CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES IN NORTHERN RHODESIA (Hansard, 11 February 1954)

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF MUNSTER)
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies has made a statement in another place to-day about his visit to Northern Rhodesia, and I am anxious to make a similar statement in this House. My right honourable friend made it clear before leaving this country that the constitutional changes in Northern Rhodesia which were effected at the end of the year must stand. During his visit to Lusaka he met the Elected Members of the Legislative Council and the four Members representing African interests. Discussions concerned the changes to be made at the end of the term of the next Legislative Council which will be elected this month. Assuming that this Council runs its full course, no decision affecting elections "can become effective for five years "but study of the complicated problems involved will begin at once. My right honourable friend hopes that the Governor will be able, at the right time, to submit to Her Majesty's Government agreed recommendations on the next constitutional advances.
My right honourable friend also met the African Representative Council and certain Paramount Chiefs, and Chiefs with whom he had full discussions on a number of matters, including African land rights and the franchise. My right honourable friend flew up to the Copper Belt, and had informal discussions with the European and African mineworkers' leaders and with the general managers of the mining companies. Renewed efforts are being made at a solution of the vexed problem of African advancement in the industry. He has some hopes that an answer will be found, and was 836 glad to notice that, since he left, a committee representing the unions, both African and European, and the companies has been formed and is holding its first meeting. He also met Sir Godfrey Huggins and the Governor of Nyasaland, Sir Geoffrey Colby, who were good enough to come to Lusaka to meet him. They had encouraging news to give on the way Africans are co-operating in the Federation. The words of the right honourable gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in another place and of the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, on July 14 last in this House on this subject have no doubt contributed.
There is one further point upon which I should inform the House, though it does not necessarily arise directly out of my right honourable friend's visit. The House will recall that he undertook in September to consider with the Governor, when the time came, whether a fifth African Member should be appointed to the Legislative Council as one of the two nominated Unofficial Members. Since his return, he has received the Governor's considered views on this and has decided that the time for this move is not ripe.
An explanation is necessary. In addition to the four African Members of the Legislative Council there will be two Members nominated to represent African interests. Of these two, one must sit in Executive Council and, in accordance with the September decisions, hold a portfolio. My right honourable friend is satisfied that no African is as yet capable of filling this onerous post, and that it must for the present be held by a European. Mr. Moffatt, who has represented African interests for so long on the Executive Council and Legislative Council, cannot, for family reasons, continue to serve on the Executive Council, but he is willing to continue on the Legislative Council. This means that the first nominated member of the Legislative Council—that is, the one who is to hold the portfolio in the Executive Council—must be a European other than Mr. Moffatt. This leaves one nominated place in the Legislative Council to be filled. The Governor and my right honourable friend have had to decide whether African interests are best served by appointing an African to this place or retaining the services of Mr. Moffatt. They have come to the conclusion that 837 these interests will be best served for the present, and the four African Members most helped, by retaining the services of Mr. Moffatt, in whom the Africans repose high confidence and who is held in great esteem by all sections of opinion in Northern Rhodesia and in this country.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILL SBOROUGH
My Lords, I am obliged that the statement made in another place by the Colonial Secretary has been male to your Lordships this afternoon. I regret to say that it was put into my hands only two or three minutes ago, and I have had no opportunity to study it or to confer with my leading colleagues upon the matter. Therefore, I should wish to reserve what we may have to say about the important decisions which the Colonial Secretary has reached. On examination, they may prove to be right decisions, but it may be that it will prove necessary for us to have a debate on them. I welcome the statement by the noble Earl that my noble and learned leader, Lord Jowitt, who is at present away in Africa, and. the Leader of the Opposition in another place, have been helpful in the matter. But this is of such vast importance that I should have liked longer notice than has been given to me, despite the fact that I have been in the House of Lords the whole of the day. I would only repeat now that I am obliged that the statement has been made; we will consider it and see what action, if any, need be taken.

§ THE EARL OF MUNSTER
My Lords, I would only add this. I would not guarantee that I told the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition, but I certainly mentioned to one of the Whips on the other side of the House yesterday the fact that I was proposing to make a statement to-day on the subject of my right honourable friend's recent visit to Northern Rhodesia.

§ VISCOUNT STANSGATE
My Lords may I, as an unofficial Member of the House, ask what is being done about people who come here day after day, intending to try to discharge their Parliamentary duties, and who then find that at half a minute's notice a statement is made which bristles with controversial issues? There is the question of the mine 838 dispute, the question of African representation, and others. These things are hurled at us, interlarded with self-congratulatory remarks about the success of the policy, and no opportunity whatever is given to anybody to know what is going to be said so that a question may be asked. There will be no opportunity of discussing it for some time to come. I would ask the noble Earl, whose courtesy one acknowledges gratefully, whether it is not possible to improve the machinery of this House in this respect, so that Members of the House who wish to know what is going on and try to exercise their proper duties, may know a little more timeously. The noble Earl said that he told somebody yesterday. Why is it not possible the night before, or at some time, for an ordinary Member to be told, "There is going to be a statement "? The Member need not even know the subject, but he can be prepared to examine it. If I may say so respectfully, I consider this to be a very important point, if this House is really to function usefully.

§ THE EARL OF MUNSTER
I have never denied that it is an important point, and the whole purpose of making a statement in this House is to repeat what was made in another place. It is not always possible to give the noble Viscount twenty-four hours' notice. I have done it only out of civility to the Opposition. If the noble Viscount does not wish for any statement to be made in future unless he gets prior notice, that is a different question.

LORD SALTOUN
May I say that in the whole of my experience—which is not very long, only thirteen or fourteen years —I have never known a debate take place on a statement. It is always received with reserve by the Opposition and taken for study later, in order not to delay the House by a debate of this kind when we want to get on with other business.

§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH
That is not quite the point. I have already thanked the noble Earl for making the statement made by his right honourable friend. In this House we are always glad to have those statements made. But it is a question of having moved rather from the general practice of the Leader of the House to 839 give to the leading members of the Opposition as long notice as possible of the detailed statement to be made. So far as I am concerned, my Chief Whip has had no previous notification whatsoever of the matter. As I say, I have been in the House the whole of the day, yet I get the statement at five minutes past four.

§ VISCOUNT STANSGATE
I should think it an inadequate description of the functions of this House, as given by the noble Earl, to repeat what is said in another place. I understood that this was a separate House, which discussed things and conducted business in its own way. Inasmuch as this was known last night, quite apart from Official Members, Whips and so on, why was it not possible for the noble Earl to come to this House and say, "To-morrow we are going to have a statement surveying the visit of the Colonial Secretary to Africa," so that Members who wished to ask questions (we cannot debate a statement, because that would be contrary to Standing Orders) could come prepared, and so make this House a useful House?

§ THE EARL OF MUNSTER
As I repeat, I was only making a statement which was made in another place to-day. So far as I am aware, it is quite contrary to all practice in this House to give notification the previous night that a statement will possibly be made on a certain subject the following day. I have followed precedent. I have done exactly the same as was done under the previous Government, when it was originally decided that it would be wise for this House to receive statements similar to those which are made in another place. Therefore I am somewhat surprised that the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, should come along and say that we should not have a statement made in this House similar to that which is made in another place.

§ VISCOUNT STANSGATE
The noble Earl is quite mistaken and has misinterpreted—I hope unintentionally—what I have said. I never said that statements should not be made in both Houses. What I said was that when the Government knew they were going to make a statement in this House, they should inform the House. I am not interested in Party machinery at all; I am interested 840 in Members of the House. If the noble Earl knew yesterday that he was going to make this statement to-day, then I contend respectfully that it was his duty to the House to give that information, so that Members might come prepared to listen to his statement and to make any comment, or ask any question that they wished.

§ THE EARL OF MUNSTER
If the noble Viscount had listened to my first observation in reply to a supplementary, he would know that that is what I did.