HC Deb 11 June 1969 vol 784 cc1481-511

Order for Second Reading read.

4.18 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Maurice Foley)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a second time.

The main purpose of the Bill is to enable existing United Kingdom laws to be given the same effect in relation to Tanzania as they have in relation to other countries in the Commonwealth, and had in relation to Tanganyika and in some cases Zanzibar before their merger.

As the House will recall, in 1964, Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined to form a new State which, in October of that year, became the United Republic of Tanzania. The Bill is thus similar in intent to Acts making consequential provisions in respect of United Kingdom law rendered necessary by the attainment of independence by a Commonwealth country or its subsequent adoption of a republican constitution.

This is primarily an enabling measure with limited objectives. The first and most important of these is to amend the British Nationality Act, 1948, by substituting "Tanzania" for "Tanganyika" and "Zanzibar" in the list of Commonwealth countries in Section 1(3) of that Act. This will give Tanzanians the status of British subjects and Commonwealth citizens in United Kingdom law, and will bring them into line in this respect with citizens of all other Commonwealth countries, and Tanganyikans and Zanzibaris before the union.

The object of Clause 2 is somewhat removed from the main purpose of the Bill. It concerns the Colonial and Other Territories (Divorce Jurisdiction) Acts which, broadly speaking, enabled colonial courts to grant divorces to expatriates. After Tanganyikan independence, the courts there continued under these Acts to grant divorces which are considered to be defective in United Kingdom law.

The opportunity has, therefore, been taken to include a provision in the Bill to validate such divorces. This will be achieved by preserving the jurisdiction of Tanganyika courts under these Acts from independence to May, 1965, when they ceased to possess such jurisdiction under Tanzania law, and to preserve such jurisdiction in relation to proceedings instituted during that period.

Clause 3 concerns ships owned by Tanzanian citizens. Since the status of a "British" ship is determined by the national status of its owner, a consequence of regarding Tanzanians as British subjects for the purpose of United Kingdom law, which will be achieved by Clause 1, would be to regard ships owned by Tanzanian citizens as British ships.

The purpose of Clause 3, therefore, is to ensure that such ships are not brought within certain regulatory provisions of United Kingdom legislation, and this would be accomplished by the exclusion of the ships registered in Tanzania from the scope of the Ships and Aircraft (Transfer Restriction) Act, 1939, and the Whaling Industry (Regulation) Act, 1934.

Clauses 4 and 5 are designed to enable such United Kingdom enactments as may be considered appropriate to be applied in relation to Tanzania as they apply in relation to other Commonwealth countries. This application will, of course, affect only the law of the United Kingdom and of those territories for which Her Majesty's Government have responsibility. It does not have effect as part of the law of Tanzania.

When the Bill becomes law, the power of application will be exercised in respect of a number of statutes by Orders in Council which will be laid before Parliament.

4.23 p.m.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds)

I thank the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State—a most agreeable Minister—for so ably introducing this short Bill. I am glad that he followed the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in producing almost precisely the same introduction to the Bill as was heard in another place.

I am sorry that the ancient and splendid name "Tanganyika" should now apparently be lost for ever, for on the one occasion when I had the pleasure of visiting Tanganyika I was told how it got its national anthem. It appears that a competition was held to see which tune could possibly accommodate the word "Tanganyika" and the only tune found to do so was the tune to "My Darling Clementine"—"Tanganyika, Tanganyika". I am sorry that the change to the name "Tanzania" means that it is necessary to give up that old English and Australian tune as the origin of the national anthem.

I give a general but lukewarm welcome to the Bill—general because it tidies up some legislation which needs tidying up, and lukewarm, as the hon. Gentleman will understand, because it should have been brought in before and because it contains a number of retrospections which are designed, at least in one case—divorce—to rectify omissions made by the Commonwealth Office draftsmen seven years ago. In case it is thought that I am making a party political point here, let me add that these omissions were made when the Conservative Party formed the Government, although I doubt whether my right hon. Friends drafted the language themselves.

It is impossible to comprehend the scope of the Bill without studying briefly the legal background to it. The background is the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar which, from 26th April, 1964, until 28th October, 1964, was known as the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar and has since become known as Tanzania.

A number of British Acts of Parliament have references only to either Tanganyika or Zanzibar, and since neither of these States now exists these Acts cease to have legal validity. The Bill, as I understand it, gives these Acts legal validity by changing the references to Tanganyika and Zanzibar to references simply to Tanzania. I understand that the Bill is almost entirely concerned with the validity of British legislation, but I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that, alongside all these legal facts, is the relevant recent history which has caused the Bill to become necessary.

Tanganyika became independent as a constitutional monarchy, with the Queen as head of State, on 9th December, 1961, and on 9th December, 1962, became a republic within the Commonwealth. Thereafter, on 16th December, 1963—and these dates are relevant—Zanzibar became independent as a constitutional monarchy with the Sultan as Head of State. Soon afterwards the Sultan was overthrown and a republican régime established. Britain recognised the new régime in February, 1964, a month later.

When the Sultan was overthrown, he was given access to Britain with a number of his supporters and the then British Government set up a handsome trust fund of £90,000, from which he would get an income, and a further £10,000 was set aside for various other royal purposes. I understand that the Sultan now lives in an hotel in Hampshire. I am sure that we all wish him well there. But I am bound to say, in passing, that one must contrast the rather generous treatment given to the Sultan by the Conservative Government with the somewhat less generous treatment given to the King of Buganda, who is living in poverty in Britain and whose circumstances are very much less favourable than those of the Sultan of Zanzibar, who cannot be described as quite so warm a friend of Britain as the King of Buganda is.

Sir Frederic Bennett (Torquay)

I have no objection to what my hon. Friend has said about the King of Buganda. Indeed, I go a long way with him in his view on that matter. We should consider whether we could not do more for the King. But my hon. Friend has called the trust fund for the Sultan of Zanzibar "handsome". That is an odd way to describe money which we specifically owed the Sultan as a result of our ceding, against his wishes, the territory that belonged to him in a sovereign way in Kenya. If we had not provided the £100,000, which was owed to him, we would have been in breach of a solemn treaty obligation. The £100,000 was what we owed to the Sultan.

Mr. Griffiths

My hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) speaks with great authority and I naturally accept what he says. It would obviously have been very shabby to have treated the Sultan in any other way, but I was really contrasting his situation with that of another very good friend of this country and a contemporary of mine at university. The King of Buganda has been treated much less generously. I hope that his position will be considered by the Government.

However, I return to the legal and historical context of the Bill. In April, 1964, the Republics of Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined together to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. On 24th October, 1964, the President of the United Republic, Dr. Nyerere, announced that the Republic henceforth would be known as the United Republic of Tanzania.

All of us will wish this United Republic of Tanzania well. We wish it to remain a unity. We wish it to remain a country under the rule of law. But the Under-Secretary will not fail to recall that within a year of its achieving its unity the Republic of Tanzania broke off its diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom, though remaining, I am glad to say, within the Commonwealth. This action was probably taken because of the Rhodesian situation. Diplomatic relations remained broken between our two countries for a period of some three years. I am glad to say that they have now been resumed.

So much for the history, which is relevant to any consideration of the Bill. I turn now to the Clauses and as I proceed I shall give notice of some of the issues which we shall wish to discuss in Committee. In the Long Title of the Bill there is the phrase the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar … within the Commonwealth". This is something which the whole House will welcome, but I hope that the Government will find ways and means, when the Bill is passed, of indicating to Dr. Nyerere, whom I admire, and his Government, that the advantages of their remaining in the Commonwealth may not be had for nothing.

No one would suggest that the Commonwealth is an organisation requiring all its members necessarily to contribute to the British point of view, but if we are to retain the concept of republics remaining within the Commonwealth, at least there should be some broad community of attitudes among member Governments. I do not wish to push this too far, because I have no desire to be offensive to any person or official within the Republic of Tanzania, but I am bound to remind the Under-Secretary that over recent years Tanzania has not only broken off diplomatic relations with this country, but has threatened and in some cases has actually seized British property. There have been cases, or at least suggestions, of British nationals being mistreated. There has been a consistent pattern of Tanzania taking a hostile attitude towards this country at the United Nations and there was also the three-year period when there were no diplomatic relations.

The point I make is that within the Long, Title we have enshrined the phrase "within the Commonwealth" and, without in any way wishing to be critical of or offensive towards Tanzania, I hope that the Government will indicate that membership of the Commonwealth involves a certain community of interest towards the rule of law, towards the decent treatment on one another's citizens and property.

Clause 1 is concerned with the British Nationality Acts, as the Under-Secretary has explained. I draw his attention to subsection 3(a), which says that for the purposes of the British Nationality Act if immediately before 9th December, 1961, a person was a British-protected person, he shall be deemed on having become a citizen of the United Republic to have ceased to be a British-protected person.

This is a technical Bill and I appreciate that we are dealing mostly retrospectively with technicalities. However, there may well be cases of British-protected persons who were living in what was then Tanganyika and who had no option but to become Tanzanian citizens. Often they had no option because otherwise their property or their votes might have been lost, or their families placed in a dfficult situation. It is not simply a historical accident that some people became Tanzanian citizens. Not all British residents there were suddenly filled with a great effusion of loyalty towards the new régime. Some took the new nationality because they had no option, no real choice.

This has happened across the whole wide world. Certainly, it has happened in many of our colonial territories. Many of us would feel rather sorry for those to whom this has happened. What I find difficult is that retrospectively we are telling them that at the point when they took up their new Tanzanian citizenship, we took away the British protection which they always thought they had.

There is a difference between the free choice of a man who takes on another citizenship, knowing full well that at that point he loses the citizenship of the United Kingdom, and a man who takes on Tanzanian, or any other nationality, but does not suppose at that moment that the price will be the forfeiting for ever of his British-protected status. At the time, those who had no option but to become Tanzanian citizens did not think for a moment that they would lose their British-protected status. In the event, four or five years later Parliament is asked to reach back into history and to tell those people that when they became Tanzanians, they lost their British-protected status not only as from the date when the House considers the Bill but for the last five years.

The Under-Secretary will rightly say that we are dealing with a practical problem, but I hope that he will accept, as we discuss the Bill, and, I hope, pass it, that there is something slightly offensive in the notion that when a man takes on a citizenship which he has no option but to take, he forfeits something which he did not realise at the time would be taken from him.

Clause 2 is most interesting. It is the nearest I have seen for a long time to a Government Department admitting that it has made a mistake. This is rare in legislation and the House should note it. The mistake was that when Tanganyika first became independent, in December, 1961, the Tanganyika Independence Act did not include provision for allowing the divorce courts in Tanganyika to continue to give divorces to expatriates. This was an error. In the other place, Lord Shepherd said that the divorces which, in fact, had since been given were defective. Consequently, a small number of people—and perhaps the Under-Secretary is able to say how many—have been living for a number of years in the belief that the divorces they were given were valid when they were not.

I am in no position to speculate on the possible consequences in terms of property settlements or the status of children, but we ought to recognise that the Parliamentary draftsmen—and those at the Foreign Office who oversee their work—failed to put in this sort of consequential provision concerning the lives of individual men and women and that that is the kind of error which may lead to distress and which the House ought not to allow in legislation.

So often, we rush Bills through and leave it to others to work them out in detail. This is inevitable in our circumstances, but—I do not wish to be offensive to the Foreign Office or our draftsmen—this was an error, and a number of people have been left with defective divorces, while the consequences to their property and their children may have been serious and difficult. Let us at least resolve, when criticising this omission—during the time of a Conservative Government, let it be said—that we shall not allow these omissions to slip into law because of inadequate supervision in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or inadequate surveillance in this House.

Clause 3 is the most obscure of Clauses. The Minister, who is always clarity itself, uses the same language as was used in the other place. Since I do not have a copy of the hon. Gentleman's speech, I will rely on the HANSARD report of Lord Shepherd's speech, because he was using practically identical language. He said: The purpose of Clause 3 … is to ensure that ships owned by Tanzanian citizens are not brought within the scope of United Kingdom legislation …". Earlier, he said that the Bill would … make Tanzanian citizens British subjects for the purposes of British law and consequently ships owned by Tanzanian citizens British ships."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 6th May, 1969; c. 1160.] Would the hon. Gentleman explain what that means? I presume that it has a meaning, but it is a very occult one. Having just expressed myself forcibly about the need for clarity in legislation because of the divorce point, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will explain to those of us who are laymen, and not lawyers, what these words, which he repeated, actually mean.

Clause 3 goes on to say: This Section shall be deemed to have come into operation on 26th April 1964 … I can think of nothing which defines retrospection more clearly. It passes understanding that Parliament feels that it can wipe out five years of history. All kinds of things have happened in law and in fact. Although I shall support the Bill without hesitation, we should consider carefully before using that sort of retrospective language in our law.

Also, why has this date been chosen? I am not sure of the significance of 26th April, 1964. Earlier, in my historical preamble, I recounted some of the more pertinent dates, but I could not find this one. It may have been the day on which President Nyerere announced that Zanzibar and Tanganyika would join to become the new republic, but, if so, it is odd that we should choose the day when he happened to say it to enshrine in our legislation. Perhaps no other date could have been chosen, but we should like an explanation. Clause 4(4) (a) and (b) are even more retropsective.

All of the powers under the Bill—the retrospections, the fact that the Government are to take power to make Orders in Council to apply the Bill not only to British people but to West Indians, since it applies to the whole of the Associated States, including, I presume, Anguilla—will be sought from the House under the negative Resolution procedure. They should use the affirmative procedure, so that the House can consider these matters more carefully.

I shall certainly support the Bill, because it tidies up some points which needed tidying up. It puts right at least one grave defect which should not have occurred in the first place, and it should help, in a general way, to improve our relations with Tanzania. All of us will wish Tanzania well. All of us have been impressed, I think, over the last year or so by the Arusha Declaration and by the attitude taken by President Nyerere, who has told his people that, although they will welcome all the foreign aid which they get, in the end it depends on their own efforts and their own generation of capital how effectively their country and their society develops.

The Arusha Declaration was a beacon in Africa. Particularly at a time when recent history has shown so many sad elements in African life, this was a case of a country trying to stand on its own feet. It is something which we should applaud and support. The negative side of the picture, of course, is the increasing infiltration of Tanzania by the Chinese. I wonder whether the Chinese, having completed their survey of the railway, will feel able or willing to put up the large sums which would be required to build it. I suspect that if, having made great play with their survey, they fail to construct the railway, their name will be mud throughout East Africa.

I would not mind that at all. I suspect that President Nyerere is on to them and there is some evidence that the Chinese, who are not particularly popular among the Tanzanian people, are being squeezed further east towards Zanzibar. If they are squeezed even further east, I shall not worry.

I have raised some technical points and have said that there will need to be an agreeable Committee stage during which the Opposition will do their job vigilantly to prevent any further legal defects. We will wish the Bill a speedy passage. I wish Tanzania, however it is now described, a very fruitful future.

4.49 p.m.

Mr. Frank Judd (Portsmouth, West)

I wish briefly to intervene in the debate and to take up two of the general points which the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) made.

It would be sad if the view was to go out from this House that we have reservations about fellow members of the Commonwealth who believe that the strength of the Commonwealth is to be found in an honest and frank exchange of different views on issues of mutual concern. For anyone who has watched with close interest the spirit and the detail of the argument used by the leaders of Tanzania on issues of mutual concern in the Commonwealth, it is absolutely clear that the sort of criticisms which are made about British policy are made in the hope that mutual understanding can be found and that the Commonwealth, as an heterogeneous assembly of nations with differing backgrounds, can be strengthened.

Its future surely lies in the recognition that its strength stems from, not homogenous sycophantic groupings of likeminded nations, but healthy dialogue between nations with different views. In view of what the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds said, and with which I agree, about the spirit of the Arusha Declaration, it would be unfortunate if he were to mar his remarks by apparently patronising reference to some of the genuine differences of attitude on international affairs which have existed.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the presence of the Chinese in Tanzania and their part in the construction of the Tanzan railway. It should be noted in the context of this debate that the fact that the Chinese are involved in the construction of the Tanzan railway is because repeated appeals and requests to the West by President Nyerere and President Kaunda of Zambia were unsuccessful. There is a lesson to be learned from this. I do not believe that the Presidents of these two fellow Commonwealth countries went to the Chinese as their first choice. They went to them in the absence of support from Western countries such as ours and from the World Bank. It would be most unfortunate if there were any feeling as a result of this discussion that their first loyalty was to the Chinese rather than to other parts of the Commonwealth. I am sure that, on reflection, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds would be the first to agree with that.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Chigwell)

The Under-Secretary of State has considerable knowledge of Africa, where he has travelled widely. He introduced the Bill in a characteristically agreeable way. I hope that he will not mind my asking why the Bill has been introduced now after such a delay. I should have thought that it might have been introduced several years ago to take account of the changes in Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will say, when he replies, whether this delay, which has necessitated certain retrospection in the Bill, is due to congestion of the legislative programme or to something else.

The Under-Secretary of State said that the Bill will enable Commonwealth citizenship to be conferred on former residents of the two former British territories now living in the United Kingdom. I am glad of that. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) referred to His Highness the Sultan and the provision made for his maintenance. I agree completely with my hon. Friend that a more generous attitude might have been shown to the Kabaka. But we are not now concerned with him; we are concerned with the people from Zanzibar and Tanganyika, as it used to be. Would the Under-Secretary of State say—because if public money is involved this House has responsibility—to what extent other provision is made for His Highness, his family and entourage other than the sum of money to which he is entitled, as was pointed out in a rather desultory discussion among ourselves, because of his cession of the coastal strip?

I have had contact with other people from Zanzibar who have had travel documents difficulties, and I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the Home Office for its sympathy when I have put forward their cases. People from Zanzibar living here in exile are fortunate compared with other formerly protected persons who were the victims of genocide, the subject of recent legislation in the House, or who are now subject to the revolutionary Government in Zanzibar.

This should be pointed out to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd), or it could have been pointed out to him if he had not left the House immediately after making his speech. I do not complain of that, because I am sure that he has something more important to do. It should, however, be said, when it is suggested that we should not be too critical of other parts of the Commonwealth, that the present régime in Zanzibar—I do not know whether I would be right in calling it an illegal régime—rules by means of arbitrary arrest, imprisonment without trial, forced labour and confiscation of property.

There is an element of unreality in this discussion and in the Bill and in what the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West said. The purpose of the Bill is to enable existing United Kingdom laws to have the same effect in relation to Tanzania as they have in relation to other countries of the Commonwealth, and as they had in in relation to Tanganyika and in some cases Zanzibar before their merger.

The reason for this Measure is a constitutional union which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds said we should wish well. We have great good will for the people of these territories. But in large measure this constitutional union is a constitutional fiction. Theoretically, in Zanzibar there is a separate executive and a separate legislature, although representative institutions do not function in Zanzibar. Although, on paper, there is a constitutional union, it is in fact, in great measure, fictitious. Perhaps it is to the credit of President Nyerere and his Government that this should be so because, having some idea of the sort of people that they are, I know that they would not wish to know too much about or to bear too much responsibility for what happens in Zanzibar.

We cannot but have some reservations about what is happening in this corner of the Commonwealth. It has been described journalistically as an African "Cuba"—a Cuba within the Commonwealth. It is governed by a revolutionary council, but it is also, to some extent, occupied by Russians, Communist Chinese and East Germans. I know that all is not well between these neocolonialists from the Communist camp and the Zanzibar régime. Zanzibar's chafe under the advice given to them by these intruders.

It is all very well saying that we are one happy heterogeneous Commonwealth family and that we should bear with each other and should not be too critical of what is going on. But if we forbear to criticise, let us know what we are talking about. This is the situation in Zanzibar at present, part of the Commonwealth territory with which the Bill is concerned. The President of the Zanzibar revolutionary council, Sheikh Abeid Karume, is First Vice-President of the United Republic of Tanzania. He celebrated Human Rights Year by announcing a new legal system—and we must have regard to this when discussing the principles which should govern Commonwealth membership and Commonwealth relationships—under which courts of law would be abolished as "relics of colonialism". The closest parallel to his purposes is to be found in China.

Already, in October, 1966, the Revolutionary Council had set up a secret "Special Court", with exclusive jurisdiction to deal with offences of a political nature, and with full power to impose sentence of death, of imprisonment, of flogging or fine, but no power to allow an accused to be represented by a lawyer, or to admit the public to its proceedings. It is greatly to the credit of the authorities in Dar-es-Salaam that, before this court began to sit, the decree setting it up was suspended.

This, I think, was probably because of the intervention of President Nyerere. So far as I know, the High Court system still extends to Zanzibar under the interim constitution, but I should like to hear more about this from the hon. Gentleman, since the court system prevailing in the United Republic bears upon the Tanzania Bill that we are discussing.

We are legislating in connection with a tenuous union, part of which is under a revolutionary régime which does not necessarily act as though it were incorporated in the Commonwealth State known as Tanzania.

Incidentally, Sheik Abeid Karume also celebrated Human Rights Year by announcing that there would be no elections for the next 50 years. His speeches repay reading; he has a rather dry sense of humour. In a speech in Dar-es-Salaam on 7th July, 1968, he made some remarks which must have been a little embarrassing to the Government there: Some of my Tanzanian friends in the National Assembly have talked about the holding of elections in Zanzibar. … I must tell you that Zanzibar has already held its final elections. On January 12th, 1964 the Wamatungi removed the Omani Arabs, and ever since then we have been governing ourselves. If we hold elections now, whom do they want us to elect?

Mr. Eldon Griffiths

The six principles.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

My hon. Friend says, "the six principles". We have no power to impose principles, and that is not what we should be doing. But I will not enter that field today in this agreeable debate.

That the population of Zanzibar more than three years after the revolution can take no part in the country's affairs was condemned by the International Commission of Jurists, which is a nongovernmental organisation having consultative status with the United Nations.

The Under-Secretary and I were in correspondence and he was most helpful, but I am afraid that correspondence did not achieve very much for certain ex-Ministers. These are British-protected persons.

Mr. Foley

They were.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

There were nine ex-Ministers detained by the illegal régime in November, 1968; three of them—

Mr. Foley

May I explain this? They were British-protected persons by virtue of being, in Zanzibar, the Sultan's subjects. At the time of independence they lost their British-protected person status and became Zanzibari citizens.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. It may be that these three gentlemen, if they are still alive, will become Commonwealth citizens if the Bill is enacted.

These three Ministers were released by an act of clemency of the President of the United Republic, and were then rearrested after they had asked for passports so that they could leave Tanzania for another Commonwealth country. According to the Zanzibari Organisation—and I emphasise that this is rumour—they have since died in the hands of the secret police, who I am informed have the benefit of technical assistants from Eastern Germany. I repeat that this is rumour, and I hope that it is not true.

It would have been agreeable if the Bill could have included provision to remedy the injustice to which some former Government servants now in this country are subject through no fault of their own. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), who may seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is also interested in the case of Mr. Yahya Alawi, M.B.E., who gave 36 years' service in Zanzibar and afterwards served with distinction in Aden.

There are others who served on local terms of service in Zanzibar, some of whom are living on supplementary benefit because they are not covered by the Public Officers' Agreement, 1965. It is an injustice that the Tanzanian Government should have generally declined responsibility for pensioners not covered by that agreement. I do not know what can be done. It is a matter more for the Ministry of Overseas Development than for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but perhaps an inquiry could be made into the circumstances of each of those officers. I quite understand the difficulty of paying out to them money from British sources, and the precedents that might be created. If inquiry could be made as to their present circumstances it may be that those who are living on supplementary benefit could be fitted into employment.

If something of that sort could be done to allow these people who have given good service to live here in self-respect then, if they have lost their country, they may, nevertheless, have some consciousness of the Commonwealth, of which there has been talk in this debate.

5.7 p.m.

Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)

I agree with the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) on the irony of passing an Act to recognise and apply to Zanzibar the advantages and privileges of our Commonwealth when we have there an illegal revolutionary Government. In view of the extreme legalism of our attitude to a Government in Rhodesia only too anxious to be friendly, it seems odd that we should be so indifferent to legalism in Zanzibar with a Government so anxious to be unfriendly. But are not we here seeking to legalise the fiction?

What we are doing by this Act is to accept Dar-es-Salaam's responsibility for Zanzibar and what happens in Zanzibar. Believe me, that is a formidable responsibility, considering what is happening in Zanzibar. I find it a little odd that President Nyerere should welcome being held responsible for it, because I am quite certain that he is not. The writ of Dar-es-Salaam no more runs in Zanzibar than the writ of Nasser runs in the United Arab Republic at Damascus. Of course it does not. If any outside Government is in control in Zanzibar, that outside Government is in Peking, not in Dar-es-Salaam.

One has in Zanzibar an alarming, violent, Communist Government, probably a great deal more lethal than the Government of Albania—regarded as about bottom of the league in Governments so far as we are concerned. It seems odd that we should now take up time granting to Zanzibar the privileges, economic and otherwise, of Commonwealth membership. If such a thing exists, I suppose we have a measure of moral responsibility for their behaviour. This assumes that the Commonwealth today is other than a fiction.

My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) said that the Commonwealth was a splendid thing because it involved a dialogue. I do not quite know what that means. But if it is a debating society for the exercise of mutual invective, I doubt that it is worth the expense. It does not involve any community of interest. It does not even involve mutual diplomatic recognition. Recently Tanganyika or Tanzania, whichever one is prepared to call it—and I shall not go into the legalities of what it was at the time—withdrew diplomatic recognition from this country for all purposes, save the acceptance of the aid which we continue to give it. It certainly does not involve any acceptance of influence by us on their policy. In fact, it is the last thing that we would dare to offer. But on their part it involves a claim to influence our policy, and in the case of Rhodesia to influence it quite disastrously.

Mention has been made of the railway which is to run across some quite awful country. I know because I have crossed the area which is being surveyed by the Chinese. I am not as fond of the Chinese as all that, but it would be an awful thing if the Chinese were to build it. It is a purely political railway, a railway whose object is in no way commercial. It is an effort to try to chivvy Rhodesia. It cannot possibly pay, and I do not think that it will ever work. But if they want to make fools of themselves over the railway, why should we worry?

Mr. Eldon Griffiths

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the Chinese are in a similar position to that of the Prime Minister with his trade union legislation? If they build it, they are in trouble; if they do not, it is even worse?

Mr. Paget

I would not be the right person to go into that particular controversy at this time. I see the resemblance which the hon. Member seeks to draw. It is not a dilemma with a particular pair of horns off which I am particularly anxious to pick the Chinese. Sometimes one can be blackmailed through somebody threatening to commit suicide or commit some injury on themselves. I do not feel that the Chinese are in a position to blame me in that way.

I find it difficult to see the usefulness of this Bill at this time. It is an attempt, in a rather pedantic way, to give legal form to a quite illegal transaction in which we were not consulted. It involved recognition by one member of the Commonwealth of a revolution in another member of the Commonwealth which we had not recognised. It involved a kind of fictitious annexation which we are now recognising at the very point at which it has become obvious that that annexation did not actually take place. I do not see much point in the Bill and I hope that once it has been given a Second Reading, it will be conveniently forgotten.

5.15 p.m.

Sir Frederic Bennett (Torquay)

Contrary to the remarks by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd), I am sure that we shall not be accused by anyone of discrimination if we take a close look at the Bill. I share the views of the three hon. Members who have spoken, including the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). Legislation not only should be precise but should have in it an element of realism. It is realism that is so lacking in our discussions today.

As regards the Chinese railway, I too have seen the area in which it is planned to be established. I share the hon. and learned Gentleman's almost cynical amusement about it. If ever there was a railway that was calculated to go from nowhere to nowhere, carrying nothing at all except for a fictitious south bound freedom army which seems to be an unlikely contingency, that railway is about the best example one could find.

Mr. Paget

If I were a general I could imagine no more happy fate than to be attacked by an army which relied upon that railway for its communications.

Sir F. Bennett

There are so many humorous elements in the situation that it is not worth our worrying about the Chinese toiling through the jungle on this project.

There has been mention in the debate of my knowledge of this part of Africa. I should like to set the record straight both with regard to the involvement of British protected person and the Sultan himself. We have not been generous at all to the Sultan. It would also be wrong to gain the impression that the Sultan is other than a very good and true friend of this country, as has been his family, in quite difficult times. Certainly he is as friendly as any other African leader, and a great deal more friendly than some.

I wish to put the record straight about the so-called trust fund which was given to him. The truth is that the great grandfather of the present Sultan was involved in an arrangement by which he then leased to Kenya Government the Kenya strip, which belonged in sovereign right and law to the Sultan of Zanzibar long before the British went there, for an annual payment of £10,000.

We then indulged in as pretty a piece of compulsory purchase as anyone has ever gone in for. We did not give him even 20 years rental capitalised, but £100,000—roughly the equivalent of 10 years' rent—paid to him. There was no question of a trust fund. We only paid him what we were obligated in law to pay him. It was a pretty hard bargain. I will not labour the point. I feel that we should not also have done something only for the Kubaka and others who have been dispossessed. It is not right to compare the two cases. In the one case we have not been generous. We have merely maintained our legal obligations, obligations which we should have been fraudulent to avoid.

Sir Dingle Foot (Ipswich)

To get the record straight, the offer of £100,000 that was made in return for rights on the coastal strip was as a result of a commission of inquiry. At the time the Sultan was on his throne he refused the offer that was made.

Sir F. Bennett

People often find it difficult to try to enforce a compulsory purchase. The Sultan felt that the £100,000 was not a fair price for it, but that was all he got in the end. That is the only point I make.

Sir Dingle Foot

The purpose of my intervention was to say that, in justice to the Sultan, it should be recorded that when he was still on the throne he refused the offer which was then made to him.

Sir F. Bennett

I appreciate that fully, and I thought that I had made the point when I used the phrase, "compulsory purchase". However, it was not a generous gesture. It was the minimum with which we could get away with, with any self-respect.

Mr. Foley

Perhaps I might remind the hon. Gentleman that it was his right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), then the Minister responsible, who said when he announced the establishment of the trust fund that it was right in the circumstances. Those were his words.

Sir F. Bennett

The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong if he assumes that he will embarrass me by putting me in the position of having to say that everything done by Conservative Ministers was right. I am perfectly capable of criticising wrongful acts by Ministers of any party, and I would say that just as happily if my right hon. Friend were here. Indeed, I said it to him at the time.

The Government must take responsibility for putting before the House a Bill which the Minister must agree morally is asking us to approve a fiction. We all know that anyone going to Tanganyika at present, unless he is a particular sort of Englishman, cannot get to Zanzibar. I am doubtful about the exact extent of our diplomatic representation there, if it exists at all. In the so-called union, no Tanganyika M.P. is allowed to go to that part of his country. No judge can go there. Even the President, for whom I have considerable admiration and friendship, would find it difficult to pay anything more than infrequent visits to one part of the Union over which he presides. In view of that, it is right to say that we are being asked to approve a fiction.

The only argument in favour of the Bill—and it is for this reason only that I shall support it—is that in all the circumstances it is probably better that Zanzibar should be under even the most tenuous control from Tanganyika than to be completely on its own. That is the best that can be said about the present situation.

When the President of Tanganyika made his announcement, most of us were pleased that he had decided to take unilateral action at that time. If he had not, the remarks which are made about Cuba and so on would have been even more true of that country, which would have come under an even more specific domination than it has in the event. For that reason alone, we should support the Union in the last resort because, in all the circumstances, it is the best which could be obtained at the time.

However, that does not remove from us the obligation to criticise certain aspects of this Measure. Earlier, the Minister remarked on the standing of certain British-protected persons who were locked up at the time of the takeover. I am not sure at what point they ceased to be British-protected persons. In my opinion, they ceased to be British-protected persons before the revolution and, therefore, before they were locked up, because by then independence had been granted to the lawful Government of the day.

That does not excuse the genocide, imprisonments and tortures at the time of the revolution which, unhappily, still linger on, and I hope that we shall be told if there is any sign of some relief in what must be one of the most rigorous policies of political imprisonment in the Commonwealth today. Certainly we have the right to ask the Minister whether he is satisfied that there are no individuals under duress in Zanzibar for whom Her Majesty's Government have any responsibility, either as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies or as British-protected persons. I should feel especially reluctant to support the Bill if we were condoning, the continued imprisonment of people for whom we still have a measure of responsibility.

The only other legalistic queries which I wish to put to the Minister are as follows. As I understand it, we are now trying to say retrospectively that a certain legal state of affairs has existed from April, 1964, to the present, and one or two cases are mentioned in the Bill. Is the Minister telling us that, in regard to every aspect of our previous responsibilties and arrangements vis-à-vis Zanzibar as it then was, we are issuing a completely blanket retrospective cover in respect, for example, of possible immigrants who may have meanwhile left Zanzibar; in respect of shipping, in respect of citizenship, and so on? In other words, can he say whether this is a completely blanket retrospection, or is it still the legal case that certain events have occurred in the last five years which were illegal at the time and will go on being illegal? Is it claimed that we are putting everything right, or will a future Bill be put before the House dealing retrospectively with some point which has not yet occurred to anyone? There certainly has been sufficient time for consideration to be given to whether the retrospective effect is complete.

Several hon. Members have said that this is a small Bill. But it would have been wrong to allow it to go through without searching inquiries. Without going nearly as far as others who have condemned the Commonwealth, it still has an enormously important function, being the only forum where people of different races can at least try to work together. Nevertheless, when we find a glaring example, whether it be in Rhodesia or Zanzibar, where there is an inverted colour bar, of racial discrimination, we must not say it is not right for whites to behave badly in Rhodesia, yet it is right for blacks to behave equally badly in Zanzibar. It must be made clear that we detest and abhor only such attitudes; and that the only reason why we support the Bill is that the people of Zanzibar would probably have an even more abominable existence than they have at present, if the so called Union had not eventuated.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

We are grateful to the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Foley) for the short exposition of the Bill which he gave with his usual clarity and courtesy. However, having listened to the contributions to the debate, he will realise by now that the House requires a much more detailed explanation of the Bill than we have had so far. Many of its provisions are far from clear.

I appreciate that this measure is limited to the effects on British law which flow from the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, now called Tanzania, in 1964, that we are not considering primarily the relationship between Tanzania and Britain, yet the mere fact that the Bill has been delayed for well over four years is, I suppose, a reflection of the strained relationship between our two countries during the greater part of that period.

Several hon. Members have asked why the Bill has been delayed so long. Is it simply because Tanzania chose in 1965 to break off diplomatic relations with Britain because of the Rhodesian situation, or is there some other reason?

I put that question because Clauses 1 and 2 refer specifically to consequential provisions in respect of two matters of the highest importance to the individuals concerned: nationality, on the one hand, and basic rights under the law, in particular relating to marriage and divorce, on the other.

Clause 1(3), for example, makes specific provision for those who, being British-protected persons immediately before Tanganyika became independent, did not, however, become citizens of the new State. The first question I must ask, therefore, is: have any of these persons been disadvantaged in any way by the delay in bringing forward the Bill? For example, have any divorces been defective? If so, Parliament should be told.

The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) raised a point of very considerable interest. It may be, like so many of the speeches today, that he was steering a bit wide of the provisions of the Bill; this is legitimate on Second Reading in dealing with a matter of this kind. Nevertheless, it may be that the point he raised has considerable significance in regard to the Bill itself. I am puzzled by one aspect of the nationality provision. Clause 1(3) refers to persons who were British-protected persons before 9th December, 1961, by virtue of their connection with Tanganyika, but who never became citizens of Tanganyika. The Bill nowhere makes any reference to persons who were British-protected persons, immediately before Zanzibar's independence, by virtue of their connection with Zanzibar, but who never became citizens of Zanzibar.

What is the reason for this omission? What are we covering up here? Has it something to do with the peculiar revolutionary situation in Zanzibar to which reference has been made? There may be a simple explanation, but I should like to have it spelt out.

There was also the point about the implications for Commonwealth immigrants from Tanzania who may have come to Britain at any time while the Bill was waiting in the wings or resting in its pigeon-hole. If any did come, were they at that time Commonwealth citizens under our law? In other words, are they illegal immigrants? Or does the Bill apply to them retrospectively?

It has been a matter of great concern to all of us who know Tanganyika or have served there—and there are a number in this House—or who have had the privilege of knowing President Nyerere, as I have, that the relationship between our two countries has been strained in recent years. When I first went to Tanganyika some 15 years ago it was a land of much promise, especially in the sense that it was free from a great deal of the racial strife and bitterness which disfigured then and still disfigures today so large a part of the world. In the years that followed I, and I think all who have ever met him, felt that in Julius Nyerere, Tanganyika had a leader whose infectious enthusiasm and deep personal sincerity would not only serve his own country well, but Africa as a whole.

It was a very special tragedy, therefore, that the normally good relations between our two countries were damaged by the Rhodesian quarrel. It was a tragedy, too, that there should have arisen quite unnecessary difficulties over the treatment of expatriate pensioners and expatriate firms.

I say this because there are many of us—and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd)—who understood, accepted and, indeed, applauded that part of President Nyerere's Arusha Declaration in 1967 which called for national self-reliance. Clearly, without the revolution in social attitudes for which he was calling at that time, no part of Africa is likely to catch up very quickly with the rest of the world. Yet this hardly necessitated the harsh treatment meted out to expatriate pensioners who, after all, had given devoted service to the people of Tanganyika and Zanzibar and had helped to speed their independence.

The Minister of Overseas Development is present. I know that he will be the first to acknowledge that, when developing countries all the world over are crying out for the expertise which foreign private enterprise alone can supply, it did not make any sense to nationalise expatriate firms.

Who could possibly have benefited from the decision of the Tanzanian Government to cease making provision for expatriate pensioners, the liability for which arose before independence, and to decline to repay the £6.5 million of loans provided by Her Majesty's Government for the purposes of compensation and commutation of pensions at the time of independence? Our own aid programme in that country was brought to an end, a development loan of £7.5 million, which had been agreed but was frozen when diplomatic relations were broken off in 1965, was made no longer available, recruitment of new technical assistance staff ceased, and existing technical assistance programmes began to run down. All this seemed totally unnecessary at the time.

When the Minister comes to reply to the many points which have been raised, I hope that he will be able to say whether there is likely to be any change in attitude's which will lead to a resumption of the mutually beneficial exchanges which used to take place between our two countries. I ask this because I note with some satisfaction that in the last few weeks the Tanzanian Government is reported to have agreed compensation terms with a number of British firms—mainly banks—which had been nationalised. Do the Government consider the compensation terms are adequate? I should also like to know whether there are any British firms which were nationalised which have not yet been covered by these agreements?

My hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) raised a very important point, concerning those pensioners who were not United Kingdom citizens at the time of independence but were British protected persons, especially those who had been recruited locally? This may have relevance to the odd omission of any reference in the Bill to British protected persons in Zanzibar. The case cited by my hon. Friend was that of a Zanzibari locally recruited civil servant, a man who must have served the Government there very well since he was awarded a decoration by Her Majesty. He is now living on National Assistance in this country. This is a disgraceful state of affairs.

When I wrote to the Minister of Overseas Development about it, the answer I got from the Parliamentary Secretary was that he accepted that this gentleman and others like him are in very difficult circumstances and I very much regret this; but I am afraid that the responsibility for their pensions rests and must remain with the Tanzanian Government. I am not sure that we have to accept this at all. This man—and clearly from the reply I received there are others like him—is suffering as a consequence of the granting of independence to Tanzania and the subsequent disruption of relations between our two countries. Surely between them the two Governments have a moral responsibility. I beg the Under-Secretary to ask his right hon. Friend to have another look at these cases and at least to make some sort of ad hoc arrangement to settle them satisfactorily. Common decency and justice demand that these people, whose fate has so far been ignored as a result of arrangements which we are coming to recognise by the passage of the Bill, should have something done for them.

I have no intention of addressing the House at length, and none of the points which I have made and to which I hope we shall get satisfactory answers must be allowed to obscure the general goodwill which I am sure we all have towards Tanzania. Even if the Rhodesian quarrel had not inflicted damage, as it has done, on the normally good relations between our two countries, the last few years would have seen difficulties for Tanzania because of the situation in Zanzibar to which references have been made. We could not have brushed that situation aside and ignored it. There would have been difficulties too because Tanzania, like so many of her neighbours, is seeking to develop the resources of her land and people and in the process there has to be a change in the age-old customs and modes of living.

It was all expressed rather sadly some years ago by an African tribal elder who, despairing of the bewildering changes he saw taking place around him, lamented that: "'twere better to have lived 100 years ago, or 100 years hence, rather than in these in-between times." These are in-between times for Tanzania. I go along with what my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) said about the Commonwealth. I think that imperfect instrument as it is, the Commonwealth provides the one real bridge which exists between the races today and one hopes that through its agency better times will come not merely to Tanzania but to Zanzibar.

As I say, these are in-between times for Tanzania and perhaps one may be permitted to take the opportunity provided by the Bill to express the hope that in the years ahead we in Britain may be able to help that country win a prosperous and dignified place in the community of nations.

With those few words I am ready to join my hon. Friends in commending the Bill to the House, subject to adequate answers being given to the many interesting and valid points which have been raised in our discussion.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. Foley

With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to what has been a fruitful and interesting debate. We have covered a wide range of subjects, some related to the Bill, others going a little further into realms of conjecture and all kinds of possibilities.

At the outset I give a categorical assurance that the delay in introducing the Bill, which is due largely to the pressure on the Parliamentary timetable, has not, to our knowledge, caused any injury to anyone, either in relation to citizenship under Clause 1, or in relation to divorce proceedings under Clause 2. I shall refer to these matters again as I pick up the various points which were raised.

The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) referred particularly to people having no option at the time of independence. If we take this to its logical conclusion, I do not know where we get ourselves in terms of our responsibility. It is true that to some people independence means a great deal. To others it means what they want it to mean.

I happened to be in Tanganyika prior to, and at the time of its independence. What we have to be very clear about is that in virtually every village, and certainly in the towns, people were conscious of what was happening, and I think that this is so in many countries when they achieve their independence. There is an enormous impact at the time of independence, and I do not think that the argument that they did not know, or that they were not told what was going on, can be regarded as valid in respect of their citizenship or their consciousness of belonging to their nation.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths

I was thinking about the expatriates, the people with property or shops in Tanganyika, rather than the indigenous poulation.

Mr. Foley

if the hon. Gentleman looks for himself he will find that there are expatriates who have taken out Tanzanian citizenship, and others who are working there as British citizens, just as there are Asians in the same position. The idea that they were somehow all cajoled or curtailed in their liberties is not correct. There was no question of them not knowing what they could and could not do. As time goes on, and as the nation-building process is established, we start to get stresses and tensions between those who belong and those who are lodgers, sometimes invited and sometimes uninvited, and it is at that stage that people have to make up their mind, This is where we may find that there is from time to time some measure of tension.

A number of hon. Members referred to Clause 2 and asked whether divorces dealt with under this Clause are valid. What we are doing in this Bill is taking retrospective action over the last two years. What has happened in relation to Comonwealth citizenship or in relation to divorces is accepted as valid. There is no question of going back and altering decisions which have been taken. Only about 40 people are involved in this question of divorce, and we have no evidence that there has been any injury or harm to them during this period because of any measure of uncertainty. I shall be very surprised to learn that any of them knew there was such a thing as uncertainty.

On Clause 3, the question was raised about Tanzanian and British ships, and the date. The date mentioned in the Bill, 26th April, 1964, was the date of the union between the two Republics of Zanzibar and Tanganyika. It is operative in this respect because until then the citizens of these two member countries of the Commonwealth were British subjects for the purpose of United Kingdom law. There was created this new situation which we are now trying to legalise and put right. I am not a lawyer, and I am sure that the lawyers present will quickly pick me up on this one. What we are doing is substituting "Tanzania" where previously we had "Tanganyika" and "Zanzibar".

In terms of shipping, we have to look at this in this sense of our definition of what is British. The status of a ship is determined by the national status of its owner, and it is for this reason that there is a complication. Just as Clause 1 establishes the new relationship of Commonwealth citizens, so Clause 3 to all intents and purposes makes them—and we would so regard them—British subjects in the Commonwealth sense. To avoid them being caught up as part and parcel of our existing shipping legislation we have to make an exception, and this is what Clause 3 tries to do. I am not sure whether I have convinced the hon. Gentleman, but I think that we shall find time to discuss this again.

Clause 4 relates to enabling powers and whether the Orders in Council should be subject to the negative procedure or the positive procedure. No one is trying to hide anything in terms of what is involved. There are a number of Orders in Council. I can give instances of some which must be introduced—the Import Duties Act, 1958, the Evidence (Colonial Statutes) Act, 1907, and the Companies Act, 1948. That is the kind of Order in Council that is involved, and I am sure that if at any stage the House felt that it was being misled or taken up a dark alley in relation to Orders in Council it would quickly bring the Minister to book. It is for the convenience of the House that these can be discussed under the negative procedure. They are before the House, and if it is deemed necessary and desirable they can be debated and voted upon. But they are innocuous and stem from existing legislation.

The stirring words of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) will be recorded in HANSARD and we can look at them again. Some of the things he said have been echoed by many. The fact that some have questioned and been cautious does not take away from the quality and stature of Julius Nyerere, the President of Tanzania.

There are provisions for nothing else but the trust fund established for the Sultan, and I do not want to go over what was said by whom and why. At the time of the coup in Zanzibar, the Sultan arrived here penniless with his family, and it was felt necessary to provide for his immediate and longer-term needs. The trust fund was established and there was a Supplementary Vote. It is outside the control of Government. It is not for me, on a Bill like this, to discuss the situation of any other refugees from the Commonwealth who have found their way to this country, other than to say that we have offered them our friendship and a home.

Some hon. Members have mentioned the degree of reality or otherwise in the state of union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The extent and pace of integration are matters for the Tanzanians themselves. Clearly, progress has been made in some fields and in others there are grounds for anxiety. Also, there is widespread support for President Nyerere both on the mainland and in the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. This support is fostered by Tanu, the political party on the mainland and by the Afro-Shirazi party of Zanzibar and Pemba, both of which have similar interests in trying to carry out the twin aims of the Arusha Declaration in terms of African Socialism and self-reliance. While stresses and strains exist, this union is real it will not break up, but will develop further. President Nyerere will exercise his total influence, if it is not already there, over the component parts.

The hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) asked whether I was sure that no British people or British-protected persons were in prison in Zanzibar. We have no evidence to show this.

The British protected persons in Zanzibar at the time of independence became Zanzibar citizens, without exception. There were exceptions on the mainland, and some had the chance to opt out. This is the reason for the difference in Clause 1(3). Clearly, the exercise of government and the administration of justice are matters for the Tanzanians and not for this Bill, but, as the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) said, there are good and positive signs, as well as some unhappy legacies in this union. The hon. Member rightly chose to refer to the positive side as well.

I can assure him that, in the last few months, there has been a warming of the relations between Britain and Tanzania. Stemming from Arusha, the banks were nationalised. I am pleased to say that compensation agreements have now been concluded to everyone's satisfaction. There are still some outstanding matters relating to the large sisal industries and to insurance, I believe. It is not so much that the will is not there but that trained personnel in Tanzania are lacking. I am assured that things are moving forward in this respect, and I echo what the hon. Member said.

In President Nyerere, we have one of the most outstanding leaders in Africa and the Commonwealth. From the word "go", even with the limited natural resources in his country, he has taken as the symbol of his independence, "Uhuru Nakazi", "Freedom and work". The mood seems to be that, if they are to get on in their country, they must work and build. The President's Arusha Declaration is an outstanding example to many others in Africa, faced with the strains and stresses on their resources of newly-gained independence, of how they must set about their problems. This, I believe, is what he is doing.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Armstrong.]

Committee Tomorrow.