RHODESIA. (Hansard, 12 July 1923)

§ THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE

My Lords, I very much regret that owing to causes over which he has no control, my noble friend Lord Buxton has been obliged to leave the House, because I want to express my thanks to him for his consideration in allowing his Question to stand over and to be postponed from time to time while the negotiations have been in progress. I am confident that your Lordships will be glad to hear that those negotiations, which have been proceeding for a considerable period between the Colonial Office and the British South Africa Company, with a view to arriving at some settlement of those questions which have so long been outstanding between the Company and His Majesty's Government have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Definite proposals have been reached between the Colonial Office and the British South Africa Company both as regards Southern and Northern Rhodesia.

The terms are now in course of being circulated and, I understand, are now in the Vote Office of the House. But before the matter is finally disposed of it will, of course, be necessary that resolutions should be passed by the British South Africa Company, and I understand that the directors of that Company will place the proposals before their shareholders at a meeting which has been arranged for July 24. I hope there will be no difficulty as to the shareholders agreeing to the resolutions, and, if they are accepted, it will be necessary for Parliament to make due provision for the establishment of a new Constitution. Accordingly, Estimates will be introduced in another place to provide the money which is necessary. The correspondence will now be in your Lordships' hands, and I merely mention this afternoon the fact that an agreement has been arrived at, 1021 as I am quite certain that your Lordships would not wish to initiate a debate until you have had time and further opportunity to consider the proposals. It would, of course, be inconvenient for me to press your Lordships to arrive at any conclusion now and when the Papers have been thoroughly perused, and if your Lordships consider it desirable that a debate should be raised, no doubt a convenient day could be fixed for the purpose.

I know that my noble friend who placed the Question on the Paper is very familiar with this difficult and complex question, as are other members of your Lordships' House. In his capacity as Governor-General and High Commissioner in South Africa, and as having presided over the Committee appointed by my predecessor three years ago to inquire closely into the whole matter, the noble Earl takes the greatest interest in it. He will, I hope, be glad to learn that the proposed settlement includes both Rhodesias, and that the responsible Government of Southern Rhodesia when it is established on October 1 next will have possession of the unalienated land in Southern Rhodesia. The negotiations have not been conducted with the British South Africa Company alone. They have, of necessity, included the elected Members of the Legislative Council of Southern Rhodesia, who alone are in a position to speak on behalf of the new Government of Southern Rhodesia. As the correspondence will show, the elected Members have agreed to make a substantial contribution to the Imperial Exchequer in consideration of the undoubted benefits that the proposed settlement, if implemented, will confer upon the territory of Southern Rhodesia.

I have great hope that when your Lordships have had time and opportunity to peruse the Papers which are now on the Table of your Lordships' House you will come to the conclusion that the arrangements are satisfactory and that, having settled issues of a very long outstanding character, they will prove to be of benefit to North and South Rhodesia, to South Africa, and last but, perhaps, by no means least, to the British taxpayer as well. I shall be glad on another occasion when your Lordships desire further information concerning this proposal, to place it before you.

§ EARL BUXTON

My Lords, I owe an apology to the noble Duke for not having been in the House when my Question was reached, but I was called away to make a presentation. Although I received the Paper but a moment ago I desire to make a few observations upon the proposals contained therein. I wish, in the first instance, to congratulate the noble Duke, the elected Members of the Legislative Council and the Chartered Company on the fact that they have been able to come to what appears to be, so far as I am able to judge of it at the moment, a satisfactory arrangement, at all events an arrangement which is accepted by the three parties concerned and, therefore, is necessarily satisfactory to the public. I am also very glad that the question of Northern Rhodesia is included in the settlement of Southern Rhodesia.

As I say, I have only just had an opportunity of looking at the Paper and I am not quite sure what has been arranged for the future Government of Northern Rhodesia. As I understand it, the Chartered Company will continue to administer it for some months, and after that it seems a little indefinite as to what will be the ultimate government. At all events I am glad that the questions of the lands and minerals—matters which I personally always thought could easily be settled between the Chartered Company and the Colonial Office—have been apparently settled to the general satisfaction of all.

Perhaps it is a little ungracious, now that a settlement is made, to comment on the long time—for it is a long time—which has elapsed before bringing into force responsible government in Southern Rhodesia. The absence of it has undoubtedly given ris to a certain amount of unrest, and to a certain disturbance there and no doubt it was disadvantageous to trade, but now that the settlement has come all will perhaps be forgiven and forgotten. It is three years since the Southern Rhodesians declared themselves in favour of responsible government—it was at the suggestion of the Secretary of State that the question was put to them—and it is two years since the Committee, over which I had the honour to preside, reported.

What to my mind is by far the most satisfactory part of the whole settlement is the decision that has been come to with 1023 regard to the unalienated land. As I understand the decision, the Chartered Company are to be paid a lump sum, which includes the payment for various smaller claims, but the main claim paid for is on behalf of the unalienated land. That question, as the noble Duke knows, was left in a most unsatisfactory position by the judgment of the Privy Council, who sat on it for four years, and then gave a judgment so worded as to leave the result of their conclusions very obscure. I understand that the Chartered Company will receive a lump sum for their interest in the unalienated land, and that the Imperial Government will hand over the unalienated land and other smaller items to those who will form the responsible government, and that a large sum—I believe £2,000,000 out of £3,750,000—will be contributed towards the sum which the Imperial Government will have to pay. That seems to me to be a very fair bargain, and I congratulate Southern Rhodesia and the responsible government that will come into force there upon the good bargain which they have made.

I confess that when this question of responsible government or the alternative of the Union came forward if I had been a Rhodesian I certainly would, like the Rhodesians, have voted for the introduction of responsible government. Whatever might be the ultimate destiny of the Colony, however generous the terms—and they were generous terms offered by the Union—I would have liked, as one proud of my country, that it should be in the first instance a self-governing Colony, an entity of the Empire as a whole, instead of being absorbed in the Union. After having taken some care and interest in the matter I am fully convinced that the responsible Government of Rhodesia can with care be carried on on a satisfactory financial and economic basis, and that it ought to be a great success. I am sure the Imperial Government will exercise towards it the role of benevolent uncle, to which the noble Duke referred the other day, from the financial point of view, as they have done in other respects. At all events, there is this advantage that Southern Rhodesia has gained from the delay: that she will be able to borrow money at a lower rate of interest now than she could have done a year or so ago.

If your Lordships will allow me I should like, in conclusion, to say one word in 1024 reference to the Chartered Company. The Chartered Company is now ceasing to be. Probably they were wise in coming to an agreement, as they have done, with the Imperial Government, hut I think that they have been cut to the bone. They have received the minimum of compensation for what they are giving up, but after all that is their affair, and I think they are wise to have come to the conclusion to which they have come. For one who, like myself, has had a great deal to do with Southern Rhodesia, and with the Chartered Company and the settlers there, I think it is fitting that I should say that the citizens of Southern Rhodesia are among the most enterprising and the most loyal of any of His Majesty's subjects. Mr. Rhodes, over thirty years ago, by his enterprise, his courage and foresight, and with little encouragement from home, preserved this enormous territory to the British Empire. If it had not been for that the whole history of South Africa would have been different.

I think it is also fitting that I should say that it is no small achievement on the part of the Chartered Company—chartered companies are not, as a rule, in very good odour—to have for nearly thirty years been able successfully to. govern and administer Southern Rhodesia. They have interpreted their liabilities and their responsibilities in a generous way. One thing, at all events, is highly satisfactory, which came very much before my notice, and it is this. Though there may have been from time to time some grievances on the part of the settlers in regard to the Chartered Company, the Administration itself always received their full confidence for its efficiency, its courtesy, and the way in which it administered. The Administration was fortunate also, perhaps your Lordships will allow me to say, to have during that period, in Sir Drummond Chaplin, an administrator who was very popular in the territory, and who carried out his work with satisfaction to all parties concerned.

I thought it only right, having regard to the position which I had the honour to hold for some years, and having regard to the intimate relations which I have with Southern Rhodesia, to say these few words as a tribute to the work and action of that great company. I feel confident that now the various sections 1025 of Rhodesia will work together to make responsible government a success, and I also feel confident, so far as I have been able to examine this Memorandum, now that they are blessed with responsible government, that the citizens of Southern Rhodesia and the Government of this territory will maintain very friendly relations with the neighbouring Dominion of the Union.