discourtesy in leaving the House at a very early moment to attend to something that I cannot avoid. I shall, therefore, concentrate only on two points that have arisen in both those speeches.

The first is the issue of Jomo Kenyatta, in Kenya. I suppose that among all Englishmen I have known Jomo Kenyatta better and more closely than anyone. I was associated with him during the inter-war years when, in the Independent Labour Party—and not in the Communist Party, as has often been said—he was very active in this country in urging the cause of African independence.

I was associated with him also in Kenya itself, in 1950, when it was alleged by those who have since condemned him that he was beginning to organise Mau Mau. With my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), I was in Kenya in 1952, just after Jomo Kenyatta was arrested. I feel it absolutely essential today to say this about him. During the inter-war years, when I knew him closely in this country, he never, by word or by character, suggested that he would be an advocate of violence in Kenya.

Further, in 1950, when he was alleged to be planning Mau Mau, I was in the closest association with him in Kenya in preparing a programme of activity on constitutional and on political lines. That programme, with his inspiration, led the Kikuyu tribe—which is supposed to have been largely responsible for Mau Mau—to look to this House of Commons and to the Legislature in Nairobi, and not to the policies of violence that Jomo Kenyatta is alleged to have advocated.

The first item in that programme was a great petition on the land question signed, at least with their thumb marks, by over 63,000 Africans. I presented it to this House in 1950, and the point I seek to make is that if Jomo Kenyatta, in 1950, was really planning Mau Mau he would not have been carrying out a campaign in Kenya among his fellow Africans asking them to petition this House, asking them to look to this House, and asking them to think in terms of the advance of the Legislature in Kenya itself.

Again, Jomo Kenyatta was the President of the Kenya African Union. He had been arrested in 1952. When my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and I went to Kenya at that date, at the invitation of Mr. Kenyatta himself, we issued an appeal to all the African people against Mau Mau and against violence. Hundreds of thousands of copies of that appeal were distributed by the Kenya African Union itself. Considering that record, with which I was intimately associated, I find it very difficult indeed to believe that the charges that have been made against Jomo Kenyatta are justified.

I do not propose now to deal with the trial, but even if the sentence at that trial was justified there has never been any finding against Jomo Kenyatta that identified him with the subsequent oath takings and obscene, violent atrocities in Kenya. The only oath that has ever been laid against Jomo Kenyatta has been one on the basis of political activity. I have rarely known of a more shameful, a more outrageous, a more utterly unfair campaign against any public man than that conducted, particularly from the benches opposite, against Jomo Kenyatta.

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that it has now been understood in Kenya itself that the release of this man is absolutely essential to the unity and to the stability of that territory. It is not only the Africans who are demanding it. The Government there are themselves demanding it. The Legislature is demanding it. All the African parties are demanding it. Even the Africans who were known as loyalist during the Mau Mau emergency—the sons of Chief Wihuru, who was himself murdered by Mau Mau—have demanded it. The European leaders have demanded it, and so have the Asian leaders, the Arab leaders and the religious leaders. Only the obstinacy of a few British civil servants in Nairobi, and of the Governor —unfortunately, until this moment, supported by the right hon. Gentleman—is preventing the release of Jomo Kenyatta which is necessary if Kenya is to advance with unity and stability.

One other thing I want to say with equal emphasis. I find it difficult to express the feeling of sympathy and support that I have felt towards the Colonial Secretary during recent years. My whole attitude towards the Government's colonial policy has been largely changed by what he has done. Therefore, when I criticise him, as I now shall criticise very strongly indeed, it is with very great personal regret.

I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that what has happened in Northern Rhodesia is one of the most discreditable features in the whole of our colonial policy. I justify that by reminding the House that the Colonial Secretary called a conference in London of the representatives of the various parties.

Under the influence of Sir Roy Welensky, the Government party declined to come to that conference. Instead, Sir Roy sent emissaries, and my first charge against the right hon. Gentleman is that when that conference was meeting in London he paid more attention to the those emissaries, behind the scenes, than he did to the official delegates who attended the conference itself. The conference was kept waiting while discussions took place with these "in the background" representatives of Sir Roy Welensky, on whose invitation the United Federal Party had declined to attend the conference. The humiliation which the official delegates felt at that point was very deep indeed.

A proposal was adopted at that conference. It was not a proposal which in any way reflected African demand, but it gave the Africans the chance, at least, that they would gain an equal representation with the Europeans and, indeed, with liberal European support, would possibly obtain a majority in the Legislature against the more reactionary views of the United Federal Party. Because that was the case—unsatisfactory as that Constitution was—the Africans, at that time, were prepared to accept it.

The right hon. Gentleman may say that the new proposals do not break the letter and spirit of that decision, but I say that they have destroyed that decision. They have destroyed the hope of unity in Northern Rhodesia behind the new Constitution. They have led to a position where the African movement will boycott it because of its unfairness. I have sometimes described Kenneth Kuanda as the Gandhi of Africa. He is a man of gentle spirit, without violence in his character who was doing his utmost to guide the African movement on to a line which would progress without violence. The right hon. Gentleman, by the changes he has made in this Constitution, has absolutely destroyed that opportunity in Northern Rhodesia.

Without going into the complexities of this Constitution, and of the changes being made, I shall mention it only in two respects. The first effect has been that while before there were opportunities of African—European parity, that has been destroyed. Everyone knows now that, on this Constitution, not merely the Africans will not be able to get that representation. It means also that it is weighted now even against the liberal Europeans. It is now just a gift to the United Federal Party to obtain a majority in the territory. Thus, when the right hon. Gentleman has made this change, while he may say that it is not a change in the letter and in the spirit, it is a change, in effect, which has meant this deplorable deterioration of the situation in Northern Rhodesia.

The second point is that Sir Roy Welensky and his party denounced the first draft on the ground that it was racialist. About 90 hon. Members who were in opposition to it signed a Motion that it was racialist. But now the changed Constitution is far more racialist than the one before. It is more racialist in two special respects: first, the percentage, or the 400 who have to be obtained before a candidate can succeed, is not to be on the basis of the upper roll or the lower roll, which contained Africans and Europeans, but is to be on the basis of the Europeans and the Africans separately, whichever the roll. That is far more racialist than the preceding constitution.

Secondly, the Asians, Arabs and the non-Europeans who are not African are to be taken out of that plan altogether. The right hon. Gentleman has attempted to justify it on the ground that it has been done in Kenya, but he cannot possibly say that it is not more racialist. It adds up to what is, in effect, racial apartheid so far as the Asian and Arab population is concerned.

I am saying this in criticism of the right hon. Gentleman with very great regret. He must be an unhappy man as he sees the present position in Northern Rhodesia, with all the appalling possibilities of racial conflict, which may result from the change in the Constitution which he has accepted.

I had intended to say a word about Southern Rhodesia, but I will say only that it is not the right hon. Gentleman's primary responsibility. It is the primary responsibility of the Secretary of State for Commononwealth Relations, but as a result of the policy of the present Government in Central Africa we are likely to have a situation there which may repeat some of the terrible consequences which have happened in Northern Africa. I pray that it may not be so. I pray that, even at this hour, the right hon. Gentleman may reverse the disastrous policies which are leading to these conclusions.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. R. H. Turton (Thirsk and Malton)

Although my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary knows that I do not approve of or agree with all his policies, I thought that the attack made on him in the latter part of the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) was extremely unfair and without any foundation; but I will refer to that later.

What worries me in these debates on Central and East Africa is that I do not think that we are getting down to the real problem of that part of the world, or of the forces that are, in fact, against our interests and African interests. Next Monday there will be a debate on Berlin and we shall have the concerted policy which this country follows, concerted with America and with our allies in Europe and that will be directed towards containing Communism away from Western Europe. In that debate, I am sure that we shall have the lunatic extreme Left-wing view attacking the point of view of both Front Benches. That is the common picture.

Mr. Dingle Foot (Ipswich)

And the lunatic extreme Right.

Mr. Turton

But when we are dealing with the problem of Africa it is equally in the orbit of the East-West struggle. One finds the two Front Benches in agreement. But some hon. Members hold different views, primarily because they realise that some of the policy, or lack of policy, in Africa does exactly (what Russia is trying to do in Africa. In support of that remark I remind hon. Members that Mr. Molotov, in 1953, outlined the basic formula for Communism in Africa as follows: A period of decolonialisation…will be followed by a general independence. Then a period of unbelievable disorder. There will be political and economic anarchy. Afterwards, and then only, the dawn of Communism will rise. That is the plan of the Communist Powers in this part of Africa. It should be the resolve of both sides of the Committee, except for the lunatic element, or perhaps I should say the extreme Left-wing, to avoid that happening, with economic and political disorder preceding Communism. Those hon. Members who read in the Sunday Telegraph of 16th July the amazing story of Mr. Okotcla, the Nigerian, will realise the forces which are working for subversion in Africa so as to promote economic and political disorder. That being the position, we who are trying to hold the position in Africa should work out our policy on three basic principles.

First, we should lay down principles of policy and stick to them. Secondly, we should ensure that we are working for our aim of a multi-racial partnership irrespective of colour or race. It should be a true partnership. Thirdly—this is probably the most important—we must ensure that economic advancement precedes political advancement. If political advancement precedes economic advancement, it will be followed by economic anarchy.

That is where I judge my right hon. Friend's policies to have gone wrong in the period since he assumed office. I hope that in anything I say in criticising hint he will acquit me of having anything but an extremely high personal regard for him. After all, when I left the staff of the 50th Division, in the war, my right hon. Friend succeeded me on the staff. When he left the Ministry of Health I took over from him and tried to follow the admirable policy which I believed that he had worked out on health. There is nothing personal in my criticism.

I believe that since my right hon. Friend left the Ministry of Labour and succeeded Lord Boyd, as Secretary of State for the Colonies, he has not maintained the first principle I mentioned, namely, that we must lay down principles and be consistent. I will illustrate that first by Northern Rhodesia, because I think that that will show where he has gone wrong.

In the 1958 Constitution Lord Boyd—Mr. Lennox-Boyd, as he then was—laid down four principles of policy. First, politics should be encouraged to develop on party and not on racial lines. Secondly, we should begin to move away from the present system of racial representation in the Legislative Council. Thirdly, the constitutional advance now to be settled should be durable and not subject to drastic change every few years. Fourthly, the franchise must be one which will give the vote to those who are contributing to the wealth and welfare of the country.

Those principles in the 1958 Constitution are the same as those embodied in the Southern Rhodesian Constitution, which will be the subject of a referendum tomorrow. All hon. Members will hope that the Southern Rhodesian referendum will pass successfully and that by that means we shall get another stage of advance in Southern Rhodesia and the aim of the Dominion Party will be defeated. We all want the referendum to succeed.

Mr. D. Foot

The first referendum?

Mr. Turton

I mean a referendum conducted by secret ballot. The hon. and learned Member is probably talking of some mockery which took place yesterday, which was not a referendum at all.

Where my right hon. Friend went wrong was that when he produced the White Paper in February he did not attempt to make the Constitution nonracial. It has been altered to make it work, and we have seen the complexities and racialism which are in the present solution. It would have been far better if my right hon. Friend had been consistent with the principles laid down in the Lennox-Boyd Constitution and had said, "We must now ensure that more Africans are in the Legislative Council in Northern Rhodesia. The right way to achieve this is to increase the number of special constituencies in the rural areas, where undoubtedly those to be elected will be responsible Africans". That would have effected my right hon. Friend's aim.

As a result, there would have been more Africans in the Legislative Council, and it would not have been a racial solution. Under the Lennox-Boyd Constitution, all voters on both rolls were voting in each constituency. The great weakness of the present Constitution is that in most constituencies the two rolls are being separated. One roll votes in one constituency and the other roll votes in another. That is the core of the racial character of the present Constitution.

When the Constitution was first announced the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said that it would require a slide rule to work it out. That was a very fair comment. For that reason, it will not have success and I doubt very much whether it can be durable. However, I know that there is a great amount of good will in Northern Rhodesia and in the Federation. Although I dislike the Constitution, I hope that everyone will co-operate to make it work until we can get what we must get in the future, namely, a Constitution more non-racial in character.

One aspect of the Northern Rhodesian Constitution which has never been made clear is whether my right hon. Friend is continuing the provision in the 1958 Constitution by which we were proceeding to a common roll. The whole idea in Northern Rhodesia, as laid down by Lord Boyd, was that the prosperity of the country was to be increased to such an extent that it would eventually reach the position of having one roll. Therefore, the lower roll was to be temporary in character.

In our first debate I asked my right hon. Friend to answer me on that point. So far as I know, I have not received a reply, either in the House of Commons or in correspondence. If my right hon. Friend has given me the reply in a letter, I apologise for having overlooked it. It is important that it should be stated publicly whether it is my right hon. Friend's aim to follow the Lennox-Boyd principle of 1946 to achieve a common roll. As I see it, the unity of Northern Rhodesia depends upon it.

The only merit of the present Constitution is that it is so complicated that nobody can calculate how it will work out in practice. I am sure that the hon. Member for Eton and Slough does not have the mathematical ingenuity to work it out. I do not believe that any man alive, either in Africa or in this country, knows how all these complicated permutations and combinations will work out. My right hon. Friend, with his great intelligence, may regard that as a merit, but it is also a weakness. It would have been far better if we had had a more simple constitution

Mr. Iain Macleod

May I say to my right hon. Friend, who is praising the 1958 Constitution, in which there was considerable merit, at the expense of the 1961 Constitution, that in November, 1958, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) referred to the Constitution of that year as a maze of complete incomprehensibility.

Mr. Turton

I agree. My right hon. Friend will, however, know that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East has progressed in his intellectual capacity since then. We now have the Southern Rhodesia Constitution, which is on all fours with the 1958 Constitution. I have not heard the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East say that he finds it a maze which he cannot understand. He has told us that he finds the present Constitution for Northern Rhodesia completely impossible to understand.

I turn now to Kenya, where, too, the then Mr. Lennox-Boyd laid down certain principles upon which we should work our policy of advancement. He did that on 22nd April, 1959, in an Adjournment debate, when he specified the four conditions for political advancement as being, first, that there should be sufficient understanding of parliamentary institutions and a sufficient sense of responsibility in public affairs. That was to be the first prerequisite for political advancement. The second was that there should be a sufficient measure of cooperation between various communities to ensure mutual toleration.

The third was that there should be a reasonable prospect that any Government would be able to ensure for the people of Kenya a fair standard of living in an expanding economy. The last condition was that there should be a competent and experienced Civil Service. Added to that was the overriding condition of a safeguard for all existing holders of land, of all races, in Kenya. That was laid down by Lord Boyd on 22nd April, 1959.

On Thursday last, my right hon. Friend said that he stood by those principles. I want, therefore, to ask him one or two questions upon them. What prospects are there of mutual toleration, which was one of the principles laid down by Lord Boyd in that Constitution, when we may be reaching the position that Jomo Kenyatta, to whom recent reference has been made by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough—I am sorry that the hon. Member has not remained to hear what other hon. Members have to say on his speech—and whom the Governor described as the "leader to darkness and death," is, we understand from The Times of yesterday, to be released in one or two days, or, judging by what Mr. Blundell has said, to be released within three weeks? What my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had to say about the release of Jomo Kenyatta did not give me any feeling that The Times or Mr. Blundell were far wrong.

We must remind my right hon. Friend of what the Governor said in his speech of 9th May last year. Describing Jomo Kenyatta as the "leader to darkness and death," he said that his return to political life in Kenya at the present time would be a disaster…I am mindful of the promises given by my predecessors to those brave men who helped their country to rid itself of the Mau Mau horror. I hope that my right hon. Friend will realise that he must not—I am sure he will not—be deluded by the easy assumption of innocence, quite contrary to what judges said at the trial and quite contrary to what was said by the Governor, whose remarks were taken up by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough. It is one of the attractive qualities of the hon. Member that he always believes the best of everybody and, therefore, he is so frequently deluded. At a time when all the evidence in Kenya is that crimes of violence are worse than since Mau Mau was put down, it would be a tragedy if the Secretary of State allowed the Governor, in spite of what he said on 9th May last year, to release Kenyatta and to allow these Mau Mau gangs to increase in strength.

I beg my right hon. Friend to remember that he has a duty to the House of Commons. Should he be taking an unwise decision, he has a duty to come to the House and state it—as, I believe, he undertook to do, if I understood him aright—before he reaches that decision. I want my right hon. Friend to realise that if Kenyatta is released it will cause a great shock to many people both in Kenya and in this country. I do not believe that it would aid Kenya to settle down to that mutual toleration that is one of the cardinal principles.

I should like to ask my right hon. Friend a question or two concerning land. It is satisfactory that K.A.N.U. and K.A.D.U. are to talk over these land problems. All of us, whatever view we hold, hope that there will be a successful outcome of the talks, but I do not think that Her Majesty's Government or we in Parliament can escape from our obligations in this matter. After all, these men, both European and African, hold their land on title derived from the gift of Her Majesty's Government.

I appreciate the Secretary of State's difficulty about making any form of compensation announcement at the present time. We cannot, however, escape from our clear moral and legal obligation to stand by these titles that have been derived. Men have gone out from this country after each of the wars having been told, "Go to Kenya. You will be given land title from us and we will look after you."

I should like to go back to 22nd April, 1959, and quote exactly what was said by my right hon. Friend's predecessor, Lord Boyd. His words were: This policy will include suitable safeguards against the economic or political exploitation of all those who hold rights in the land…" —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd April, 1959; Vol. 604, c. 567.] Will my right hon. Friend tell us in what way he is carrying out that policy which he promised last Thursday to carry out and what safeguards he is giving to both African and European landholders in Kenya against economic or political exploitation?

It is for these reasons that I feel great disquiet at present about the position in East and Central Africa. People talk too much about there being a "wind of change" in Africa without realising that that wind of change is fomented by agitators and taken advantage of by the Communist Party. We must remember that we have great obligations not merely to Europeans in Africa, but to the loyal Africans who stood by this country and who are the vast majority of the Africans in Africa. They do not want Kenya, Northern Rhodesia or Nyasaland to suffer the atrocities and barbarities which have happened in the Congo and elsewhere in Africa.

But if we allow political advance to precede economic advance too rapidly we shall have a return to primitivism and barbarism and all the atrocities that happened in Mau Mau and have been happening both in the Congo and in Angola.

This is a warning, and the way to avoid these things happening is for us Ito connect our policy in Africa with our allies in America and in Europe. There is far too much misunderstanding between the major countries on what is happening in Africa. We should take more active steps to secure a concerted policy. We should also make it clear that we are working out a colonial policy on prin- ciples which have been handed down from one Colonial Secretary to another and that we mean to stick to those principles.

6.23 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Skeffington (Hayes and Harlington)

I usually quarrel with those who say in debate that they do not intend to follow the previous speaker in his remarks, because I believe that the House of Commons is a place for debate. I shall not follow the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) on this occasion, however, with the leave of the House, for the very good reason that I know that a number of my hon. Friends will do so and I want to allow time for them. I rise on this occasion only to put in a special plea for Tanganyika and to reinforce the eloquent appeal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan).

I do that for the simple reason that I have had the good fortune to visit the Territory on several occasions. Like all who go there and study it, one gets much in love with the place and the people. That feeling, of course, is greatly encouraged by the happy and harmonious transformation towards independence which is taking place there, a process in which all races and all people have taken part and are taking part at present. It is perhaps the only area in Africa of that size where the constitutional and political change has taken place with none of the hatred associated with it in other areas, based on race or class. In Tanganyika the people are working very happily and successfully in building a new territory. To whatever race they belong they regard Tanganyika as their land and they all call themselves Tanganyikans.

It would be quite unforgivable if this brilliant experiment in Africa were to be imperilled at this stage by financial considerations of not a major character at all. Before I elaborate what I have to say about that, I should like to take up one point made by the Colonial Secretary when he said that even five years ago Mr. Julius Nyerere would have been regarded by some as an extreme Nationalist African leader. That may have been so on the other side of the House, but it certainly was not so on this side. I should like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) who did so much at a critical stage to smooth the way for Mr. Nyerere in Tanganyika and who frequently referred to him in speeches in this House.

I can remember how even in 1957 my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East and I went to see the then Colonial Secretary and urged that it was time that Mr. Nyerere and the then Governor Lord Twining met more frequently. They had not talked for more than a year. I was glad to find in September of that year when I reached Tanganyika that good relationships had once more been resumed. The moral is that sometimes the judgment of my hon. Friends in these matters in relation to persons is better than on the other side of the House. However, that is past history and we are faced now with a financial situation which the present chief Minister of Tanganyika considers to be one of perilous character.

I was glad to hear the Colonial Secretary say that he had been able to make an improved offer, but he gave no figure and I imagine that the offer was still inadequate by the standards by which Mr. Nyerere is judging the commitments which his Government will have to face after independence in December. Even in the serious economic position in which we are today, financial stringency need not imperil this brilliant experiment in Tanganyika. There is no doubt that that is what Mr. Nyerere thinks of the present position.

According to a report in The Times of his Press conference in London last week, Mr. Nyerere, presumably in soberly measured words, because he is not given to extravagant talk, said: We were absolutely shocked when throughout all the discussions Her Majesty's Government were pleading poverty. It is true that, later, he said: Theoretically matters have improved, but in practice matters have not improved and I am going back very disappointed. Apparently, what Mr. Nyerere meant by saying that theoretically matters had improved was the suggestion, which I understand has been made, that more grants or loans would be available in 1965, 1966 and 1967. But obviously Tanganyika's need will be immediately after independence, and I suppose that the first year or two after next December will be even more important than 1965, 1966 and 1967. I hope that the Colonial Secretary, therefore, will not figure in the same way as Dr. Johnson's patron. He will recall that Dr. Johnson asked whether a patron was not one who gave a man a lifebelt when he had reached the bank. The cash will be needed in Tanganyika now.

It is needed for two things principally. First, there is the great development scheme which has been drawn up by the experts of the World Bank and the water survey scheme which is to go with it. I think that all those who have studied the position in East Africa, from the days of the Royal Commission on East Africa right through to the United Nations mission to that country, will agree that economic development is quite indispensable if the very low standard of living is to be abolished in a measurable time.

My hon. Friend mentioned a figure of between £12 and £16 per head in Tanganyika. I think that that may well be too optimistic, for reasons which I do not want to go into now but based largely on the way in which statistics have been collected. Even accepting that figure, it is extremely low. Yet it need not be.

The World Bank and its specialists have recently made a survey in the Rufiji Basin, and I understand that it is thought that with a proper irrigation scheme at least half that area would be capable of producing food. Any of us who have been in the Territory must have been impressed from time to time by what has been done by means of the limited water experiments so far. I remember seeing at Makonde in the Southern Province an experiment by a water engineer who was appalled that many African women had to walk for eight hours for their water supplies.

By getting hold of a second-hand engine and pumping the water up a 1,000 ft. escarpment and distributing the water to several points, he was able to save most of them having to do that. The result was that the social climate of the people was revolutionised within a few months. If there is one factor more than another in the economic development of Tanganyika which will pay handsome dividends it is the water scheme.

In the 361,000 square miles of Tanganyika there are only 9 million people. As has already been pointed out, the Tanganyika territory is now the largest territory remaining in the Colonial Commonwealth. Therefore, with a limited application of finance to schemes of this kind an economic return within a period of years can be guaranteed as far as anything can be guaranteed in Africa. If these schemes, which must be started now, were held up by uncertainty about finance, it is likely that the whole peaceful experiment in Tanganyika would fail.

The political consequences of this would be most serious. Political disaster in Tanganyika would affect the whole of the possibilities of federation and the future of the East African High Commission, and so on. Here we have an opportunity with a large territory led by a gifted statesman which can be the basis for future development of East Africa. I plead with the Colonial Secretary that nothing should be done that would impair this hopeful future.

The other reason why the Government of Tanganyika needs a loan quickly relates to the Civil Service. Mr. Nyerere and those who follow him have adopted the policy that civil servants who care to stay on in the territory will be welcome and have nothing to fear. People have come to see me about this, and I have said that I think that Tanganyika is one of the places in Africa where there is a good future.

But, again, finance is wanted. This was made very clear in the Press interview which Mr. Nyerere gave in London last week. He said that the sole justification for keeping an expensive expatriate civil service in the country was that they could help in the development of the country. If the British Government were not prepared to produce the funds that Tanganyika had been led to expect, it would be embarrassing for both the Tanganyika Government and the individual civil servants, who genuinely wanted to help in the country's development Here we have people who have been trained and who want to stay and help the country. What is involved is a cash consideration of a not gigantic amount. As has already been said, the cost of a couple of the nuclear warships which we have laid down would more than meet this bill.

I do not want to make trite political points, but for ten years we have been told that we have never had it so good. Are we really to appear at the bar of world public opinion saying that we cannot possibly by one means or another find £24 million over the next three years for a most successful transfer of a territory from colonial trusteeship to independence? I do not believe that is true. I do not believe that the people of Britain think that or would support it. After all, only a few weeks ago concessions were made in this House of £80 million to one group of people.

I felt embarrassed when I read the concluding part of Mr. Nyerere's Press statement. I read: Throughout his press conference Mr. Nyerere spoke more in sorrow than in anger, remarking that Tanganyika's friendship with Britain did not depend on money. That is absolutely true. If Britain were really too poor to help he would ask his people to make sacrifices and not to ask for money. It seemed, however, that being moderate meant that you did less well than less moderate people. This we have seen so often in our colonial history. If one makes a fuss, has strikes or causes civil war, all kinds of concessions are given one. That would have happened to Mr. Nyerere if in the last few years he had acted like some other leaders. He would have been brought here and lodged in Claridge's and all sorts of concessions would have been made. But Mr. Nyerere is statesmanlike and bases his attitude on the practice of British parliamentary democracy. In the light of that, it is shocking that he should feel, and thus speak, like that.

Mr. Nyerere also said: If a revolution took place in Tanganyika they would spend millions. Somehow the balance of payments problem would disappear. He also said: There was a reluctance on Britain's part to put money into a less exciting type of battle against mosquitoes. He added: Somehow it would ruin the economy of the British Government if money were found fm this purpose. He concluded that Tanganyika's stability was used as an argument why it should not get financial help. In other words, the more virtuous one has been in one's colonial life the more these items are trotted out against one.

This is a shameful and pettifogging incident. I hope that, irrespective of party points, the Government will reconsider the matter and ensure that this territory, which has done so well and has gone forward without bloodshed, shall not have its whole future imperilled by lack of very small cash help.

6.38 p.m.

Mr. Humphry Berkeley (Lancaster)

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State earlier drew a vivid picture of the remarkable way in which our dependent territories had become independent in an orderly and peaceful fashion since the war.

I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) has left the Chamber, because I most profoundly disagreed with almost every sentiment contained in his speech. He chose to attack the policies of the Colonial Secretary on the ground that there had been some departure from the principles which had been laid down both in Kenya and in Northern Rhodesia by the former Colonial Secretary, Lord Boyd.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton went on to say that he thought that a good deal too much was heard these days about the wind of change in Africa. It so happens that during the past two or three years my travels have taken me to thirteen independent African countries, many of which I have visited more than once. To suggest, as my right hon. Friend did, that the wind of Change is something that one can turn on or off at will seems to me to be so totally unrealistic as to make it almost impossible to discuss these problems in logical and coherent terms.

After all, one of the great events which has occurred in Africa in the last two years has been the liquidation—in a period of eighteen months—of the entire French colonial empire. This has been done by General de Gaulle, a man who is not noted for unduly radical or liberal views. Admittedly the great and terrifying problem of Algeria remains, but, nevertheless, about eighteen independent African countries have been created by the disappearance of the French empire in Africa over the last two years. My right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton appeared completely to ignore that.

Then, of course, there has been the appalling tragedy in the Congo—an area the size of Western Europe—in which the Belgians took not eighteen months in which to liquidate their responsibilities but only six months. How can we, in view of these circumstances—including, more recently, the catastrophe that is occurring in Angola—pretend that our parts of Africa—the British parts—are totally isolated from these events elsewhere?

I want to say something about Kenya. I believe that we owe a very great debt to my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary for the skilful and courageous way in which he handled the Lancaster House Conference just over a year ago. There can be little doubt that the constitutional settlement reached at Lancaster House has saved Kenya from an explosion which would otherwise have occurred. My right hon. Friend has, in my view, been the victim of a most unfair and ill-considered series of personal attacks over his policy for Kenya.

Mr. Awbery

The attacks have come from the hon. Member's own party.

Mr. Berkeley

I am sad to say that the attacks have come from certain hon. Members, though a distinct minority, in my own party. But now I turn to what I thought was a most unfair charge against my right hon. Friend by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). The hon. Gentleman is not normally unfair, but I thought that the strictures which he directed at my right hon. Friend, when he accused him of being unaware of and indifferent to the problems of the European farmers, were quite unnecessary and untrue.

I have many times heard my right hon. Friend talk about the problems and difficulties which the European farmers in Kenya are facing at the present time, and I am convinced that the present talks taking place between the Kenya African Democratic Union and the Kenya African National Union owe a great deal to the initiative my right hon. Friend has taken. But what he has always said—and in this I am sure that he is right—is that once we admit the principle of compensation to cover possible dispossession, we are merely giving added incentive to the extremists to be more extreme. I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East will realise that he was not being altogether fair to my right hon. Friend on that point.

I also want to say something about the position of Jomo Kenyatta. A few weeks ago I made a speech in the provinces when I said that the time had now come when Mr. Kenyatta should be released. I have become more convinced of this as the weeks have gone by. I see my noble Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton) turning round. I am glad to see that, not in a speech but in an article, he subscribes to that view as well. I believe that Mr. Kenyatta should be released but it gives me no great joy to say so, because I cannot believe that he was quite as unconnected with the events of Mau-Mau as the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) suggests. Nevertheless, I believe his release to be vitally necessary for several reasons.

First, every day that Mr. Kenyatta remains under restriction, his prestige and reputation will grow. Secondly, I am sure that unless he is released within the next few weeks the present Government in Kenya will fall, and I believe that this Government of moderate Africans and moderate Europeans—including Mr. Ngala and Mr. Blundell, to mention only two—is one we have to support.

Thirdly, if Mr. Kenyatta is released, I think that there is a real chance that some of the K.A.N.U. members will join the present Government, which would greatly strengthen it, because one cannot indefinitely depend on a Government which includes Africans only of the smaller tribes. Therefore, a K.A.N.U. element in the Government is of great importance. The release of Mr. Kenyatta could bring this about.

Fourthly, and most important of all, it is necessary that Mr. Kenyatta should be released while the British security forces are still in Kenya. I believe that the security position is likely to be eased by his release, but if there were trouble I believe that it would be necessary for us to have forces there to deal with it. Nothing could be worse than if, let us say, Kenya were to achieve full independence in two or three years time and Mr. Kenyatta's release were delayed until that point. That would be calamitous from every point of view.

Now I turn to Northern Rhodesia. I cannot pretend that I am vastly enamoured of the present Northern Rhodesian constitutional settlement. As I am sure other hon. Members have done, I have given a great deal of thought to it, and I would very much have preferred in Northern Rhodesia something on the lines of the Kenya settlement. I believe that we should have had an African elected majority, and that, in the interest of the Europeans themselves, it would probably have been better to have had a common roll with a minority of reserved seats, as the Europeans have under the present arrangements in Kenya. But for reasons which we all know, the position in Northern Rhodesia is more complicated than that in Kenya, and I believe that it was asking too much of my right hon. Friend to expect him to be able to pull this off in Northern Rhodesia as well as in Kenya.

Let us examine this Constitution which everybody says is so complicated that it cannot possibly be understood. I was glad that my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary, in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, made the point that nobody could suggest that the present Constitution is any more complicated than the 1958 Constitution which, with my rudimentary mathematical knowledge. I have always found impossible to comprehend.

Certain principles are laid down in the new Constitution, and the first is one which has not been brought out altogether in this debate. It is the simple fact that, if the initial hurdle can be overcome, there is, in this Constitution, a built-in African majority. There is no doubt about that, because the Africans comprise the whole of the lower roll and 11 per cent. of the upper roll. The members for the national seats will be returned by equalising the rolls—50 per cent. of the upper roll and 50 per cent. of the lower roll.

As the Africans have 11 per cent. on the upper roll, they will have a clear majority over the Europeans of 55 per cent. as against 45 per cent. when the two rolls are equalised. There can be no doubt that if the hurdle were successfully overcome there would be an African majority under this constitutional settlement.

There are many peripheral matters which have a certain marginal importance, but the only question which really matters is whether this hurdle of 12½ per cent., or 400 votes, will be too much either for the U.F.P. or Mr. Kaunda and his supporters to surmount. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough spoke in an immoderate way about this Constitution, because it is far from clear that there is a definite, built-in irreversible majority for the U.F.P. I think that the evidence is all the other way.

Let us examine this qualification. What it provides for is that any European has to get 400 African votes to qualify, and any African has to get 12½ per cent. of the European votes, which is considerably less than 400 votes and probably about 250 to 280 European votes. If the hon. Member for Eton and Slough had remained, he could have told us why he supposed that this Constitution was a sell-out to the U.F.P., when that party now has to get as many votes in each constituency as it got in the whole of Northern Rhodesia at the last election in 1959. It then got 480 votes for the whole of Northern Rhodesia. It is true that there are vastly more Africans on the new electoral roll—the number has increased from 7,000 to 70,000—but it is hardly likely that the bulk of those extra Africans will be supporters of Sir Roy Welensky's party. If out of 7,000 African votes last time Sir Roy Welensky's party scooped only 400, will it now be able to get the 400 votes in every one of the seven double-member constituencies which it needs in order to qualify? I think that it is highly doubtful.

Kenneth Kaunda may well have some difficulty in scraping up the 250 to 280 European votes which will be necessary for his party to qualify, but the most hopeful possibility in this respect is that Kenneth Kaunda's party and Sir John Moffat's party will come to an electoral arrangement. If they were to do that, they would almost certainly prove to be unbeatable, and I have no hesitation in declaring my preference. I very much wish to see, as a result of this settlement, a majority coalition government led by Mr. Kaunda and Sir John Moffat. That is the most promising thing we could have, with moderate Africans such as Mr. Kaunda and statesmanlike Europeans such as Sir John Moffat. That would be the most hopeful sort of régime which Northern Rhodesia could have in this transitional phase.

Mr. Wall

Has my hon. Friend not left out one factor in his calculations, that the African National Congress, a moderate African party, may find itself playing a big rôle in the next election?

Mr. Berkeley

That is very possible. If there were a number of A.N.C. members and a number of United National Independence Party members and a number of liberal members with a combined majority over the U.F.P., I would not object in the least.

One of the complications about Northern Rhodesia and its relationship with the Federation as a whole is that there has never been a territory about which there has been so much double talk. The word "partnership" is constantly being used. There is no doubt that to many people who use it the word "partnership" means white domination. There are others to whom it means a sharing of power between the races, but to far too many people in the U.F.P. partnership means the former. Then we have the phrase "moderate opinion", which to some means the supporters of the U.F.P., so that everybody else is extremist. This makes sensible and logical discussion about progress in the Federation extremely difficult.

I am convinced that the survival of the Federation will be impossible if it becomes apparent to the Africans that federation itself is holding back their political advance. That is one of the great dangers at present. I hope that the Constitution might provide a kind of government which would make further progress more possible. If the Northern Rhodesian moderate African has indisputable evidence that it is federation and only federation which is holding back his political advance, it is inconceivable that federation can survive for very long. Certain members of the United Federal Party and certain Ministers whom I have met, and by whom I have been somewhat alarmed, and certain hon. Members who have given unquestioned support to the United Federal Panty, have not seemed to realise, when talking of the great need to preserve federation, that they themselves are doing more than anything else to make the break-up of the Federation inevitable.

I can well remember a few months ago in a certain African territory going to see a performance of Hamlet in Arabic. It was quite a test of endurance, as hon. Members may imagine. In the middle of the performance, there was an interval of about three quarters of an hour while the stage was literally sawn up in order to make a suitable setting for the grave digger's scene. Some of the over-enthusiastic friends of the United Federal Party, in the country and in the House, with scarcely less noise and certainly with equal enthusiasm, have been preparing a grave digger's scene for the Federation.

The Monckton Commission outlined the arguments in favour of the Federation being preserved, and all of us would wish to see it preserved, but the most interesting observation that came from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East today was the concept that even if the Federation as at present existing were brought to an end, there might well be a larger and in some senses more promising institution to which the constituent parts of the present Federation could adhere.

I hope that we shall not say to ourselves that if the Federation upon which we have spent so much hope and time and energy fails, there is nothing left for these territories but isolation and poverty. That is not true. There is a wider and more hopeful prospect of a much larger federation, consisting of the whole of East and Central Africa, rich in population and rich in resources, which could contribute substantially to the stability of East and Central Africa.

It is sometimes fashionable for Members of the Opposition to speak in somewhat derogatory terms about our Imperial past. Whenever I have travelled in Africa, I have had a tremendous sense of pride at the achievements which have been brought about by British rule, whether in East, West or Central Africa. I have never subscribed to the now fashionable Left-wing view that everything which the Imperialists have done is wrong.

I am not at all sure that what we are now doing throughout the Continent of Africa is not in some ways more remarkable. As was said earlier, the French evacuated their colonial empire in about eighteen months and there are countries like Guinea and Mali which are not tremendously satisfactory reminders or French colonial power. The Belgians, alas, got involuntarily involved in chaos and confusion in the Congo. The Portuguese are now faced with the possibility of yielding in some measure in their colonial policies, or facing a massacre. I believe that we are the only Colonial Power which has apparently so far successfully learned the art—

Mr. Awbery

What about Cyprus?

Mr. Berkeley

I have an answer on Cyprus. Had it not been for the minority problem of Cyprus there would have been no bloodshed there. There was no desire on the part of anybody in the Government to retain Cyprus, except to protect the minority there which might otherwise have suffered.

So far in West Africa we have granted independence, and we have left behind us a legacy of admiration and goodwill. It makes one tremendously proud to be British if one visits these territories and sees the increased number of British people living there giving advice and help, and one sees the very real esteem in which we are held.

Later this year this great experimental process is moving over to East Africa. We have very few remaining territories in which this process has to be carried through. As my right hon. Friend said, in the main they are territories where there has been, and indeed still is, and we hope will continue to be, a sizeable European and British population. We must all hope that this process can now be carried forward to finality, and that we can do something in Africa which has eluded any other colonial Power—to create a genuinely non-racial society in which race discrimination plays no part, in which the white man makes no attempt to exercise a dominance out of proportion to his numbers and in which the name of Britain will be remembered and honoured for many years to come.

7.3 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

I think that hon. Members on this side of the House would feel that in very large measure they were in agreement with the speech of the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley), a sentiment which was not held about the speech of his right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). But it is at least encouraging to find that there are some hon. Gentlemen opposite, particularly some of those who have come in since the last General Election, who take a far more liberal and humanistic view of this problem than some of their colleagues.

The hon. Member for Lancaster made some comments about the general standing of the British in Africa. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary prefaced his remarks by drawing our attention to the difference in our position today compared with what it was in 1945—approximately 500 million people in the Commonwealth in those days; now 43 million, about to be reduced to about 30 million. I should like to say a word about this, because the one thing on which I disagree to some extent with the hon. Member for Lancaster was his expression of a certain feeling of complacency.

I think that it would be true to say that the first, shall we say, 450 million people in the territories with which we are dealing were reasonably well equipped to face the future, but we ought to be honest with ourselves and say that the countries which are now approaching independence are those which in terms of modern development are the newest, the youngest, the least well equipped, the smallest, and the poorest. In other words, what has already been done in the great countries of Asia and the better established countries in West Africa should not lead us into complacency about the position in some of the other countries which are now approaching independence, because their problems are far more acute and they are less well prepared to meet them.

The Colonial Secretary quite properly said a word about the Gambia. That is not the main subject of our debate today, but I think it only right that we should refer to that territory, to which some of us have been, and hope that the Gambia will find a comfortable future in spite of its rather peculiar historical past. Anyone who has been to Bathurst will agree that it is a most delightful place, with a flavour of Victorian England which is hard to find anywhere else in the world. It is based on an extremely exiguous economy, and one can only hope that the Gambia will find a happy and prosperous future, whether in relation with Senegal or not. It is one of the places which an accident of history brought under the British flag, and one hopes that we are leaving some sort of worth-while legacy there.

I turn now to the main subject of the debate, East and Central Africa. I do not propose to go into great detail about the Constitution of Northern Rhodesia, because that has already been discussed a good deal. I hope that the prognostications of the hon. Member for Lancaster will be fulfilled, and that we will have the kind of election result for which he hopes. I think that all of us on this side of the House would wish for the same thing, but we find it difficult to believe that that is possible. I hope that the hon. Gentleman's calculation will prove correct.

The remarks of the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton on Southern Rhodesia seemed extraordinary. He spoke of the referendum which was attempted yesterday as a mockery, but surely the referendum which is coming tomorrow is also a mockery, in the sense that the vast majority of the people of Southern Rhodesia are excluded from it. Therefore, I do not think that any of us can be comfortable.

Mr. Ronald Russell (Wembley, South)

Would the hon. Lady contend that the vast majority of the Africans of Southern Rhodesia understand the issues of the referendum?

Mrs. White

Do we understand the issues in our own elections? With respect, I believe that we do not. If we did, we would not have the present Administration of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is a matter of elementary justice that the majority of the people of the country should have a voice in their future, which they are denied by the present policy in Southern Rhodesia.

I am not proposing to say too much about Central Africa, because other of my hon. Friends wish to deal with that subject. I want to speak briefly about two territories in East Africa one of which we infrequently discuss, Uganda. We have today an opportunity of saying a little, though it would be perhaps unwise to say too much, about the Report of the Munster Commission on Uganda. I have read this Report with intense interest, and I very much hope that the conference in September will lead to good results.

I have said that it might not be wise to go into too great detail on this matter, because it is one of the conferences which has not yet got under way, and in which the Colonial Secretary will need all his powers of persuasion and diplomacy if it is to have a successful outcome.

I was glad that the Munster Commission was extremely frank in its Report. It did not mince words. It put the considerations in Uganda very clearly before us, including some of the psychological and personal considerations which weigh very much in that country. When I first went to Uganda the official policy of Her Majesty's Government was apparently firm and inflexible. Uganda was to be administered as a unitary State, and that was that.

But, as so frequently happens in our administration, we pursued contradictory lines of policy at one and the same time, because at the time that we were saying that this was our firm and fixed goal, for one reason or another we were handing over to one section of Uganda, namely, Buganda, from 1944 onwards, under Sir Charles Dundas and successive Governors, a series of special powers which amounted to a complete contradiction of the policy of unitary rule.

If we were going to make Uganda a unitary State in perpetuity there was no sense in pursuing a policy of handing over large and special powers to one section of that country. But that was done, and it would be quite unrealistic not to recognise the fact. Therefore, I give general support to the proposals of the Munster Commission that a special arrangement must be made in connection with the recognition of Buganda. I also agree that we must take into account the psychology of Buganda, and to some extent the other ruler States in Uganda—the psychology of their own traditional kingship with their own rulers.

Nevertheless, I have the greatest sympathy with the reported remarks made by those who have been discussing this matter only this week with the Governor, that the powers given to Buganda under any settlement should not be such that they can frustrate the central Government. That is essential. I also agree very strongly with the criticism made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) that the proposal that the representatives of Buganda in the central Legislature should be indirectly elected by the Lukiko is an unwise one. I do so partly because it would differentiate Buganda yet again from the rest of the country and partly because it would put an irresistable temptation before the Kabaka to manipulate the representation of Buganda in the central Government.

If Buganda is to live at peace with her neighbours this constant fear of intervention by the Kabaka in the political life of Buganda must in some way be allayed. If he is to be a constitutional monarch, he should be one.

Mr. D. Foot

Why does my hon. Friend say that the Kabaka is not now acting as a constitutional monarch, and not acting on the advice of his Ministers?

Mrs. White

If my hon. and learned Friend will look at page 22 of the Munster Commission Report he will see there something that illustrates the sense of what I am saying. It is said that, When a new Lukiko was elected in 1959 there were widespread allegations that the chiefs … had engineered the return of members favourably to the Ministry. I will not argue with my hon. and learned Friend on this point. It is not a completely apposite quotation, but it illustrates the kind of packed elections which are not impossible. I repeat that it would be putting temptation in the way of the Kabaka to allow this, and it would differentiate Buganda undesirably from the rest of Uganda. The Munster Commission suggested that it would be undesirable to have a difference between the Lukiko and the Buganda representatives in the central Government.

But if one had direct elections for both one would suppose that the general political trend would coincide—in other words, if people had the opportunity of electing members to the Lukiko and also to take part in free elections for the central Government, one could reasonably presume that they would generally vote in the same direction in both cases and, therefore, that that type of conflict ought not to occur in an acute form.

There are other difficulties in the way of peaceful progress in Uganda, among them being the very intense tribal loyalties, and certain cases of acute friction. I will refer only to one, because I raised it in the House some years ago. I refer to the friction between Bunyoro and Buganda over the so-called "lost counties". Those who know the country know that this is a constant source of bitterness and anger between two very important tribal organisations.

The proposals made by the Commission seem sensible. It proposes that there should be a referendum, certainly in two counties, and it suggests that there should be a choice of referendum in a third. That is a good and ingenious proposal. I hope that this problem can be settled before we withdraw entirely from Uganda. It is a legacy of past history in which we were involved, and we have a duty to try to settle the matter before leaving.

I know that this suggestion will not be popular in Buganda. After I raised the matter in the House about four years ago I received a letter from the then Colonial Secretary—Mr. Lennox-Boyd, as he then was—to the effect that my speech had received publicity in Uganda and had caused a certain amount of resentment in Buganda circles. He went on to say: this is perhaps a good thing … in that it has reminded Buganda that their actions are watched from the United Kingdom. The reason for my criticism at that time was the treatment by the Buganda Administration of some people of Bunyoro origin in these countries. We hope that the lesson will be learnt by the Buganda that the whole progress of the country will depend on how well each group gets on with its neighbours. We hope that they are aware that their actions now, and the reputation they are building up, will condition their future good fortune when British protection is withdrawn or, on the contrary, will lead to needless friction and dispute. We implore those who have these disputes, which are quite understandable, to recognise that British protection will not be there for ever. They must learn to live side by side and adopt a spirit of compromise in these matters.

There is one other area of Uganda which faces a different difficulty. That is Karamoja, which is an area unto itself. I hope very much that in any arrangement which we ultimately make about the future of Uganda. Her Majesty's Government will be particularly generous in its recognition of the needs of Karamoja, because it could be an expensive area from the point of view of administration. When making financial arrangements with Uganda, we should recognise that it would be a very big burden for Uganda to have to carry the administration of Karamoja without some special aid.

In speaking of the development of Uganda economically I should like to know whether the Colonial Secretary has yet received the World Bank's Economic Report. We have had one on Tanganyika, but I think that we are still awaiting one for Uganda. I hope 'that we shall have some further opportunity to discuss that. Uganda is a country of great potentiality.

I was readingthe other day a report by the chairman of the Uganda Development Corporation in which he put it graphically, in this way: For every acre now cultivated in Uganda there are about six acres still untouched There is a great potential in Uganda. If only the people there can settle their internal differences it should be a country of great wealth and resources.

Having said that about Uganda, I wish now to turn to Tanganyika, where we are facing a much more difficult situation economically. It is a very large country and in many part of it the climate is unfavourable. It does not have as much in the way of natural resources as some of its neighbours and I can only repeat—it has already been said by hon. Members on this side of the House—how shocked we are at the thought that this country, of all countries, should be shabbily treated by Her Majesty's Government at the present time. It is quite monstrous.

We have been talking about our gift for Empire—at least the hon. Member for Lancaster did. Now we are calling the legions home. I think that we should ask ourselves in what circumstances we are doing so and what are we leaving behind. At least, the Romans left roads and aqueducts. In Tanganyika, we are not leaving either roads or aqueducts in sufficient numbers.

Mr. Callaghan

We are leaving a railway that does not pay.

Mrs. White

That is true of railways all over the world.

I have here a report of the Budget speech of Sir Ernest Vasey—who is well known to many of us—which was delivered on 16th May of this year, before the recent talks on economic arrangements for Tanganyika. I must say that one blushes when reading his peroration, in which he says—he is referring primarily to the United Kingdom: There are friendly hands waiting and willing to help us. They seem to us rather empty and poorly furnished at the moment.

Sir Ernest gives a complete analysis in his Budget speech of the £24 million development plan which we have been discussing. It is not true that this country is being asked to meet the whole of the £24 million bill. Even some of my hon. Friends were speaking as though the whole of this sum were being asked for from this country, but that is not the case. Tanganyika is proposing to provide some part of this money out of her own resources and by local borrowing.

It is also true that she is hoping, as the Colonial Secretary said, to have a certain amount of other overseas aid, some from the United States and some —not, I am quite certain, from the Soviet Union, but possibly from West Germany. Again, there is some irony about a situation in which, after the German shadowed record in Tanganyika as a colonial Power, we should go back to West Germany for aid.

The sum to be sought by external borrowing, as opposed to some of the colonial development and welfare fund money which must still be there, is £11½ million. It is only £11½ million from all external sources which is required. If we take into account the amount which we may get from various agencies in the United States, and the possibility of some assistance from West Germany or from other international sources, it is clear that the amount which this country is being asked to provide is not as vast as all that.

To cut it down to £3½ million, which, we understand, is what is being offered, seems to us a most monstrous and shabby thing. This money is needed, as Sir Ernest made clear in his Budget speech, to build up the foundation for progress in Tanganyika. We must build the infrastructure in the next few years. As Sir Ernest says, this is vital and urgent. It is only after having done this that Tanganyika can seriously hope to expand and progress.

Sir Ernest makes very clear, as the World Bank Commission made clear, that it is roads and aqueducts which are great channels of development in such a country. Tanganyika needs money for roads and water, and for education. Those are the three great needs at the moment and it is for this that we are being asked to supply a relatively small amount of money.

If we in this country cannot provide this relatively small amount, I believe that the bitter words, the first bitter words I have ever heard from Julius Nyerere, are justified. Some of us have known him for many years. I remember having a cup of coffee with him in the cafeteria here, when be was trying to decide whether to resign from the Catholic school, in which he was a teacher, in order to obtain complete political freedom, or whether he had no right, with reference to his family, to take that step.

Some of us have known Julius Nyerere for a long time and have watched with admiration the way in which he has grown to his opportunities. He has developed. He is not to be frightened. He has grown in stature and real statesmanship. I am sure that we should be ashamed to feel that we were betraying someone who has acted, I think, with a keener sense of morality than almost any other political person with whom I have come in contact—and that is saying a good deal.

If we look at same of Julius Nyerere's speeches, in which he says: We must tell our people the truth"— that is something which Her Majesty's Government might have thought of —and: We cannot build the character of our people if we fool them and tell them it is easy. Life is not easy"— one can be absolutely certain, whatever feeling one might have about aid that might be given to some other countries in the world, that in Tanganyika any help given would be used constructively and honestly and not frittered away.

I feel that if nothing else is said in this House today, it is necessary for us to emphasise again and again that we cannot sit back and be satisfied with what we gather are the offers of Her Majesty's Government. It is simple things that Tanganyika needs, but she needs them so very badly. I have mentioned a few, but there are other things, like the new University College, and so on, in which some of us are intensely interested. But the people of Tanganyika cannot achieve these things and make this progress unaided.

There is one other thing about which I hope we may have some clarity from the Under-Secretary. I refer to the position of the expatriate civil servants. The figure given in Tanganyika which would be needed for compensation, for pensions, and so forth, is rather startling. It amounts to more than £9 million, and, as their Finance Minister has said, it is perfectly clear that Tanganyika cannot find that amount from her own resources.

On the other hand, she desperately needs the services of so many of the officers who are now there. An illustration was given by the Prime Minister of Tanganyika in one of his speeches recently, when he said that out of 500 or so qualified medical practitioners in Tanganyika only 15 are Africans. If one takes that sort of balance in the personnel that is available it is quite clear that in many branches of the public service expatriate officers will still be required. One hopes very much that Tanganyika is not going into independence heavily burdened by compensation which she can ill afford to pay. I hope very much that before the end of the debate we shall have reassurance on this matter, which is near to the heart of many of us in this House.

7.31 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Fisher (Surbiton)

I wish very much that I could follow the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) about Uganda and Tanganyika, on which she has been speaking with great knowledge and interest to us all, but not having been to either of those territories, I do not feel justified either in echoing or disagreeing with her remarks, except to say that all of us know that she was certainly right in appealing for generosity to be shown to Tanganyika which, of all our African Colonies, most richly deserves it.

On the general theme of East and Central Africa, whatever we may disagree about, I think we can probably all agree with the words of my right hon. Friend's peroration when he said that East and Central Africa present us in Britain today with possibly the greatest challenge that has confronted our Colonial and Commonwealth policies at any time in our Imperial history. We are concerned with the question as to whether in this decade—or probably in the next five years—we can transfer power in these territories without bloodshed. It is a great challenge to our statesmanship, and it is a tremendous opportunity for my right hon. Friend; but at the same time a quite inescapable duty is laid upon us because it is the impact of our civilisation upon these people in East and Central Africa which has destroyed their original way of life and left them rather adrift in a sort of spiritual vacuum which we must try to help them to fill.

Our objective is, I think, perfectly clear and would, I am sure, be agreed by everyone in this House. It is to achieve in these territories a genuine multi-racial, or non-racial—call it what you will—partnership. That is not at all impossible. It has already been done in the West Indies. At the same time it is not at all easy. We have not very much time. It is the timing which makes it so terribly difficult. That is the main factor which causes differences of opinion between us in this House.

Some of my hon. Friends, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), think the Government are going too fast. There are some hon. and right hon. Members opposite who no doubt think that we are not going quite fast enough. I should say that on balance my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary is getting the timing just about right. It is not only the timing in East and Central Africa that is the difficulty. There is the other difficulty, to which the Secretary of State referred in his speech. That is the question of colour and race. It is a tremendously important world problem. It is not an easy one even in the United Kingdom, as my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) is constantly reminding us, and it is certainly not easy in Africa.

It is not so much an African problem as a European problem, because the section of society which gives rise to it is the European minority living there, having their homes there—indeed their only homes—there. That is what causes the difficulty. These people came perhaps with Rhodes's Column from the Cape and got a grant of land which they have farmed and which their children or grandchildren are farming today. They are not English, they are Rhodesians; or they may be pre-war farmers in the White Highlands of Kenya or post-war artisans on the Copper Belt in Northern Rhodesia. Some of these men do not want partnership with the African. They do not want African advancement. I can understand their point of view, and they cannot easily be forced to co-operate in the policies and principles of partnership in which we in this House believe.

Yet, I would say to them that partnership is their only possible hope. They have no other future in the Continent of Africa. To achieve it they have to make a painful and a conscious sacrifice of political power. They do not want to do that, perhaps partly through selfishness, but mainly because of fear of what an African Government might do to them, to their children, and to their security in their own homes. This place is their home just as much as it is the home of the Africans. It is a very natural fear of what an African Government might do. After all, they have to live with this fear, whereas we live 5,000 or 6,000 miles away.

They are afraid, no doubt, for the security of their land titles. They are afraid, no doubt, of discriminatory taxation against them under an African Government. It is all very understand- able, but it is not very long-sighted. The day has passed when they can rule any longer by force. The only alternative to ruling by force is to co-operate in partnership together. My right hon. Friend, I believe, realised this as soon as he took office as Colonial Secretary. He pushed through the Lancaster House Constitution for Kenya, which has been a much maligned constitution. It has produced a multi-racial Government and a multi-racial Opposition in a multi-racial Parliament. That is not a bad result to have achieved in Kenya. The same result, incidentally, as we are trying to achieve with the new constitution for Northern Rhodesia.

I believe Kenya will come right. If the security of tenure for European and African holders of land is publicly recognised by the African political leaders, Kenya will go ahead. Most of the European farmers will stay in Kenya, whether because they want to or have to. Perhaps luckily for them, as a result of the land settlement schemes there are now many Africans who are in precisely the same position as the Europeans. They are holding land and have the same interest in their security of title as the Europeans have.

There is one hurdle, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley), which has still to be tackled. That is the release of Jomo Kenyatta. It is a hurdle which is distasteful to many of us, but I believe it is necessary for a very practical reason: I do not think that any African politician can play a constructive part in the public life of Kenya until this particular issue has been resolved. Of course, his release would be a calculated risk, but it is one which I believe we must take. If we do not take it an African Government will take it after we have left. That, I think, might be more dangerous. If we are to take it we might just as well take it now as take it later. We might just as well help the present Kenya Government, which we would do if we did it soon; whereas we might not help very much if we left it much longer. We might just as well do it while there is a British Governor and while there are British troops there, so that if we make a mistake and we are proved wrong we can put it right without too much trouble.

The best political hope for Kenya at the present time, and particularly for the Europeans in Kenya, I take to be—and I am sure we are all agreed about this—the possibility of the creation of an East African Federation which would include Kenya. Consider the position: we see Tanganyika which used to be the most backward constitutionally of almost all the Colonies in the whole of Africa now the most constitutionally advanced, largely due, as the hon. Lady said, to the moderation and good sense of one very remarkable man—Julius Nyerere. Agitators tend to claim that it is only through agitation that advance can be achieved. Tanganyika disproves that argument, and so does Nigeria. I believe that the Colonial Secretary made the point in his speech.

In these two countries, looking back on their recent history, restraint and tolerance and a willingness to compromise have achieved a speedier political advance and more rapid progress than violence and intolerance have achieved elsewhere. In her notable speech, the hon. Lady said that Tanganyika still has very urgent problems. It is desperately poor, and badly needs capital investment, and it is far behind West Africa in educational standards; but, at the same time, I believe that there is a spirit of optimism about the future. I have not been there, and I do not know, but all that I am told leads in;, to think that the Prime Minister, Julius Nyerere, has such character and ability—and any of us who have met him can see at once that he is a quite outstanding man—that the Europeans in Tanganyika are not at all afraid of an African Government led by him. Nor would I be; nor need the white people in Kenya be, if they are to form part of a federation led by Nyerere.

I now want to turn to another Federation—the Central African Federation. Southern Rhodesia, which we discussed here last month, has its referendum tomorrow. I hope that it will be won by the United Federal Party, not that I care very much for that party, but it is a lesser evil than the Dominion Party. What a strange alliance it is in the "No" lobby—between the Dominion Party and the National Democratic Party. It is rather like the Common Market line-up in this House, with some of my hon. and right hon. Friends on the extreme right of my party lining up with some hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite. This is the sort of situation we are witnessing in Southern Rhodesia.

I should like, more seriously, to say to those who rule in Southern Rhodesia that I do not believe that they will get very much more overseas capital investment in their Colony, which, as in every other part of the world, they want very much, until the world believes that they mean what they say when they talk about multi-racial partnership. I do not believe that the world does believe that at the present time; and I should add that if government does not rest up on the consent of the governed, it must rest upon coercion, and that is not a very happy atmosphere for anyone. It has not been a very happy basis, as we have seen in Algeria for many years, in Angola for many months and even in Salisbury in the last day or two. It is not a very happy atmosphere either for the rulers or the ruled.

In regard to Northern Rhodesia, which in many respects is the hub of the Federation, I was glad to hear what my right hon. Friend had to say about the article in the Guardian. Like the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, I read it with a good deal of anxiety. We realise how very complicated the new Constitution inevitably is, but I hope I am right, following on the exchanges earlier in the debate, in thinking that in this Constitution, which the Guardian has described as containing a major error, there is no question, as was suggested there, that Africans may have to obtain up to 25 per cent. of European votes, Whereas Europeans have only to obtain as little as 2 per cent. of the African votes.

I think this is broadly the point that was made, and I hope and think it is quite wrong. I agree myself with the calculations which were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and with which he dealt in some detail in his admirable speech. I have always believed—I have tried to work this out myself—that this Constitution is really more favourable to the Africans than they have yet realised, and not quite so favourable to the Europeans as Sir Roy Welensky seems to think.

I hope it will produce, like Kenya, though I quite appreciate in a different way, the same broad results of a multiracial Government in a multi-racial Parliament, and I believe that that is the right sort of interim solution for Northern Rhodesia at the present time. I am very glad that my right hon. Friend has said nothing very definite about the length of time this Constitution is to last. I do not think that this sort of constitution is, in the very nature of things, liable to last more than two or three years, until about the end of this Parliament, maybe, but I do not think much longer.

Finally, may I say this: the Central African Federation was imposed from the top—from the United Kingdom. It makes economic sense, but it is in danger of making political nonsense, and in a conflict between politics and economics, politics are apt to win. I believe, though I hope I am wrong, that the Central African Federation may fail: but the East African Federation, as yet only an idea, has in some ways a much better chance of succeeding than the Central African Federation, because it is growing up from the people instead of being imposed upon them. If the Europeans in Central Africa cannot come to terms with African aspirations, they will not retain African good will. In that event, it might be wise for us, as I think the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East said, to consider the future possibility—I put it no higher than that—of the extension of an East African Federation to cover the Central African area as well.

These are distant prospects. Perhaps they will never arise, but if the Europeans in the Rhodesias do not want them to arise, the sooner they learn to live with the Africans the more likely they are to cement their own Federation along promising and constructive lines. At any rate, our path is clear. In the territories for which we are responsible, we are engaged in the transference of power to the majority. I believe that that is the right path, and I am sure it is the only path which the leaders of a multi-racial Commonwealth can possibly follow.

7.49 p.m.

Mr. Dingle Foot (Ipswich)

I want to say at the outset that I agree almost entirely with the speech to which we have just listened from the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher). I particularly agree with what I think was his main thesis, namely, that there is a future for the white man both in East and Central Africa, but only on condition that he gives up his present degree of political, economic and social privilege.

I hope not to detain the House for very long, but I want to draw attention to three matters which so far have hardly been touched on in the debate. In accordance with the tradition of the House of Commons, I want to declare a personal interest. For several years now I have been professionally employed as legal adviser to His Highness the Kabaka of Buganda. I have been similarly employed since 1956 by the Constitutional Committee of the Toro Rukurato, that is, the Toro Parliament of Uganda. During the past year I have advised Mr. Jomo Kenyatta in relation to certain legal proceedings in which he is currently engaged. I have to declare those interests in accordance with the convention which obtains—and rightly obtains—in the House of Commons, but I want to make it quite clear that the views that I shall express are entirely my own and I have not had any prior consultation about them with any of the persons I have mentioned.

I should like to say a few words about the situation in Uganda. My hon. Friend the Member far Flint, East (Mrs. White) and I have been to Uganda on many occasions. I want to say something about the position of the Kabaka. It seems to have been assumed by various hon. Members who spoke about Uganda that the Kabaka is exercising a sort of feudal despotism and is not acting on the advice of his Ministers. I have been in fairly close touch with Buganda and what has gone on at Mengo during recent years. I can assure the House from my own knowledge that that is not in any way a true picture. It is a complete mistake to suppose that the Ministers in the Kabaka's Government, and indeed the members of the Lukiko, have no minds of their own and are merely subject to royal direction.

The Munster Report is a very readable and interesting document. My chief regret is that we did not have it much earlier. The recent history of Uganda might have been different if we had had the Munster Report a year or two ago, at any rate before the last elections. As we approach independence in Uganda we are confronted with the same difficulty that we have experienced almost everywhere else in Africa where independence has been brought about. The difficulty is that the Uganda Protectorate, like most other Colonies and Protectorates, is an entirely artifical unit. It merely comprises that area of territory which happened to be occupied by the British towards the end of the last century. It follows that the loyalty of the people is far more to their local and traditional institutions than it is to Uganda as a whole.

This is especially true of the four kingdoms of Buganda, Toro, Ankole and Bunyoro. The cardinal mistake which was made by British administrators in the past was to underestimate the intense loyalty to their traditional rulers and institutions which is to be found among the people of all four kingdoms, though it is something that we in this country ought to be able readily to understand. I have held the view for a long time, not merely recently, that Uganda can go forward only under some system of federation. The proposals in the Munster Report do not go quite as far as I could wish, but in the case of Buganda the Commission in terms recommends a federal relationship between Buganda and Uganda as a whole. The Commission recommends particularly that the power of veto which the Governor now has—in future it will be the Central Government—over laws passed by the Lukiko and approved by the Kabaka should pass away.

But there is an inherent contradiction in the Report. On page 137 the Commission deals with financial administration. Paragraph 412 says: … the central government should have sanctions at its disposal—the most potent sanction being the power to reduce grants, a power which the central government should not hesitate to use when justified. Paragraph 413 says: It is unlikely that the local taxes which will be at Buganda's disposal will be sufficient to carry out the services in Buganda and grants should be paid on the same lines as those proposed for District Councils. Special grants would be paid for services done by Buganda but not by the district councils. Payment of grants would be contingent upon the grant-aided service being carried out in accordance with the general policy of the central government and subject to the same inspection by the departments. That recommendation is entirely inconsistent with a federal relationship. There cannot be a federal relationship if, through financial weapons, the central Government can exercise control whenever, and to what extent, they please. We all hope for the success of the Constitutional Conference in September, but if it is to succeed that recommendation will need to be reconsidered. One should say this of all four kingdoms—not only Buganda but the other three as well. It is not enough merely to retain the trappings of kingship. It is necessary to preserve them as genuine units of government.

I pass now from Uganda to Kenya. There is only one matter to which I desire to refer concerning Kenya. A few days ago the Kenya Legislature passed a resolution asking Her Majesty's Government to alter the Constitution so as to remove the present disqualification from serving in the Legislature which is imposed on those who have served a term of imprisonment of more than two years. That is a very singular provision indeed. I will tell the Committee the actual terms of it, which are contained in the 1960 Order in Council. The relevant words are as follows: No person shall be qualified to be elected or appointed as a Constituency Member, a National member or a Nominated Member who … has served a sentence of imprisonment (by whatever name called) exceeding two years imposed on him by a court in any part of Her Majesty's dominions or substituted by competent authority for some other sentence so imposed on him. I raised this matter at Question Time last week with the Colonial Secretary. I suggested then that it was entirely contrary to our British Parliamentary tradition and indeed to all notions of the rule of law and justice that a man who has served his sentence—it might be many years ago—should be permanently debarred from taking his place in Parliament or indeed be subjected to any other permanent civil disability. There was great force in the supplementary question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff. South-East (Mr. Callaghan). He said: … how many Prime Ministers in the Commonwealth would be excluded from their Legislatures if this legislation were generally applied?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1961: Vol. 644, c. 1443.] It is a very remarkable provision, because it is absolute in its terms. Suppose it were shown, as it may be shown, that the conviction was wrong. Suppose there were some colonial equivalent of the Oscar Slater case or the Adolf Beck case where after investigation years afterwards it was shown that the conviction was not justified and there was a Queen's Pardon. Under the provisions of this Order in Council as it stands there would be no remedy, because it is absolute in its terms.

The position now is that members of the Legislative Council in Nairobi, members of all races, have joined together to ask that this disqualification should be removed. Why should there be any hesitation at all in accepting that recommendation? Why should it be necessary apparently to have lengthy discussions between the right hon. Gentleman and the Governor? I put this question to the Under-Secretary of State: when may we expect a decision on this matter? May we expect it before the House rises for the Summer Recess?

Leaving the subject of Kenya, I shall not follow what has been said about Central Africa, except to say that it seems to me that in Africa today we are in danger of making the worst of all possible worlds, and that is due to the ambivalence of the Government's policy. It is true that we have many things in which we can take pride. It is true that since the end of the last war we have brought into existence five new nation States on the continent of Africa, and there will be more within a very short time. Even so, it could easily happen that we are left with no friends at all, that there will be a feeling among all races in East and Central Africa that they have been betrayed by the British Government.

The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) said that we had left behind us in West Africa a legacy of admiration and good will. I think that is largely true, but it is a legacy which can easily be dissipated, and it seems to me that the error into which Her Majesty's Government constantly fall is that they under-rate the awareness of the African people of what is going on in their own continent.

I happen to have been going regularly to East, West and Central Africa over the last thirteen years, and what has impressed me more than anything else has been the impact of events in one part of Africa upon all African peoples, even though they may be many thousands of miles away. I would remind the House of one very familiar example. It was in 1951 that the party opposite imposed federation upon the peoples of Central Africa, and imposed it without any question against their will. That led directly to the emergency in Uganda in 1953, which culminated in the exile of the Kabaka, because the peoples of East Africa believed that the same thing was about to happen to them. I believe it to be true that the attitude of Her Majesty's Government to events in the Rhodesias, Angola and South-West Africa affects our position throughout the whole of Africa.

That brings me to the question of South-West Africa and the United Nations Committee. The visas of the members of this Committee were withdrawn because they were not prepared to give an undertaking that they would not cross the frontier into the mandated territory. We first learned of it when we read of an interview with Mr. Loeuw in Pretoria, which was reported in the Observer of 2nd July. We learned then that the South African Government had been given an assurance on this matter in London, that although visas would be granted the Committee would not be allowed to proceed beyond a certain Point. The reply that was given by the British Government was: The visas were issued to the Committee on condition that no attempts were made to cross the Border into South-West Africa. This matter was raised in the House on 10th July, 1961, and the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations said: We were advised by our High Commissioner in Ghana on 4th July that the Committee had published a Press statement 'reaffirming its determination to go to South-West Africa with or without the co-operation of the South African Government'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th July, 1961; Vol. 644, c. 36.] It is perfectly true that the Committee intended to cross the frontier into South-West Africa. Of course it did, because that was part of its terms of reference. It was invited by the General Assembly of the United Nations to go to South-West Africa immediately to investigate the situation prevailing in the territory and to ascertain and make proposals to the General Assembly … If the Committee had crossed the frontier into South-West Africa, the responsibility for turning them back at the frontier would have rested entirely with the South African Government.

Why should we do the work of the South African Government for them? If the South African Government choose, as they have done for years, to set the United Nations at defiance and to keep the United Nations Committee out of the Territory which is held under mandate, let the South African Government bear the full odium for that decision. There is no conceivable reason why Her Majesty's Government should choose to share it with them.

The last quotation that I want to make is from a letter dated 17th July addressed to the Prime Minister from Chief Hosea Kutako, the Paramount Chief of the Herero people in South-West Africa. I want to quote a passage from this letter which was written a few days ago It states: The suspension by the British Government of visas for the United Nations Committee on South West Africa to enter Bechuanaland came as a great shock to many Africans in the territory and on the whole Continent. While the United Nations Committee on South-West Africa attempts to enter the territory to find out what is meted out to the Africans in this international territory, Britain was the first major power that has come out to jeopardise the mission of this Committee. That is a view which will be echoed in many parts of Africa. Of course, one can put forward reasons for the decision. As in the case of Angola, the Government always have an array of technical or diplomatic reasons for what they do. In future they should concern themselves rather less with their diplomatic relations with Portugal and South Africa and a good deal more with Britain's reputation in all parts of the African Continent.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. Henry Clark (Antrim, North)

The subject that we are debating today is so appallingly wide, as the speeches that we have already heard have demon-stated, that one is tempted to make a tour d'horizon and to jump from Bechuanaland to the northern end of Kenya. I shall try to resist that temptation. On the other hand, as others have ranged rather wide over Africa, I feel that I can give myself a little indulgence as well.

I want to begin by congratulating sincerely Her Majesty's Government on their policy over the last two years. There has been a great deal of controversy on both sides of the House about the right policy in Africa. That is hardly surprising, for Africa is a peculiarly difficult place in which to see one's way ahead at present; but at least one can say now that, though the future in Africa is neither particularly rosy nor secure, the conditions today are a good deal better than the future as we saw it a year or eighteen months ago, and much better than we expected two or three years ago. We have got over a large number of hurdles. There is hope in a number of countries that we shall achieve real stability, and there is also hope that in the countries which look depressing now such as Kenya a way out may be found.

I thank Her Majesty's Government for letting me maintain my optimism about the future of Africa. I have always been reasonably optimistic that the Africans would work out a future which would be fairly satisfactory, for, above all, the vast majority of the people in Africa are decent and straightforward.

The one quality which has led the Government, and particularly the Secretary of State, to achieve some success is the fact that he has been a realist. He has not considered what things ought to be or might be, neither has he always considered exactly what was right or wrong, but he has always looked at the facts and has tried to follow them.

Just because the winds of change in African nationalism have come quickly he has never failed, as I frankly believe my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) has, to recognise facts just because they have changed so remarkably quickly. He has accepted from the start that although Africans may not always know the significance of one man, one vote, they know very clearly that they want to be ruled by men of their own race.

I think that realism in facing facts is a particularly important aspect. It is not always important whether what we believe is right or wrong, true or untrue. What matters most is whether that belief is shared by thousands of people. It is no good writing off African nationalism and other doctrines as the extremist babblings of agitators. Even if they are the extremist babblings of agitators, thousands of people believe the agitators and hold the views that the agitators have told them as true. Even if it was started by agitators or Communists, the people of Africa in very large part, in my own experience, want to govern themselves. That is a great basic fact.

That is the kind of realism that comes in when we deal with Kenyatta. I cannot agree with the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) that Kenyatta was completely innocent of all connection with Mau Mau. I have many old friends who do most dastardly things and they surprise me greatly when they do them. I think that the friendship of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough for Kenyatta was much the same as my friendship with those who have done dastardly things. He never expected Kenyatta to do them. Whether Kenyatta is guilty or not, is not, in many ways, a relevant factor because thousands of people in Kenya believe that he is not guilty, believe that he is their chosen leader. The fact is that all over Kenya, Europeans, Asians and Africans want Kenyatta to be released. It is facing real facts like that, and not just the guilt or innocence of Kenyatta, that really counts.

Again, in the Federation one can talk a great deal about whether the Federation is good or bad. We can argue until the cows come home whether it will make people richer or not. Sir Roy Welensky should be more realistic and realise that he cannot make the Federation go unless he can persuade the people of Africa, with or without the facts, that federation is a good thing. Unless he can do that, he will never make federation work. On the other hand, if he can get the people behind him, and I think he is well-endowed to do so if he sets his mind to it, he can make a go of federation.

I am beginning to think that Her Majesty's Government are being a little slow in facing one fact. The whole nature of Africa is changing. There are now more self-governing independent nations in Africa than there are Colonial Territories. Two or three years ago, or certainly five years ago, Pan-Africanism was regarded as rather a nasty word, which seemed to convey in people's minds that all the worst extremist agitators gathered together in various centres for conferences. Only three years ago the Pan-African Association for East and Central Africa was formed and I remember a security report reaching me in Tanganyika, labelled "Top Secret", on what was going on there. It was considered to be a nasty affair.

But things have changed and it is absolutely vital, in my opinion, that we should realise that it is in our interests now, in the interests of the whole of Africa, and possibly the whole of the free world, that every encouragement should be given to the newly free African States to join together in some form of union. I should like to see this country giving support to the Monrovia Conference and the Casablanca Conference. Let us try to find a union between the two, and equally between the newly self-governing countries of Central Africa. We must give a lead and every possible assistance, forgetting that Pan-Africanism was a nasty word.

It is no good looking at the bits of the map which are red and forgetting the bits that we do not want to remember. There are two extremely dangerous pieces of country placed strategically on either side of Africa—Angola and Portuguese East Africa. They are like two bombs. One has gone off and, luckily, our territories are well away from it and the explosion has not caused us a great deal of damage. Another bomb equally likely to go off, in my opinion and my experience, is in Portuguese East Africa. It has a border with Nyasaland, Southern Rhodesia, Swaziland, South Africa and Tanganyika.

I lived on the border between Tanganyika and Portuguese East Africa for several years. If the Portuguese in East Africa continue to govern in the way they have until now—with admirable principles, but absolutely appalling practice, complete negligence and neglect being the main trouble—the bomb in East Africa will go off like the bomb in West Africa. Tremendous damage can be done to the goodwill which we are building up between Europeans and Africans in Central Africa and East Africa. Undoubtedly, we should have the same scenes in Portuguese East Africa as have been happening in Angola.

Portuguese East Africa could provide the key to make possible the various ideas we have about unifying East and Central Africa. Frankly, as one sees them on the map today, particularly on a small-scale map, it is easy to imagine that a Central African Federation and East Africa could be joined in one wonderful commonwealth. Anyone going up the Great North Road, or anyone who has tried to go from Tanganyika to Nyasaland, will realise that there is a great deal of nonsense in that. There are mountains and plains and very few communications. There is, in fact, very little scope for trade.

However, the whole situation could be changed if the northern end of Portuguese East Africa came into a union of some sort with the other East and Central African countries. Portuguese East Africa could unite East and Central Africa. From Masasi, the railhead of the groundnuts railway in Tanganyika, a road could be built of only 350 or 400 miles up the Lujenda Valley to Blantyre, through Portuguese East Africa.

One must not forget that this is a vital part and a dangerous part of Africa. We must try every possible means to get a little sense out of the Portuguese and induce them to change their methods, bringing Portuguese East Africa into the modern Africa which we are beginning to know elsewhere. The same applies, of course, to Angola.

I come now to my real object in speaking today. The hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) has referred to current development plans in Tanganyika. I feel very strongly about this. I lived in Tanganyika for eight years and, in fact, I believe that my name still appears on the common voters roll there. I was very pleased at the cordial discussions which continued over the last eighteen months, culminating in the very happy discussions here in London in June on the future of Tanganyika. I was happy to hear the arrangements about Independence Day and all the other provisions. I particularly welcomed—it was something I worked hard for myself—the terms of compensation for Her Majesty's over- seas civil servants which were granted on independence. The whole thing was really going like a bomb.

In Dar es Salaam, in March, the Secretary of State said quite clearly that Her Majesty's Government would not be ungenerous. Now, just because Tanganyika happened to choose a bad month to come to the United Kingdom, she has not had the money she looked for. This is really a most appalling thing. It is not just the money itself. Quite frankly, it is the taste of bad faith which depresses me most.

I have here a copy of the development plan. When the planners talk of a water scheme in Upper Malagarasi I have some idea of what that means. I have read the plan with interest. It is a down-to-earth plan. One does not find references to Governors' palaces, Presidents' palaces, State guards or flamboyant courthouses in it. It is dirt roads and dams, not even highways and aqueducts, that we are asking for in Tanganyika. It is the agricultural research that is needed. This is the kind of thing which can make Tanganyika, in three or four years, a good deal more prosperous than it is now.

The development plan is not particularly extravagant. The money Tanganyika is looking for is £24 million over three years. It is not out of place, I think, to remind the House in outline of the way that this sum is to be made up. Included in the balance are the balances from C.D. & W. schemes which were under grant from this country. Tanganyika hopes to go on receiving £3½ million to complete those. There is another £1 million of C.D. & W. grant which again forms part of the development plan. From other sources is to come £3 million.

Those are largely local sources, with possibly, certain grants from foundations in this country and America. It is hoped that miscellaneous of £l million revenue would come from various other sources and the development plan itself. Internal short-term borrowing would account for £3 million. Internal long-term borrowing would account for £3 million. External long-term borrowing would account for £11£ million.

In other words, Tanganyika is looking only for loans of up to £11½ million. This fact was quite clearly known—the plan was already in full draft—when the agreements were made in March. I do not want to throw the Colonial Secretary's words back at him, but the words he used are remembered. I think that he probably feels worse about the refusal of Tanganyika now than anyone else does. My right hon. Friend said that we would not be ungenerous. That statement was obviously made in terms of the £11½ million which Tanganyika is looking for.

I could continue on this subject for a very long time. It has been dealt with fairly thoroughly already. The development plan, as I say, is a down-to-earth plan, not a particularly extravagant one. In my opinion, it is important that Tanganyika should have the necessary resources in the first years after independence. Time and time again, throughout the world, it has been seen that a newly independent country has a few years of careless rapture in which things can be done which can be done at no other time in its history.

Turning even to my own country, I recall that the South of Ireland had bursts of energy for five years after achieving independence. In Ghana, President Nkrumah managed to deal with all the diseases of cocoa in the years immediately after independence. The people of Nigeria are going through much the same sort of period just now. One can see it in almost every country: indepedence brings an urge and a drive forward. This is why Tanganyika needs the money so greatly now, not phased to 1966 and later.

Tanganyika is not asking for charity. Lest any hon. Member may not be familiar with the subject, I should say that Tanganyika has for years particularly since the war, supplied this country with hard currency. Tanganyika has continually had a surplus of dollars and other hard currencies over sterling, and those dollars and other currencies, frequently at the cost of considerable hardship, have come to the United Kingdom and helped our sterling balances.

The contribution from Tanganyika sisal and coffee was a considerable factor in helping us during the really bad years of the dollar gap. When I first went to Tanganyika, in 1951, it was almost impossible to buy the heavy American vehicles people needed to travel the Tanganyika roads. Tanganyika had voluntarily given up her dollars so that we in this country could have enough meat in the "fridge".

The countries of East Africa are not paupers. They have contributed a great deal to this country for a long time. I have here the figure of balances held by the East African Currency Board. The Board has £33 million deposited in this country. If one searched the records of the pension funds of East Africa, the funds which East Africa has deposited in this country—a very large part from Tanganyika—are seen to amount to at least £50 million. Yet now Tanganyika is asking us for £5 million or £6 million, and she cannot have it.

We might lose our friendship as a result of this business. I hope that we shall not, because our friendship is strong enough, but, if we did lose the friendship of East Africa over this affair, those sterling balances might be withdrawn and the local currencies would be backed by Deutschmarks or dollars. We should lose a very great deal if we lost the friendship of East Africa at this time.

Mr. Wall

It is not just a question of a relatively small amount of money but of taking the initiative to form a consortium with the Germans and the Americans to produce even more money for this plan. It is a matter of leadership as well as cash.

Mr. Clark

That is absolutely right. We must show the lead. As a matter of international good manners, apart from anything else, how can America and Germany pour large amounts of money into Tanganyika before this country has a chance? We must give the lead. If we really cannot put up all the money we should like at this time, at least we should invite and encourage others to help. Instead of Mr. Nyerere having to go cap in hand to New York and West Germany, he should go, I feel, with the fullest possible British support.

There is another aspect to this business. Some Tanganyika Africans can appreciate the balance of payments difficulties of this country, but by no means all of them can. There have, however, been times when Tanganyika has seen a great deal of British money spent. It took £150 million to capture Tanganyika from Germany between 1914 and 1917. That was £150 million at the 1914 value. One can juggle with the figures and soon show that such a sum would amount to about £1,000 million now. Many of the people of Tanganyika were alive and kicking at the time and saw that expenditure by the European Powers in their country years ago.

After that time, they hardly saw a penny of our money until after the Second World War, and then, unfortunately-I shall not make a party point of it now, although I am prepared to do so on occasions—there was the groundnuts scheme. This was a tragedy. The net figure was £35 million, but if all the other things are added the total expense must have been nearly £60 million. That money was literally poured into the bush. Tanganyika, possibly, had £5 million of value out of it—no more.

Those were the two occasions when the people of Tanganyika saw our money in bulk. Today, having poured £150 million down the drain in 1916 and £30 million or £40 million down the drain in 1948 to 1950, we cannot afford £5 million of our 1961 devalued pounds. It is a little hard. One can hardly blame some Africans, who may think "Perfidious Albion", and not really believe the story about our balance of payments but, rather, believe that it is just bad faith when we do not help. I am sure that it is not a question of bad faith, but that it is simply the Chancellor of the Exchequer digging in his heels with a good deal of ignorance and stubbornness. It is ridiculous that just because Tanganyika is looking for money in this month of July, 1961, instead of January, 1961, or, possibly, even July, 1962, she cannot get the money.

To me, the economy being made over Tanganyika is one of those typical little economies that an ordinary family makes when, suddenly, it meets a financial crisis and it is decided to cut down the grocer's bill and to give the children only one plate of cornflakes for their breakfast. That kind of economy does nobody any good. It certainly does not overcome a family's financial crisis. It strikes me that that is the kind of economy we are using now. We are cutting off the children's cornflakes just to demonstrate that we are facing up to our problems. To this country, £5 million is chicken feed.

Many people have said that a Colombo plan for Africa is wanted. We now have a Secretary for Technical Co-operation, but over recent years we have failed to give a lead and there is a tremendous amount to be done in Africa. We need the co-operation of the other Western Powers, as well as of the other countries of Africa, to work out a system of pan-Africanism.

A great deal of aid for Africa can come from Africa itself. On a visit to Ghana last year, I picked up a pamphlet an oil palms. I sent it to an area in Tanganyika where oil palms are grown and I believe that, as a result, there may be a great deal of difference to the crop in two or three years' time. There is "know-how" in one part of Africa which another part of that continent does not have.

If we got all the people working together, we could build a great, free Continent of Africa which would banish poverty and every other evil. This country should give a lead. We have failed to give it. It is just the cheeseparing kind of refusal of this loan to Tanganyika that prevents us from taking the lead. We are in a unique position. Great Britain, above all others, could lead the nations of Africa and of Europe in building up Africa into a really great Continent.

8.32 p.m.

Mr. Stan Awbery (Bristol, Central)

I am in entire agreement with the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. H. Clark) that during the debate we have hopped, skipped and jumped all over Africa. Some hon. Members have dealt with the east, some with the centre and others with the west. The debate started off with the premise that Africa belongs, not to the Africans, but to somebody else, and that it is the others who can dictate to the African what he should do.

In the few minutes at my disposal, I propose to deal with only one of the territories which have been considered today. I refer to Tanganyika. The hon. Member for Antrim, North has been to that country and speaks of it from knowledge. I do not speak from personal knowledge of Tanganyika, but I know that about forty years ago that country became a mandated territory. Throughout that time, there has been a gradual development until, today, she is becoming a self-governing nation.

On 9th December this year, Tanganyika will achieve the great status of self-government and will have a Cabinet comprising a majority of Africans. She will start a new voyage in an uncharted sea. I understand from the Press that His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh is to inaugurate the celebrations in the new country. In the same way as someone who launches a ship declares, "God bless this ship and all who sail in her", I hope that when His Royal Highness goes to Tanganyika for 9th December, he will echo the feelings of the House of Commons and proclaim, "God bless this country and all who live here".

I hope that when the Duke of Edinburgh opens the celebrations, there will be with him another person who has made a great contribution to the development of that country towards self-government. I have criticised him in the past and will probably criticise him again, but I appreciate the work that he has done and the broadminded way in which he has approached and dealt with the problems throughout his period of office.

I refer to the Colonial Secretary. He has had a very difficult job in handling the situation in Tanganyika, but he has handled it in a fine way. I hope that he will attend the celebrations.

There has been another and a strong personality in these negotiations and I want the Minister to think of him. I plead with the right hon. Gentleman that he should assist Tanganyika if only because of the character of Mr. Julius Nyerere and the way in which he has handled the situation during the past two or three years. This achievement of self-government in Tanganyika reflects the patience, calm, perseverance and forbearance of both Mr. Nyerere and the Colonial Secretary. I can imagine that they crossed swords occasionally in conference, but, finally, they came to the agreement which will end on 9th December in self-government. Mr. Nyerere has piloted the ship of State through all stages right up to the period of coming self-government. There are no further heights that he can reach. We welcome his achievement and congratulate him on what he has done.

It was in September last year that the conference took place at Dar-es-Salaam, when both parties discussed this problem. Mr. Nyerere said that Tanganyika would apply for membership of the Commonwealth. It shows that a good taste has been left in this man's mouth after we have been negotiating with him for so long. He wants to remain a friend of ours and he wants his country to remain in the Commonwealth. He said then, and I believe that it will be so, that Britain will apply to the United Nations to end the trusteeship agreement on this mandated Territory so that Tanganyika can come in as a new nation into the United Nations.

Mr. Nyerere hoped that Britain would not be ungenerous in helping Tanganyika to meet the heavy financial burdens of independence. Here is a man who asks for independence knowing that a heavy financial burden will have to be carried. He asks the man with whom he is negotiating not only for independence, but also for financial assistance. He is fully conscious of the oppressive load that will fall upon Tanganyika when she becomes an independent territory.

I ask the Secretary of State to give consideration to that plea by Mr. Nyerere and to do something to help him. He is a far-sighted man. He does not blind himself to the responsibilities of being what he will be, or is now—Prime Minister. He is a man of principle, of patience and persistence. He has achieved what he set out to do some years ago, and now he asks us to help him carry the burden.

I emphasise the character of Mr. Nyerere, and I plead that this man, who is to lead his people, should be given all the assistance that we can give him. He is not an illiterate man. Some people have the impression that all Africans are illiterate. Mr. Nyerere is the son of a chief and was a teacher in a school. He is 38 years old; youth is on his side. He will now grow up with his country as it develops its system of self-government.

Mr. Nyerere said—this indicates the broadness of his mind—that the Tanganyikan will continue to develop their racial harmony in the country. He says that there is no splitting up into races there, and that they want racial harmony. He says that they will avoid aggravating the fears of minorities in their country. He says that they will not create the feeling anywhere that the black man means more than anyone else.

Mr. Nyerere has also appealed to his own people. He has asked them not to let the world say that they won on moral grounds of brotherhood and then discriminated against their brothers afterwards in racial feuds. This man fought an election and won 70 of the 71 seats. So it is evident that he has the full confidence of the people of Tanganyika. He is a democrat, and desires to see democracy grow in his country.

It is because of the success achieved by Mr. Nyerere and our Colonial Secretary that I ask hon. Members to look with sympathy and understanding upon the problems that will arise. It is an axiom that the rich should help the poor and that the strong should help the weak. Perhaps it is unfortunate that we have today been hearing about the poverty of this country. Even if we are poor, I ask the Colonial Secretary to help Tanganyika out of our poverty. I am sure that she will appreciate it all the more.

In 1940, we passed the Colonial Development Corporation Act, which was designed to assist the underdeveloped colonial countries. It should be noted that that was done at a time when we were passing through the most fearful conflict in our history, the Battle of Britain, and no one knew what the outcome would be. It was when we were in the doldrums that we passed this Act to help our Colonial Territories. Cannot we now, wherever we may be—whether down in the valley, or at the top—open up our hearts to help these people? They need that help and we can give it to them.

There is no doubt that we are slowly but surely coming to terms with the older Africa. This is only one of the links in the greater chain. Now we have to remove the fear and to put trust in place of fear. If we put trust in these people, then it will be reciprocal. They will have trust and confidence in us. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will tell us that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will look at the Tanganyika problem as generously as he can. If he does that, I am confident that he will arrive at the same victorious position which he arrived at, with Mr. Nyerere, in achieving self-government for the country.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson (Dundee, East)

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery) has urged on the Government almost exactly the same points that were urged on them by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. H. Clark). Indeed, the striking feature of this debate has been the very large number of speeches that have been directed at the Government to make them act much more generously in giving economic help to Tanganyika. If the debate had served no other purpose, it would fully have justified the Opposition in raising this matter that there has been such a general consensus of opinion that the Treasury must think again about this, and that we must rise in much greater measure to the kind of challenge that faces us in Tanganyika. I will return to that point a little later in more detail.

The Opposition initiated this debate because we felt that the House should have the chance to comment before the long Recess on the many complicated developments that are going on in East and Central Africa. These territories we are discussing are not simply the latest in the long list of dependent territories moving towards independence. As the Secretary of State rightly said, they constitute a special problem, and an especially difficult one, because, of course, they include the so-called plural societies. Three out of six of the territories have white African minorities.

I use the phrase "white Africans" advisedly. It is, I think, Sir Roy Welensky's phrase, and we on this side of the House fully recognise that many European families have had their homes in these territories for several generations. I must confess that we sometimes grow a little weary of continually being accused of being anti-European in facing these problems.

This charge arises, perhaps understandably, out of the fact that this party is, by instinct and tradition, the party of the underdog, and we have inevitably concentrated over the years on speaking for black Africans unable to speak for themselves. But, of course, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, in four of the six territories that phase has passed, or is passing, and the black African majority is in an ample position to express its own views on the political issues that face it.

We on this side of the House have our friends and families in these territories in Central Africa just as much as hon. Members opposite, even though, perhaps, we do not have our farms and fortunes there to quite the same degree. But we are as concerned about the future of white Africans as of black Africans, and we believe very deeply—and this is where the misunderstanding arises—that the future welfare of the European minorities depends upon their reconciling themselves to the rise of African nationalism. It is one of the great forces of contemporary history. It may be guided and helped but, despite what the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said, it cannot be halted. We should have thought that it was now a matter of plain fact and not of argument that there is no security for the Europeans unless they make the necessary political concessions while there is still time.

Mr. Turton

I know that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) does not want to misrepresent what I said. I said that in my view economic advancement must precede political advancement or we would get economic anarchy.

Mr. Thomson

I have no wish to be unfair to the right hon. Gentleman, but what he is saying in effect is that he believes that political advance, the political rise of African nationalism, can be halted while one goes ahead with economic developments. I and many hon. Members opposite believe that that is no longer a reality. It is no longer something which can happen.

An increasing number of Europeans in Kenya and Northern Rhodesia and, I like to think, in Southern Rhodesia are coming to the conclusion that the only enlightened self-interest for Europeans in Africa is to learn how to live in partnership as equal citizens with Africans of other races. As the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) so correctly said, much depends on what is meant by the term "partnership". Lord Malvern once committed himself to the definition of the partnership of the horse and the rider, but that is not the kind of partnership likely to survive very long in the Africa of today.

The problems of East and Central Africa are not only a challenge to the far-sightedness of the European minorities but, as the Colonial Secretary made clear, they present perhaps the ultimate test in colonial statesmanship for a British Government. Our multi-racial Commonwealth, of which we have high hopes for the future, will not mean much to the rest of the world unless we succeed in creating multi-racial communities in those few territories of our former Colonial Empire where there is a white settler population.

We raised this debate precisely because we felt that, after a wise change of policy following the last General Election, the Government had been faltering and failing in both their political and economic policies in this area. The glaring defects of the Government's policy and some of the dilemmas into which some of their own supporters have brought them have been brought out in speeches from both sides of the House.

From the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Mahon we had a characteristically weighty and gloomy contribution of the kind which we have came to expect from him in colonial debates over recent months. We recognise that the right hon. Gentleman speaks out of a strong sense of duty in this matter. He carries a great deal of weight in what he says, because he has behind him the reputation of his famous Motion on Northern Rhodesia with its 100 or so signatures.

The right hon. Gentleman referred very generously to his former association in the Government with the present Colonial Secretary. I rather suspect that the Colonial Secretary might be quite glad if the right hon. Gentleman were still in the Government, because he has wielded a good deal more influence on major matters of Government policy since he retired to the third bench below the Gangway than he ever did when he was a member of the Government Front Bench. But we believe that his influence on Government colonial policy over recent months has been mast unfortunate and has made a sensible settlement in Northern Rhodesia and Kenya more difficult than it need have been.

Today he was still pursuing his course of trying to prevent the Colonial Secretary from facing the facts in Kenya and releasing Jomo Kenyatta. We sometimes wonder when we consider the kind of point of view which the right hon. Gentleman expressed whether some hon. Members opposite will ever learn from their own blunders. Do they not remember that they used exactly the same arguments and used to say exactly the same kind of thing about Archbishop Makarios as they now say about Jomo Kenyatta? Archbishop Makarios used to be called the leader of darkness and death, and now he is a Commonwealth President and an honoured guest at No. 10 Downing Street.

Do not hon. Members who express this kind of point of view remember that they said the same kind of thing about Dr. Banda and the Nyasaland murder plot not so many months ago? Dr. Banda is now well on his way to becoming art elder statesman of the Commonwealth—a trifle messianic from my point of view, but if that is so he is merely following in the Prime Ministerial traditions set by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill).

It is not for a simple Socialist like myself to talk political realism to some of the Bourbons on the benches opposite who have been running the Empire for centuries. But cannot we possibly agree across the Floor of the House that we ought in these problems to try to forget the past and face the possibility of peaceful progress in the future? Keeping Jomo Kenyatta in custody means the certainty of further turbulence in Kenya. It means the certainty of further economic stagnation and loss of confidence in Kenya. Releasing Jomo Kenyatta has its risks, and we recognise them, but surely all the signs are that this offers the only real hope of progress towards a more peaceful and prosperous state of affairs in that country?

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the large number of crimes of violence in Kenya, which cause a great deal of concern. I think that most of the evidence is that these are not of political or Mau-Mau origin so much as crimes of violence arising from the economic depression which exists in Kenya at the moment and which is itself a product of the lack of economic confidence. Surely the most hopeful way of meeting this problem of crimes of violence is to release Jomo Kenyatta and try to make a new start in Kenya.

There are real signs that the rival groups of African politicians are prepared to come together on this basis. There are real signs that both European and Asian politicians are prepared to support them. I plead with hon. Gentlemen opposite who share the point of view of the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton that here they ought to take a risk. They ought to look at the future and not at the past. They must desist from stirring up trouble over what is necessarily going to be an extremely difficult decision for the Colonial Secretary.

We sometimes feel that the kind of powerful pressure which has been brought from the back benches opposite on to the Colonial Secretary and his colleagues has so rattled the Government that even when they have a reasonable case they make the worst of it. Not even the harshest critics on this side of the House of the Government's colonial policies would accuse them of conducting their colonial policies on the same basis of principle as the colonial policies of Portugal. Nobody would dream of uttering such a slander; nobody, that is, except the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Home. At a dinner in Lisbon on 26th May he said: Both British and Portuguese doctrines of Colonial Government are based on respect for the human personality. Both reject racialism. That kind of sophistry does us immense harm throughout Africa, and I wish that the Government would stop appeasing our oldest ally and make a start towards encouraging some of our newer allies, such as Tanganyika. Mr. Nyerere appealed to the Government to withdraw the Portuguese consular representation in Tanganyika. I wonder whether he got as dusty an answer to that request as he got from the Colonial Secretary to his request for financial aid.

It is true that Tanganyika is not going to be one of our military allies in the sense that Portugal is, but wars of ideas are going on in the world for which we need allies as much as we need allies in the cold war between the rival military Powers. We should like to believe that membership of our multi-racial Commonwealth is as important to world peace as membership of military alliances.

Another case where the Government did themselves an injustice was in their behaviour over the problem of the United Nations delegation to South-West Africa, which was raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot). The Government have a perfectly good record in terms of their own United Nations trusteeships. Tanganyika is a shining example, but they are also struggling manfully with the very difficult problem of the United Nations trusteeship which they are carrying in the Cameroons.

In the light of this fact I do not understand why the Government put themselves in the position, before the world, of appearing to place the legal position of South Africa in South-West Africa—I might almost say the illegal position of South Africa in South-West Africa—before the law of the United Nations. I do not know what the technical position is under international law, but the effect upon world public opinion has been most unfortunate.

Indeed, the Government's whole policy towards the Union since it became a Republic has been far too timid. I am glad to see the Minister for Commonwealth Relations is here. I recommend him to read a recent article in the Daily Telegraph, which may carry more weight with him than some other sources that I could quote. The article was from the newspaper's Commonwealth correspondent, Mr. R. H. C. Steed. Writing of his tour of South-West Africa he said: Nearly all the English-speaking South Africans I met, men of substance and responsibility, in all walks of life, have decided that only a profound shock to the mass of rank and file Afrikaner supporters of Dr. Verwoerd can bring about a peaceful change of regime. They now look to the threat of sanctions over South-West Africa, or if need be to actual sanctions, to provide this shock. A small but increasing number of Afrikaner intellectuals and professional men support this view. It is the earnest hope also of the Asians and Coloureds, and of the moderate Africans. None of us has pressed the matter as far as that yet, but it is an indication that the Government have been far too pussyfoot in their treatment of South Africa. I hope that they will act in the future a good deal more courageously over the issue of South-West Africa than they have done in the last week or two.

During the debate there has been some discussion or developments in Southern Rhodesia. These are bound to cause a great deal of anxiety and concern in all quarters of the House. Tomorrow the referendum is taking place in Southern Rhodesia, in a state of what is virtually martial law. I am told that the African township of Highfield is tonight an armed camp. The National Democratic Party's own more informal referendum took place on Sunday, fortunately without any disturbances. We can only pray that there will be no turbulence tomorrow.

This situation has arisen, in the end, because Her Majesty's Government failed to obtain consent for the kind of constitutional proposals that are being brought up in this referendum. The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations very nearly obtained that consent. We wish he had done so, but he did not. The trouble is that the Government have gone on as if that consent had been obtained. Now we have the spectacle of these constitutional changes in Southern Rhodesia being imposed by force, undoubtedly against the wishes of the articulate Africans in that territory.

I do not think that anybody who reads reports of the way in which the campaign is being conducted can feel anything but great anxiety about future developments there. I want to deal with one report which has been recurrent in responsible newspapers like The Times and the Guardian. It is to the effect that there has been a communication from the United Federal Party that, once it had won the referendum, if it did not get co-operation from the African members in the new Assembly it might reduce their numbers, or even remove them. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) approached Rhodesia House about this, and he obtained a complete denial from Sir Edgar Whitehead, which should go on the record of this debate. Sir Edgar categorically denies that his Government might legislate to eliminate the fifteen B Roll seats. He says: This would be a complete breach of faith. I am glad to be able to put that denial into the record.

Then one comes to the problem in Northern Rhodesia which has been fully dealt with by many hon. Members and I do not wish to traverse the same ground. I only hope that the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) is right and that out of these complexities it is still possible to get a moderate African majority. I am sure that that is the way to peaceful progress in that territory.

The Colonial Secretary said in his defence that the reason why his proposals there were so complicated was that in that kind of multi-racial community he could not avoid complexity. He instanced both Kenya and Northern Rhodesia as two constitutions for which he has been responsible. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that despite the complexities of the Kenya Constitution it was absolutely clear, from the moment that the Lancaster House Conference ended, where the political power lay. It was quite clear that there was then the likelihood of a moderate African majority coming out of those elections. Our continual complaint about the results of the Northern Rhodesian Conference has been that that sort of clarity has not obtained.

In the end there is something to be said for some simplicity in these issues. In the end we have to be able to convince ordinary people that this is the right way forward, and if we make matters so complex that they do not understand them, then even if we are right, we do not achieve the kind of result which we are seeking. I know that the Colonial Secretary has lost a great deal of good will over his manoeuvres regarding the Northern Rhodesian Constitution during recent weeks. He has been embarrassed politically by the lack of support of a good many of his hon. Friends. I know that his policies have sometimes gained the support of many people who are not normally expected to support a Conservative Colonial Secretary. But it seems an odd way to behave, to decide that it is better to have no friends at all than to have the wrong friends. That seems to be the way in which the Colonial Secretary has been behaving recently.

Finally, one comes to the position in Tanganyika to which so many hon. Members have addressed themselves. Here we are confronted with the consequences of the statement made earlier today by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the very shortsighted and selfish folly which will flow from it unless there is a change in the attitude of the Government. What the Chancellor announced, behind a careful smokescreen of words, was, as I understood it, that there would be a freeze on overseas aid in the years immediately ahead. The right hon. and learned Gentleman tried to suggest that because we were doing a great deal better now than was the case a few years ago this was a reason for not trying to increase aid as our national income increased. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was prepared to allow an increase in domestic expenditure on a modest scale but there is to be a freeze in overseas expenditure.

This is completely unjustifiable. The hon. Member for Antrim, North in his admirable speech mentioned the groundnut scheme in Tanganyika. At least it may be said about that scheme that the post-war British Government, in all the tremendous austerities and difficulties of that period, were prepared to make a big effort to engage in large-scale economic development in that territory. Today we have a Government who are ruling a country more prosperous than ever before in its history. When the history of this period is recorded people will not go into the intricacies of the electoral cycle of Tory Government expenditure and the economic ups and downs as one sees them follow one another between election dates. They will look to see whether Britain, given the kind of wealth we have in our possession, acted generously and was willing to ask for adequate sacrifices from the people. I am sure that were those sacrifices requested they would be made. I hope that as a result of this debate there will be a reconsideration of the policy in Tanganyika.

Africa is in the middle of a headlong revolution. The framework in which it is now taking place is being shaped by forces largely outside the control of any Government in this country. But I believe that within that framework, with all the limitations imposed upon the possibilities, it is reasonable to look forward to a prosperous future for Africa. Were I asked to state the kind of ideal which is achievable, I would say that it was an Africa led by moderate African politicians like Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda, working in partnership with the economic enterprise of Europeans in industry and on the land. I believe that despite all the difficulties and despite all the bitterness which has been engendered in various places in recent years in Africa such a reconciliation between the European and the African is possible.

I think of the kind of bitterness which existed over many years during India's struggle for independence. Some of us, if we had not been here tonight, would have been at India House saying goodbye to Mrs. Pandit, one of the most distinguished ambassadors who has ever graced London. In sad and foolish days gone by she was in British gaols in India, but today, with a characteristic Indian generosity of spirit, she and her great country are among Britain's best friends. In the same way, if we act wisely and generously we can enjoy the friendship of the exciting new association of nations which are growing up in Africa.

We can move towards this goal if only the Colonial Secretary will stick to his guns on these matters and if the back bench critics behind him will drop their guns. However, because in recent months there has been a great deal of evidence that all the shooting has come from the back benchers and that the Government has been giving way, we intend to divide the House this evening.

9.12 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Hugh Fraser)

It is with considerable regret that after that admirable speech with which I found myself in a large measure of agreement, the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) should have said that the Opposition proposes to divide the House. I think it a pity as we seem to be united in this House on a great many things in colonial policy. I view with regret that the Opposition should so decide.

This has been a debate which many of us would wish could have been longer and that we could have touched on some of the problems outside Central and East Africa. It is to the territories there that the main debate has been addressed, and I shall endeavour to base my remarks mainly on them and to answer all the points which have been raised in the time which remains to me.

The first thing we should look at is the point which was raised initially by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and has run right through the debate, the problem of assistance to Tanganyika. That matter was raised most ably by the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), who made what I thought was a good point, that after several hundred millions have moved from colonial status to Commonwealth status, we are left with territories which often need a greater rate of investment than others. That is a good point and one which I shall certainly bear in mind, but I should point out to the House as a whole that the contributions which this Government have made in overseas aid have been remarkable. Although the number of Colonial Territories has shrunk in the last few years, these contributions have gone up from £38 million in 1958 to £80 million this year.

We have most earnestly considered the question of assistance to Mr. Nyerere. All hon. Members who have spoken have paid tribute to his statesmanship. We are determined to do what we can to help him. As my right hon. Friend said, we have been able to make some improvement in the offer which was originally made before he went to New York. I think it right that at this point I should not reveal figures because it is not the wish of Mr. Nyerere, the Prime Minister of Tanganyika, nor of my right hon. Friend that such figures should be revealed, but I can say that I think the figures mentioned by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East were well below those which are now being worked out with Mr. Nyerere.

It is important that my right hon. Friend has been able to recommend to Mr. Nyerere that he should go ahead with his development plan. I think this is the key to Mr. Nyerere's thinking, and to his immediate demands and needs. It is also hopeful that there should be a consortium of investment in this area, in which the United States seems to be prepared to play a part. Looking at other territories like the West Indies, we welcome enormously the new policy of President Kennedy to help us over some of these matters where we have not ourselves sufficient funds.

The hon. Lady raised an important point, as I think did some other hon. Members, on the important question of the compensation scheme and the valuable work which has been done by expatriate civil servants from this country in Tanganyika. Again, without mentioning any figures, I can say that we have made an offer of very substantial help to Tanganyika, which will go a long way to meet their needs.

Points were raised about various other territories, and probably the quickest and simplest way of dealing with them would be for me quickly to review these various territories, picking up the points made by hon. Members in what has been a thoroughly reasonable and constructive debate. I am sure that we all join with my right hon. Friend and with the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East in making an appeal to those in Zanzibar who are at the moment threatening to boycott the Legislature. I am sure that this important message should go out from this House in this form: a boycott is of no advantage either to those boycotting or to those being boycotted. If we can get the Afro-Shirazis to take their places, some of the problems, which seem enormous at this stage, could be overcome.

I should now like to turn to the points made about Uganda. I listened with very great interest to the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot), who revealed such a widespread interest and knowledge of this area, and also to the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East. I am sure at this stage it is safe to say that the point raised by the hon. Lady from a rather contradictory point of view, shows the sort of problem which we have to resolve, and which, I hope, will be resolved in the September conference. What I can say at this point is that the meeting between the Governor and the Kabaka's Minister, reported in The Times a few days ago, seems to have gone satisfactorily. It is a matter of satisfaction that Mr. Kiwanuka has been appointed Chief Minister, and things seem to be going reasonably well and the Government are finding their feet.

The hon. Lady also asked when the World Bank's Report would be available on the economy of Uganda. I trust that that Report will be in our hands by the middle of next month. I think that the American professor who has been dealing with it will be arriving here soon, and we can discuss the matter with him.

It is right for me now to turn to Kenya. Here, I think a proper tribute was paid to Lancaster House by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley). That is not a pun which I suddenly thought of; the words, in fact, came from my hon. Friend's lips quite involuntarily. The Lancaster House Constitution has formed a sound basis for further constitutional development. I am sure that my right hon. Friend built well in setting up this form of Constitution, and from it can proceed the necessary steps for further constitutional advance based on this sound and working Constitution.

Hon. Members on both sides raised the question of land. My right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Mahan (Mr. Turton) asked how Her Majesty's Government propose to implement the undertakings given by Lord Boyd with respect to the safeguarding of property rights. As my right hon. Friend informed the House an 20th December, Her Majesty's Government have carried out a detailed investigation of how security and title in land and property can be safeguarded, both up to and after independence. Detailed provisions were included in the Constitution drawn up last December. Furthermore, as my right hon. Friend said, the continued protection of fundamental rights, including rights in property, would inevitably be an essential part of discussions on constitutional advance.

As those who have been following these matters will have noticed, that is precisely what is happening, because African leaders have agreed to include this question in the talks on constitutional advance which we trust will begin in Nairobi in the next few days. Beyond that, as my right hon. Friend said this afternoon, we believe that there must be co-operation and common interest between all those who are property owners in East Africa. Whether they be Asians, Europeans or Africans, they have precisely the same interest, which is to ensure that their property rights are safeguarded. As many hon. Members on both sides of the House said this afternoon, this is where we believe that the true safety and protection of those who hold property in Kenya lies, namely in co-operation, as Kenyans, between the people of the country.

The question of land investment has been raised. My right hon. Friend said this afternoon that we hope that in the course of the fairly near future there will be a further advance in the extension of investment for African resettlement in Kenya.

I turn now to the question of Mr. Jomo Kenyatta. The question of his early release was raised on both sides of the House—led this afternoon by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway), who throughout has been persistent on this issue, the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich, my hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster and Surbiton (Mr. Fisher), and others. It is not a question of a retrial. It is not a question of a few civil servants in Nairobi or of a political party, as some of my hon. Friends suggested. This is a question of the gravest concern to my right hon. Friend and to the Governor in Kenya. In this they will do their duty.

Mr. Callaghan

Oh.

Mr. Fraser

I am sorry that the hon. Member should mock me on this serious matter. I made my remark seriously. They will do their duty on this serious matter. As my right hon. Friend said this afternoon, if the opportunity arises of any change or any announcement we will make it before the House of Commons goes into recess.

One other point of importance was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich. That was the question of the disqualification effected in the Constitutional Order in Council. The papers have literally just been received from Kenya. We will study them, and I will communicate with the hon. and learned Member and with the House when we have completed this study.

It is only proper for me in the few minutes left to me to turn to the question of the Northern Rhodesian Constitution. During the debate some hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Eton and Slough, seem to have been strangely partisan in their espousal or support of various political parties, whether they be of the right or the left. I do not believe that this is the function of this House or of the Colonial Secretary. In matters of constitutional progress in mixed racial societies especially his rôle must be one of constitution-making. He should try to reach the maximum degree of assent, and, if that be impossible, he should act as arbiter between the contending factions.

Throughout these negotiations, which have been long, we have had three aims—first, that there should be an increase in African representation secondly, that the composition of the Legislative Council should be at or around parity between European and African and thirdly, that candidates should be encouraged to adopt a non-racial approach and should be required to appeal to the votes of both races. I believe that the present Constitution has a fair hope of carrying out all these objectives.

The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster was one of remarkable interest, showing, on the one hand, how difficult it can be for the European to acquire the necessary number and, on the other hand, how comparatively simple it may be for the African to acquire it, in view of the U.F.P. vote recorded at the last election. These facts are worth studying.

May I turn to one other matter. As my right hon. Friend has said, we have before us in East and Central Africa probably the greatest colonial challenge. We must not only see that the policies we pursue are aimed at the welfare of all of those territories, but also that we create, through our educational systems and through the localisation of the Civil Service, people with the necessary qualifications to take on the task.

I should like to say a few words on what we are doing to achieve this. Since March, 1960, when the Public Service Conference in London was attended by representatives of all these territories, we have been working, first, to improve the educational pyramid and, secondly, to set on foot in Uganda, Tanganyika, Kenya, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland provision for the localisation of the Civil Service. We are already seeing some progress, especially in East Africa where in less than two years the numbers have trebled. In education we are already seeing a great advance in the number of secondary school children. These are vital matters, because these people will eventually provide the muscle and the sinew of these new States.

Before us is a great advance of which this country as a whole can be proud. I believe that no man has played a more

important, honourable or far-sighted rôle in this than the present Secretary of State, and I believe that the whole House will do well, whatever the difficulties which lie ahead, to record in him tonight a vote of full confidence.

Question put, That £3,671,010 stand part of the Resolution:—

The House divided: Ayes 277, Noes 197.

Division No. 257.]	AYES	[9.29 p.m.
Agnew, Sir Peter	Duncan, Sir James	Joseph, Sir Keith
Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)	Eden, John	Kaberry, Sir Donald
Allason, James	Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Arbuthnot, John	Elliott, R.W. (Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)	Kershaw, Anthony
Ashton, Sir Hubert	Emery, Peter	Kimball, Marcus
Atkins, Humphrey	Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn	Kirk, Peter
Barber, Anthony	Errington, Sir Eric	Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Barlow, Sir John	Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Leather, E. H. C.
Barter, John	Farey-Jones, F. W.	Leavey, J. A.
Batsford, Brian	Farr, John	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Fisher, Nigel	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Bell, Ronald	Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Lilley, F. J. P.
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)	Forrest, George	Lindsay, Martin
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)	Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford & Stone)	Litchfield, Capt. John
Berkeley, Humphrey	Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)	Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)
Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Freeth, Denzil	Longden, Gilbert
Bidgood, John G.	Gammans, Lady	Loveys, Walter H.
Biggs-Davison, John	Gardner, Edward	Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby
Bishop, F. P.	George, J. C. (Pollok)	Lucas, Sir Jocelyn
Black, Sir Cyril	Gibson-Watt, David	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Bossom, Clive	Glover, Sir Douglas	MacArthur, Ian
Bourne-Arton, A.	Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)	McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia
Box, Donald	Godber, J. B.	Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John	Goodhart, Philip	Maclean, SirFitzroy (Bute & N.Ayrs.)
Boyle, Sir Edward	Goodhew, Victor	Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Braine, Bernard	Gower, Raymond	McMaster, Stanley R.
Brewis, John	Grant, Rt. Hon. William	Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold (Bromley)
Brooman-white, R.	Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R.	Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Buck, Antony	Green, Alan	Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Bullard, Denys	Gresham Cooke, R.	Maddan, Martin
Bullus, Wing Commander Eric	Grimston, Sir Robert	Maginnis, John E.
Butcher, Sir Herbert	Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.	Maitland, Sir John
Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)	Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)	Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)	Harris, Reader (Heston)	Markham, Major Sir Frank
Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)	Harrison, Brian (Matdon)	Marshall, Douglas
Carr, Compton (Barons Court)	Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Marten, Neil
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)	Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)	Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)
Cary, Sir Robert	Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)	Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Channon, H. P. G.	Harvie Anderson, Miss	Mawby, Ray
Chataway, Christopher	Hastings, Stephen	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)	Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel	Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Cleaver, Leonard	Hendry, Forbes	Mills, Stratton
Cole, Norman	Hiley, Joseph	Montgomery, Fergus
Cooke, Robert	Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)	More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Cooper, A. E.	Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)	Morgan, William
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill	Hinchingbrooke, Viscount	Mott-Radcliffe, Sir Charles
Cordle, John	Hirst, Geoffrey	Nabarro, Gerald
Corfield, F. V.	Hobson, John	Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Costain, A. P.	Holland, Philip	Nicholson, Sir Godfrey
Craddock, Sir Beresford	Hollingworth, John	Noble, Michael
Critchley, Julian	Hopkins, Alan	Oakshott, Sir Hendrie
Crowder, F. P.	Hornby, R. P.	Osborn, John (Hallam)
Cunningham, Knox	Homsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia	Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Curran, Charles	Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)	Page, John (Harrow, West)
Currie, G. B. H.	Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John	Page, Graham (Crosby)
Dalkeith, Earl of	Hughes-Young, Michael	Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Dance, James	Hurd, Sir Anthony	Partridge, E.
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Hutchison, Michael Clark	Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Deedes, W F.	Iremonger, T. L.	Peyton, John
de Ferranti, Basil	Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Digby, Simon Wingfield	James, David	Pilkington, Sir Richard
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.	Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)	Pitman, Sir James
Doughty, Charles	Jennings, J. C.	Pitt, Miss Edith
Drayson, G. B.	Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)	Pott, Percival
du Cann, Edward	Johnson, Eric (Blackley)	Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch
Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)	Smithers, peter	Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
Prior, J. M. L,	Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Proudfoot, Wilfred	Spearman, Sir Alexander	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Pym, Francis	Speir, Rupert	vaughan-Morgan, Rt, Hon. Sir John
Quennell, Miss J. M.	Stanley, Hon. Richard	Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis
Ramsden, James	Stevens, Geoffrey	Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin	Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)	Wakefield, Sir Wavel (St. M'lebone)
Rees, Hugh	Stodart, J. A.	Waltder, David
Rees-Davies, W. R.	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm	Walker, Peter
Renton, David	Storey, Sir Samuel	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas	Studholme, Sir Henry	Walt, Patrick
Ridsdale, Julian	Sumner, Donald (Orpington)	Ward, Dame Irene
Rippon, Geoffrey	Talbot, John E	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)	Tapsell, Peter	Whitelaw, William
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S)	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)	Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Roots, William	Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)	Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard	Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)	Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)	Teeling, William	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Russell, Ronald	Temple, John M.	Wise, A. R.
Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan	Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret	Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard
Scott-Hopkins, James	Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)	Woodhouse, C. M.
Seymour, Leslie	Thomas, Peter (Conway)	Woodnutt, Mark
Sharpies, Richard	Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)	Woollam, John
Shaw, M.	Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)	Worsley, Marcus
Shepherd, William	Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter	Yates, William (The Wrekin)
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn	Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Skeet, T. H. H.	Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)	Turner, Colin	Mr. Finlay and Mr. Chichester-Clark
NOES
Ainsley, William	Forman, J. C.	Mackie, John (Enfield, East)
Albu, Austen	Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)	McLeavy, Frank
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh	MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Aden, Scholefield (Crewe)	Galpern, Sir Myer	Manuel, A C.
Awbery, Stan	Ginsburg, David	Mapp, Charles
Bacon, Miss Alice	Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C	Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Baird, John	Gourlay, Harry	Marsh, Richard
Baiter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)	Greenwood, Anthony	Mayhew, Christopher
Bence, Cyril	Grey, Charles	Mellish, R. J.
Benson, Sir George	Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)	Mendelson, J. J.
Blackburn, F.	Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)	Milne, Edward J.
Blyton, William	Griffiths, W. (Exchange)	Mitchison, G. R.
Boardman, H.	Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)	Monslow, Walter
Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)	Hamilton, William (West Fife)	Moody, A. S.
Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)	Hannan, William	Moyle, Arthur
Bowles, Frank	Hart, Mrs. Judith	Mulley, Frederick
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Hayman, F. H.	Neal, Harold
Brockway, A. Fenner	Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)	Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Phllip (Derby, S.)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Herbison, Miss Margaret	Oram, A. E.
Brown, Alan (Tottenham)	Hill, J. (Midlothian)	Oswald, Thomas
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Hilton, A. V.	Owen, Will
Brown, Thomas (Ince)	Holman, Percy	Paget, R. T.
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)	Houghton, Douglas	Pannett, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Pargiter, G. A.
Callaghan, James	Hoy, James H.	Parker, John
Castle, Mrs. Barbara	Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)	Parkin, B. T.
Chapman, Donald	Hunter, A. E.	Pavitt, Laurence
Chetwynd, George	Hynd, H. (Accrington)	Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Cliffe, Michael	Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)	Peart, Frederick
Collick, Percy	Irving, Sydney (Dartford)	Pentland, Norman
Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Janner, Sir Barnett	Plummer, Sir Leslie
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)	Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas	Poppfewell, Ernest
Cronin, John	Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)	Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Cullen,, Mrs. Alice	Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)	Probert, Arthur
Darling, George	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Jones, Jack (Rotherham)	Randall, Harry
Davies, Harold (Leek)	Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)	Rankin, John
Deer, George	Kelley, Richard	Redhead, E. C.
Delargy, Hugh	Kenyon, Clifford	Reynolds, G. W.
Dempsey, James	Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.	Rhodes, H.
Diamond, John	King, Dr. Horace	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Dodds, Norman	Lawson, George	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Driberg, Tom	Lee, Frederick (Newton)	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Ede, Rt. Hon. C.	Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)	Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Edelman, Maurice	Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)	Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)	Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)	Ross, William
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Lipton, Marous
Edwards, Walter (Stepney)	Logan, David	Royle, Charles (Salford, West)
Evans, Albert	Loughlin, Charles	Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Finch, Harold	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Short, Edward
Fletcher, Eric	MacColl, James	Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)	Mclnnes, James	Skeffington, Arthur
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)	McKay, John (Wallsend)	Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)	Wilkins, W. A.
Small, William	Taylor, John (West Lothlan)	Williams. D. J. (Neath)
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)	Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)	Williams, LI. (Abertillery)
Sorensen, R. W.	Thompson, Or. Alan (Dunfermline)	Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank	Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Spriggs, Leslie	Tommy, Frank	Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
Steele, Thomas	Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn	Winterbottom, R. E.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)	Wade, Donald	Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.
Stones, William	Wainwright, Edwin	Woof, Robert
Strachey, Rt. Hon. John	Warbey, William	Wyatt, Woodrow
Stress, Dr. Batnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)	Watkins, Tudor	Yates, Victor (Ladywood)
Swain, Thomas	Weitzman, David
Swingler, Stephen	White, Mrs. Eirene	TELLERS FOR THE NOES
Sylvester, George	Whitlock, William	Mr. Charles A. Howell and
		Mr. Ifor Davies.

It being after half-past Nine o'clock, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to Standing Order No. 16 (Business of Supply), to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of the Resolution under consideration.

Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put and agreed to.

Mr. SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of Classes 1 to X of the Civil Estimates and of the Estimates for Revenue Departments, the Ministry of Defence Estimate, the Navy Estimates, the Army Estimates, (the Air Estimates, and of the Navy, Army, and Air Services [Expenditure].