Lords Sitting of 27 July 1959

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of St. Albans

PRIVATE BILL STANDING ORDERS
2.35 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. In so doing, I think there are only two of the proposed Amendments to which I need draw attention. The first is the proposed alteration to Standing Order 99. That arose in February last on the Second Reading of the South Wales Transport Bill. Those of your Lordships who were here may remember that the noble Lord. Lord Ogmore, suggested that the Second Reading of a Private Bill should be taken always after the period for petitioning against the Bill had expired. Last February the Second Reading was one day before the period expired, and therefore it was not possible to say whether the Bill was opposed or otherwise. It is not possible to make that alteration without amending the Standing Order. Consequently, I now propose that certain words should be omitted from the Standing Order which will have the effect desired.
The second matter I should like to mention arose on Thursday last when I moved the Third Reading of the Humber Bridge Bill. I said then that the House would be asked to-day to leave out the specified measurements of the fences on either side of the bridge and to insert more general words. Your Lordships will see that that is done by this Amendment. So that in future the House will "require
the erection of a good and sufficient fence" instead of a fence four feet high. If there are any other points to which any other noble Lord wishes me to refer, I shall be glad to do so.
Moved, That the Standing Orders relative to Private Bills, etc., be amended as follows:
After Standing Order 19, page 20, insert as a new Standing Order 19A—
("Notice in case of alteration of Court order
On or before the Eleventh day of December in the case of a Bill containing provision the effect of which is to confer power to disregard an order or undertaking then in force made by or given to a court, notice in writing of the proposal shall be given to the person at whose instance the order was made or the undertaking was given or his personal representative unless after reasonable inquiry his identity cannot be ascertained.")
Standing Order 27, page 22, line 9, leave out the second ("the")
Standing Order 27, page 22, 1ine 13, at end insert—
("Provided that it shall be sufficient (at the option of the Promoters) to deposit with the Clerk of the county council of each county and with the Town Clerk of each county borough so much only of the said plan, and section and book of reference as relates to the works lands or buildings in the county or county borough (as the case may be).")
Standing Order 27, page 22, line 14, after ("Provided") insert ("also")
Standing Order 27, page 22, line 31, at end insert—
("(3) Any such plan, section, book of reference and Ordnance map may, instead of being deposited as aforesaid, be sent by registered post to the office of the Clerk of the County Council or Town Clerk (as the case may be), and if so sent shall be posted on or before the Seventeenth day of November.")
Standing Order 27, page 22, line 39, after ("deposited") insert ("or sent by post")
Standing Order 36, page 26, line 1, at beginning insert ("(1)")
Standing Order 36, page 26, line 20, at end insert—
("(2) Any such plan, section and book of reference may, instead of being deposited as aforesaid, be sent by registered post to any such officer, and if so sent shall be posted on or before the Seventeenth day of November.
(3) The officer of each local authority with whom a copy of so much of the said plan, or plan and section, and book of reference is so deposited shall permit any person at all reasonable hours of the day to inspect them and to make copies thereof or extracts therefrom.")
Standing Order 99, page 52, line 31, leave out ("or later than the seventh,")
Standing Order 131, page 53, leave out line 5
Standing Order 131, page 59, line 37 at beginning insert ("(1)")
Standing Order 131, page 60, line 2, leave out from("founded:") to end of line 5 and insert—
("(2) Where in any Bill it is proposed to construct a bridge for carrying a public carriage road the Bill shall require the erection of a good and sufficient fence on each side of the bridge.")
Standing Order 206, page 82, line 31, leave out ("and another copy") and insert ("in the Office of the Chairman of Ways and means, and")
Standing Order 207, page 83, line 13, after ("Commons") insert ("and in the Office of the Chairman of Ways and Means")
Standing Order 207, page 83, line 14, leave out ("another") and insert ("a")
Standing Order 210, page 85, line 14, leave out ("and another copy thereof to be deposited" and insert (", in the Office of the Chairman of Ways and Means, and ")
Standing Order 210, page 85, line 16, leave out ("another") and insert ("a")
Standing Order 210, page 85, line 22, leave out ("another") and insert ("a")
Standing Order 213, page 86, line 3, at end insert—
("Provided that should this House be recalled in pursuance of a sessional order a day on which the House sits pursuant to the recall shall not be a sitting day for the purposes of this Order and the first sitting day shall be deemed to be that day to which the House was originally adjourned.")—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Standing Orders amended accordingly.

DISPOSAL OF HERR KRUPP'S ASSETS
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state (1) the present position anent the sittings of the Krupp Mixed Committee, and (2) in respect of what amount of an estimated 74 per cent. of the steel, iron and coal producing assets of Herr Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach due to be disposed of under the 1953 Deconcentration Agreement applications have been lodged for an extension of time in which to sell.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, the answer to the first part of the Question is that the Committee met in full session on July 3 and began its work. On the second part of the Question, as I told the noble Viscount on January 29, the estimated nominal capital value, including reserves, of the assets remaining to be sold is in the region of £14 million. Applications in respect of these assets have been lodged with the: Committee.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I thank the noble Marquess for that reply. Is it clear that under the 1952 Bonn
540
Convention, as amended in 1954, the only thing the Committee have to decide is whether an extension of time for the disposal of the Krupps securities shall be granted? I would ask this further question. So far as I can see—I shall be corrected if I am wrong—there is nothing in Article 10 which says that the deliberations of the Committee—not the findings, but the deliberations—should not be made available to the public. Will the attitude of Her Majesty's Government in this matter be that those deliberations should be made available to the public?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, in answer to the first part of the noble Viscount's supplementary Question, to make it perfectly clear I think I should read out the words of paragraph 2 of Article 10 of the Settlement Convention, which are:
"The function of the Mixed Committee shall be to consider applications for extensions of the final time for the disposition of securities."
That is the function of the Mixed Committee. As regards publication of the deliberations of the Mixed Committee, I think that here again the situation is perfectly clear. The decisions of the Committee will be published and it will be for the Committee to decide whether to submit a report to the four Governments. Publication of any such report would be a matter for decision by the four Governments at the time, but, as I think the noble Viscount is well aware, it is not for Her Majesty's Government or for any of the other Governments concerned to give instructions to the Mixed Committee as to how they should proceed.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I quite understand the position as the noble Marquess has put it. All I was asking was that in a matter where there are four Governments concerned, Her Majesty's Government would, I suggest, be fully competent and able to advance an opinion of their own as to whether the deliberations should be published.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess whether the section of the agreement to which he referred limits the function of the Mixed Committee simply to deciding whether an extension of time should be given; or whether the Committee has power either to decide or to recommend

541
that the agreement should be abrogated on the grounds that in its opinion it cannot be enforced.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I have tried to make clear what the function of the Committee is, and I hope I shall not have to repeat that. The Mixed Committee has an obligation and a duty:
"The Mixed Committee shall extend the time fixed for the disposition of he securities, provided that the applicant establishes that all such securities could not, with the exercise of reasonable efforts, be disposed of on reasonable terms."
I could read the whole thing, if the noble Lord wishes. That is the responsibility of the Mixed Committee, and it also has the function which I have already described. So, as I see it, that is the limit of the functions of the Mixed Committee.
LORD HENDERSON: May one take it from the answer given by the noble Marquess that the Mixed Committee has no power at all to interfere with the operation of the agreement, except in so far as it may decide to extend the time for the assets to be sold?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, that is quite correct.

NUCLEAR POWER AND RADIO- ACTIVE CONTENT OF SEA
2.42 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is anticipated that the increased use of nuclear power, whether for ships or for power stations, will increase to an appreciable extent the radio-active content of the seas; whether this aspect of the question has so far received international consideration; how it is proposed that radio-active waste should be disposed of, and whether it is intended to bring this aspect of the matter before the nations of the world in order to receive international agreement.]
THE MINISTER OF POWER (LORD MILLS): My Lords, I am advised that it is not expected that the increased use of nuclear power, whether for ships or
542
for power stations, will increase to an appreciable extent the radio-active content of the seas. The problem of possible pollution of the seas by radioactive waste was raised at the 1958 United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and, in accordance with the recommendation of the Conference, the International Atomic Energy Agency is engaged on a study of the disposal of radio-active waste to the sea with a view to the possibility of international agreement on methods of disposal.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his interesting Answer.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord if it is not the case that a Committee in America has examined this subject and has reported that only in a practically inconceivable combination of circumstances could danger from this cause arise—that is to say, from the introduction of nuclear-powered ships at sea?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I believe that to be the case; and I believe it is also the case that there is little danger, if any, from nuclear-powered ships at sea.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one other question? There have been references to the possibility of disposing of radio-active waste in certain mines in this country. May we take it that no further suggestions of that sort will be raised?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I have no information on that subject I would be inclined to disbelieve it if I had.

STANDING ORDERS OF THE HOUSE
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The House will remember that there was some inconvenience caused because Starred Questions a week or so ago came after a very long debate on a private Motion. This is the recommendation of the Procedure Committee that Starred Questions should go in front of other Business on the Paper.
Moved, That the Roll of the Standing Orders be amended as, follows:—
Standing Order No. 35, leave out provisoes (1) and (2) and insert—
("(1) Starred questions shall be entered before Private Business;
(2) Notices and Orders relating to Private Business shall be entered before Public Business.")—(The Earl of Home.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Standing Order amended accordingly.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE: PROROGATION DATE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that the House will meet on Thursday, October 22 for the purpose of: being prorogued, and that the new Session will open on Tuesday, October 27.

COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION'S REPORT
2.45 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH rose to call attention to the Report of the Colonial Development Corporation for the year ended December 31, 1958; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, we are calling attention this afternoon to the Report of the Colonial Development Corporation for 1958. I would say two things at the outset: first, that although we may have some criticisms to offer on Government policy in this matter, this debate at any rate will be on perhaps a happier basis than some of the other Colonial debates this week. The second thing I would say is that this is the last Annual Report of the Colonial Development Corporation which will be issued under the authority of the Corporation with Lord Reith in the chair. I should like to say how much we on this side of House, and, I feel sure, in many other parts of the House, too, appreciate the great work which he has done in connection with the Corporation. I think that, compared to the early days of the Corporation, the recent years have shown very great consolidation and advancement.
Having said that, may I say that I am not quite sure whether your Lordships
544
will have had the benefit of seeing the Press release that was made just about a month ago with regard to the Report. I was able to get a copy of that official Press release, and its gives a very adequate and ample summary of the Report. It shows record figures of the total amount of capital invested and of the numbers of projects. At the end of 1958, there were 77 continuing projects in 24 Commonwealth and Colonial countries, with a total capital commitment of £81,717,000. As I look down through some of the ventures and I cast my mind back to my reading of the debate last week on the desirability of helping other countries as well as our own, I cannot help thinking that if underdeveloped countries all over the world were getting the same opportunities as we are striving to offer and to widen and to deepen in this Colonial development, then great changes in world prosperity would rapidly take place.
In 1958, according to the Report, five projects were started in North Borneo, in Tanganyika, in connection with the Sierra Leone Government in Freetown, and in participation with American partners in a fertiliser industry in Trinidad. I expect that if I were to look back through the records I should probably find other previous years in which a larger number of developments were started. It seems to me, as I have been reading through the Report, that, through no fault at all of the Corporation itself, perhaps we are being a little slow in getting all the projects going that might have been got going through the years. The summary the Report gives of the percentage of the total expenditures of £81 million made in respect of general groups, I think is exceedingly interesting. It shows that 51·8 per cent. is for development of utilities like electricity, housing and hotels; 32·9 per cent. is for primary production—that is, primary production covering not only agriculture and forestry, but minerals as well—and that the remaining 15·3 per cent. applies to manufacturing and processing industries. No doubt as the years go by, if this country is wise enough to continue the general policy of Colonial development, there will be an alteration in the emphasis in those three main groups. But obviously it is very wise to have considerable expenditure in the early years of the Corporation on

545
utilities, electricity, power and the housing necessary for the development and so on; and once that is basically provided there may be more room to proceed with other classes of development.
The Report itself, I think, in the light of my very long experience of reading Government Reports and White Papers and the like, is one of the models of how to present a Report. I think Lord Reith must have had something to do with it. He reminds me very much of what I always learned as a lad, as I grew up, in my Bible, that the shortest Gospel is probably the most emphatic. Look at St. Mark's Gospel, a model of English at the time of translation. What do you find—"immediately", "forthwith", "straight away", "at once". These sharp and crisp sentences in this Report do me a lot of good in reminding me that the short sentence and the crisp statement get you through your business much more quickly.
There are just a few paragraphs in the Report to which I should like to draw attention. One you will find on page 7, and it concerns the relations between the Corporation and the home Government. It says:
"Last report optimistic in tone; but unfortunately 1958 was not a happy year; many irritations; no capital reconstruction;"
I quite understand those three words being put in, because more than once my noble friend Lord Ogmore, who has often spoken on this Report in the past, has drawn attention to the urgent need for dealing with capital reconstruction, the whole financial structure of the C.D.C., because of the great handicaps that were laid upon the Corporation, while not only special losses but some main losses also were not being properly dealt with.
By the way, I ought to say that the House has been given the opportunity by the Minister of having a look at the typescript of the Sinclair Report. I have had it with me over the weekend, but I have had so much else to do that I cannot claim to have read it deeply and carefully. But so far as my scanning goes, and especially in reading the conclusions, there can be no doubt left in my mind that the Sinclair Report comes out 100 per cent. behind the requests that the Corporation have made on previous occasions for this capital reconstruction. On whether or not the position is going
546
to be entirely met by the technical recommendations of the Sinclair Commission I do not profess to be sufficiently expert to give a judgment, but there is one main proposition that it seems to me may work out. That is that instead of leaving certain losses constantly overhead, hanging over the Corporation, they would be issued a new class of stock, a C stock, not under the same terms of either regular or general amortisation arrangements, without interest in some respects and able to be relieved according to what the future results of the Corporation might actually be.
Then the same paragraph of the Report, paragraph 7, says that
"as C.D.C. came to real terms with itself in its task, relations with Government departments became such that Corporation felt frustrated and discouraged, due maybe, to an extent, to differences of interpretation of Overseas Resources Development Act;"
I think it is a great pity that that should be the case. Your Lordships will observe that there is no minority report in this Report of the Corporation; this is the unanimous view of the Corporation. I feel that these matters are a constant irritation and often lead to delay. I have a shrewd suspicion that perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Perth, will be able to tell us later on that often it is not the wicked Colonial Office. We charge them with lots of things. It may well be the poking finger of the Treasury, and the holding up of technical examination of projects that it is really left to the Corporation to examine from the technical point of view, as part of their general terms of reference. I should have thought they might have had an easier channel to work through than seems to be indicated by this paragraph.
Then I turn to the next page, still on paragraph 7, where it is recollected that the
"C.D.C. early accepted a capital sanction procedure…"
I do not propose to read the whole of sub-paragraph (7), but it quotes a principle set out in a Colonial Office circular, that
"the Corporation should be in some degree insulated from the complex and many-sided internal procedures upon which Government policy is founded,"
and goes on:
"C.D.C. feels that because this procedure has not been followed unnecessary trouble has been caused."

547
I very much hope we shall have an assurance from the Minister this afternoon that some change is going to take place, and that that will no longer be a handicap to the Corporation in the future. Very often if delays take place in this sort of thing not only do you greatly damp down the enthusiasm of those in the countries concerned with the projects but you actually sometimes lose the opportunity altogether.
Now I turn to sub-paragraph (10) (b) at the bottom of page 8, which says of the Corporation:
"as it became organised, disciplined, confident, and as its work grew, official encroachments on matters which C.D.C. maintains to be within its responsibility and competence have become increasingly annoying and difficult to understand."
I shall be very anxious to hear what the noble Earl, Lord Perth, has to say upon that particular point. It seems to me, as I have read this Report very carefully right through, that there are many instances in which something more might have been done to ease the situation.
Then I am very interested in sub-paragraph (11), on the same page, where reference is made to operations like the Lake Kariba Development Company and the proposed joint Regional Government/CDC development companies in Nigeria. I see there is a general comment in the Report, as a result of their experience in dealing with such matters, and it is this:
"The emphasis often seems to be heavier on the negative of doing nothing than on the positive of encouraging development…"
That was certainly not our intention at the outset of the project of having a Corporation to do this work. I do hope that something can be done to clear up that matter.
I look next at sub-paragraph (11) of paragraph 7, which points out that when the Corporation are dealing with a project, and doing what, as it seems to me, they often need not necessarily under the terms of reference—that is, to go to the Colonial Office and to the Treasury, in advance of some of the preliminary examinations on the subject:
"Applications are held up because it is suggested…
(c) that a loan to a public utility is 'finance house stuff'".
In other words, as I read it, the Treasury, or whoever is responsible,
548
seem to exercise a sort of political control, as well as general financial control, by saying, "Surely this can be done by the City". In other words, when it comes to Colonial Development, wherever they can do so, they try to switch from a project which has been sought out, and which could obviously be both profitable and basically constructive in the future of the territory, and therefore likely to pay well, and say that it is "finance house stuff" and ought to be done by the City. It is not fair to any great Colonial Development Corporation, after it has done part of its work by examination, and has found out what is wanted, to have the cream taken off the milk. That seems to me to be entirely unreasonable, and I hope that we shall have a word from the Minister on that matter.
I was going to say a word about capital reorganisation, but I feel that in view of the Report of the Sinclair Committee it is not necessary to do so. I would refer, however, to paragraph 9, which deals with interest rates. This is a very important issue for this kind of Report on development schemes. Briefly, it says:
"Despite fall in Bank Rate to 4 per cent., long term rates have not conformed; CDC's long term rate, normally used for development projects, remained at 5¾ per cent. until 9.12.58; since when it has come in two stages to 5½ per cent."
I must say that a Government-financed organisation like this ought not to continue to have to be charged the high rates I have quoted, especially if we are to see the reasonably quick placing of the new projects upon a sound financial basis. Every one-half per cent. which is extra in charge on the sinking fund of the particular project concerned is likely to keep back the pace of the development towards entirely profitable operation, and I should have thought that the Government might pay special attention to that point. I am not moved by the idea that in many private ventures to-day there are many private finance companies that will offer the investing public anything from 6½ to 8 per cent.—and even 8¾ per cent., as I saw in one case—of continuous lending, for them to finance industry with. If industry is really taking up that sort of proposition, then it may easily in some instances be paying 10 per cent. plus for developmental projects. It only goes to show

549
that when you really want to get on with the world's business as well as our own country's business, if you are to get to a state of increasing prosperity throughout the world you have got to come away from that kind of finance as soon as possible.
I think it would be a pity if no reference were made to the paragraph in the Report which deals with emergent territories. Paragraph 13 on page 11 says:
"There was evidence from Montreal Conference that H.M.G. recognises an obligation for ensuring continuance of development finance to emergent territories. CDC regrets that the restrictions imposed upon its future activities in these areas will deny them full use of its unique facilities and managerial experience at the critical transitional stage in their development.'
I remember that in your Lordships' House some two years ago we often had this matter under discussion with reference to projects that were either established or were in contemplation in Ghana. And although the situation here may be slightly different from that which existed at the time when we were making our request to the Government, nevertheless there is surely a strong case to be made that, wherever within the British Commonwealth there are great projects which can be undertaken by the help of public supervision, public expert knowledge in development, and by public finance, our first efforts should be to get that development in the Commonwealth rather than spread our efforts all over the place, however good may be the objects elsewhere—I hope very much that we may have a statement from the noble Earl which will deal with this question of development within emergent territories, and particularly countries like Nigeria. Even if the Government stick like leeches to their project for Federation in Central African and certain other territories, I think they should not cut off from the operations of the Colonial Development Corporation projects that had been undertaken, and projects that could be done for those people in the future.
Paragraph 14 greatly impressed me. The first paragraph says:
"Despite difficulties and delays noted above, C D.C. has done some good; it could have done a lot more."
550
I read into that statement that it is not because they were not capable of doing more, but because they were often held up—and even prevented, in certain projects which they considered to be good, from going on with them. Then I thoroughly agree with what is said in the last subparagraph, that:
"A lot has been done and much remains to be done; but success must depend on first-class management, confident that it is trusted to use its commercial judgment in the best interests of overseas development and thus of Great Britain itself."
I note that in this last year the measure of progress is emphasised by the very substantial increase in net profit on the working for the whole year—I think it went up from £300,000 to over £1½ million. I have not all the figures in my mind, but certainly the figure was well over £1 million. I notice, too, that other losses have been written off under a satisfactory arrangement. Although, as the Sinclair Committee point out in their Report, it was almost inevitable that in the opening years of a Corporation like this, going into new experimental development in territories of this kind, they should have been operating, in most cases, at a lost, there is no doubt in my mind that if Parliament is wise enough to continue to support and encourage the work of the. Corporation, we shall have much to be grateful for in the future in the results which can be shown in the Commonwealth. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.10 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I am sure we are all most grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition for bringing forward this Motion on the Colonial Development Corporation. Your Lordships will remember that last year the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, had a similar Motion down but we never found time to discuss it. Therefore, this is the first full debate we have had on the Colonial Development Corporation since Lord Ogmore's previous Motion at about this time in 1956. As the noble Viscount has said, this is pretty well a non-controversial subject and of rather a technical nature, but it is none the less interesting and none the less important for all that, and we are certainly grateful to him for bringing it forward even though it is piling up the

551
Colonial debates in one week. From my point of view that may mean hard work but quite a lot of fun.
As I shall not have the opportunity of congratulating Lord Twining on his maiden speech—it would be improper to do so before he has; made it—I should like to say how pleased we are to see him here this afternoon and are looking forward to his maiden speech, which is bound to be of the greatest interest to us, with all the vast knowledge and dynamic energy which he has shown in the development of Tanganyika. I welcome this opportunity of saying how glad I am to be able to say this much to him in view of the very fine facilities he showed me when I went there.
The first point I would make on this Annual Report for 1958 is in connection with the profits, because we see that the annual profits are bigger than they ever have been and amount to £1,174,000, compared to £700,000 on the previous year. The previous two years to that they were £400,000 and £572,000, so there has been a steady increase over four years, and the result is that we find, if we turn to the balance sheet, that the £1,174,000 profit is apparently sufficient now to write off the entire balance of accumulated losses on trading account of £1,049,000. As a consequence there is, I imagine for the first time in the history of the Colonial Development Corporation, a working profit of £125,000 to carry forward. I am sure that we all agree that this is an eminently satisfactory position upon which the noble Lord, I Lord Reith, and his members should be heartily congratulated.
The second most important point, I think, is in connection with the financial structure. As the noble Viscount said, we have just received the Report of the Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, and I am relieved to find that he has not read it either. I have not even had the benefit of having it over the week end. I have had to rely largely on the summarised version in The Times, which I have no reason to assume is inaccurate; The Times is usually very accurate in these matters. It is rather interesting, in view of what the noble Viscount opposite said, if one turns back to the 1957 Report, which possibly your Lordships do not have.
552
Paragraph 8, pages 8 and 9, of that Report gives the requirements, or the desires, of the Colonial Development Corporation, and when one comes to compare those requirements with the findings of the Report one does not find very much difference. Certainly, the Report does not say that the losses on the abandoned projects must be written off altogether, although I think it prefers that, but it does give this alternative of the "C" stock so that these capital losses would be the last to be repaid. The most important point in that connection, I think, is that interest which is accumulating at present on these losses on written-off projects should not continue and the Corporation would be entirely relieved of interest on projects which, in fact, no longer exist.
It may well be that the Government would prefer to accept that alternative rather than write off the debt altogether, which would perhaps be a cleaner process but I daresay would meet with technical objections from the Treasury. In regard to the "A" Stock, which is for Government and Government-guaranteed loans, the main recommendation is that interest should not fructify, but should be payable like any ordinary commercial debt from the day it is taken. That also is recommended. It was asked for by the Colonial Development Corporation and was recommended in the Report.
As for the other loans, it is suggested there should be a "B" Stock but that interest should be payable only to the extent of available earnings of the Colonial Development Corporation in any one year. It would be subject to a maximum of 5 per cent. and would not be cumulative. I do not know whether the Government would be able to accept that maximum of 5 per cent. I think we all hope they will, but in view of the past arguments they may perhaps not like that altogether. There is only one question I think I need ask in that connection, and it is the only question I am going to ask during the course of my speech. It is not quite clear to me whether the interest will be payable out of the overall earnings of the Colonial Development Corporation in any one year assuming that it makes a profit. The assumption is that if it does not make a profit, this interest on the "B" Stock will not be paid. But if it does make a profit, then

553
interest on loans under the "B" Stock will be paid. Or does it depend on the profit-making capacity of the new project for which the money has been borrowed? I think that is the only point I should like clarified.
Two years ago we were discussing the financial position of the Corporation, and the result of that was an increase in the monies available for loan from £100 million to £150 million, which eased the situation very considerably. Now, two years later, I cannot see that the second great necessity of the Corporation has yet been granted—we shall perhaps learn that later from the Minister when he replies. But we have reached the stage when an independent Report has been submitted recommending that the second great requirement of the reconstruction of the financial structure of the Corporation should be admitted.
Therefore, in regard to any major problems or any major discussion I think we are left over with the question which the noble Viscount brought up and which is cited in paragraph 7, and that is this matter of relations with the Government. I am not going to repeat what the noble Viscount has said, but there are just one or two additional points which perhaps I could make. I think it is only fair to draw attention to sub-paragraph (10) (a) at the bottom of page 8, in which it is admitted that:
"Initially projects were approved in barest outline".
That was in conformity with the original intention that the people running the Corporation should be given the maximum scope to get on with the job. The sub-paragraph continues:
"but when in late 1950 jobs went bad and very bad, requirements expanded, with CDC in no shape to protest."
It is only fair to say that in the early days of the Colonial Development Corporation there was a lot of mismanagement, inexperience and bungling, and the Government were quite right to take action to control the finances very much more closely than they had done. Now the Corporation has proved itself, has balanced its profits and losses over a long period, and it is to be hoped, I think, that there can be some reversion to the former custom of letting the people who are running the Corporation get on with the job efficiently and on a commercial
554
basis, which now, if this Sinclair Report is accepted, they will be better able to do, with as little interference as possible.
Turning to sub-paragraph (11) on page 9, one finds there is one clause there which the noble Viscount did not mention, clause (b), where there are specific complaints made in these terms: that projects are turned down because the
"CDC is doing too much itself"
or
"is lending too much money to better qualified folk".
It is quite clear that those two criticisms cancel out because they are contradictory. If the C.D.C. is doing too much, that is an invitation to it to lend money to other people to do their work; but if it is not lending money for financing business, upon which it was criticised strongly two years ago, then it must be doing more itself. Therefore, those two criticisms do not seem to make a great deal of sense.
There is one criticism that projects, or money for them, has been refused on the grounds that a Colony is too near independence. I hope that that is not true, because although there are funds available now for the Colonies which become independent and become members of the Commonwealth, I do not think it was the intention of Parliament that they should have to wait unnecessarily and experience a hiatus of a year or two before they got those Commonwealth funds, simply because there was some chance of their becoming independent. I hope that the Minister will be able to refute that particular criticism in his reply.
My Lords, I am now going to refer to something at the top of page 8, but still in paragraph 7, and that is sub-paragraph (3), where it is stated:
"CDC authority is qualified thus:

(a) there must be consultation with colonial governments and local interests".

Lower down in sub-paragraph (4) it is stated:
"As to (a), CDC's regional organisations are in close touch with colonial governments".
So far we have had criticisms perhaps of the Government, and I think it is only fair that the C.D.C. should be willing to bear its own share of criticisms—friendly criticisms, of course, but they are none the less necessary. Those two

555
quotations which I have just read I would link with the 1957 Report, which in paragraph 12 said:
"Appointment of qualified and representative local individuals a directors has been a feature of subsidiary and associated companies and this also will continue—incidentally, encouraging inter-racial co-operation."
That was sub-paragraph (3); and sub-paragraph (4) states:
"The increasing amount of responsibility carried by local political leaders means increased responsibility and opportunity for CDC."
That is all very true, but I have wandered about a little in parts of Africa and the Caribbean area and I have not always been altogether happy that these relations with Colonial Governments are as good as they should be. In most cases they are, but there are definitely some places where they are not; and that links up especially with my last quotation about local political leaders. I think I could mention one or two cases where the local leaders and the local technical authorities have perhaps been rather ignorant and not been taken into full consultation, with the result that the C.D.C. in such places is regarded really as representing Her Majesty's Government, of whatever political Party it is. Although we know that that is not true, it is so regarded. It is very important, I think, that this matter should be looked into fairly carefully, as also should the question of appointments of so-called—that is my interjection, "so-called"—qualified and representative local individuals. It is difficult at times to overcome local jealousies, but there are occasions when perhaps the best appointments have not been made. These remarks are, of course, being addressed more to members of the Corporation than to the Government, because they concern Corporation business; and I hope that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who is so interested in these things, can do a little probing in that direction to ensure that any roughages of this nature are smoothed out. I do not really know, of course, whether these matters are left almost entirely in the hands of the regional controllers or whether there is a very strong control at headquarters here; but, whichever it is, I think that there is at least room in some areas of the world for improvement.
556
I think it is of some interest, possibly, to the Corporation itself and to this House that we should occasionally look at one or two individual projects. It shows that we are taking an interest in various things from year to year, and there are some lessons to be drawn from so doing. May I refer for a moment to the Melville Hall Estate in the Island of Dominica in the West Indies? Your Lordships will notice that it has had a considerable loss this year. It is a mixed plantation of bananas, coconuts, cocoa, and some citrus and coffee in a very mountainous and rainy area. It has had a loss of £9,000, which follows a loss in the previous year of £5,000. For the two years before its profits were, I think, £5,000 and no less than £15,000, and in just looking at the latest Report one might think that things were going badly. They had a bad drought and there were other reasons as well, but I should just like to say that one cannot always get proper impressions from the Report without knowing what is really going on. It is undoubtedly one of the best run projects of the C.D.C. that I have seen. It is doing immense good in an island which needs developing, which is the least developed of the whole of the West Indies. We certainly hope that it will manage to make profits again when conditions are more favourable, both climatic and price conditions; but I do not think we need worry about that. It is a first-class project, and I have no doubt that it will pay in the future.
Another one in that area, British Honduras, is the Fort George Hotel. The Colonial Development Corporation had an arrangement with an American hotel organisation who hoped to take it over. The profits, however, were not sufficient for them to find it attractive, so the Corporation are running it by themselves. There again, the project is doing a great deal of good in that area. I think that, if they could stick to it, there are profits to be obtained from that hotel. It is a wonderful tourist area for yachting, swimming, and deep-sea fishing; and quite an unknown part of the world, I would say, which could become a very attractive tourist centre. I agree that it is not the job of the Colonial Development Corporation to run a hotel, and I hope that they manage to get rid of it.

557
That brings me to my next point. If they do dispose of it they will be going from direct projects into investments. Is that going to be called finance housing? Of course not, my Lords. The Colonial Development Corporation, having started the hotel, would be passing it on to private enterprise. That, surely, is one of the Corporation's duties in all the Colonies—to be able to start something and, where possible, pass it on to private enterprise, and then to use their new finance in starting new projects. Surely that is the right policy. A considerable number of these items that we see under "Investments" are, in fact, semi-directed by the Colonial Development Corporation, and are not just purely finance house business.
Another project is the Chilanga Cement Works, in Northern Rhodesia, which started by being managed, as well as; at least half owned, by the C.D.C., and is now managed by private enterprise. There, a combination of interests is involved. That is now a first-class organisation, and has had a very great bearing on the building of the Kariba Dam. Virtually the whole of the cement for the Kariba Dam has been provided by Chilanga, which, at a rough guess, I suppose, is not more than 100 miles or so distant. Now supposing those works had not been there, it would have made the building of that dam very much more difficult and much more expensive. I think that it is a feather in the cap of the Colonial Development Corporation that they started those works; and it is perfectly right and correct that they should have handed over the scheme to these people who can run it, while retaining the benefit of their original energy in the form of investment—and I am glad to say that they are doing very nicely out of it, too.
The last project I want to mention is the Kasungu Tobacco Estates in Nyasaland. I have had my eye on them for some time. I have not been there—I wish I had—but I do grow tobacco myself, and I could not make out why this project was losing so much money: £9,000 four years ago; a profit of £11,000 three years ago; a loss of £9,000 or £10,000 two years ago, and of no less than £45,000 last year. My Lords, no tobacco-curer in Rhodesia stays in business like that, and it seems to me quite ridiculous that this scheme should go on.
558
I say merely that I am glad to know that there has been a delegation out there;
and following some pretty sharp criticism of the management, action has been taken. I hope that that project will do better in future, for there really is no excuse for its losing money.
Finally, there is just the one new project, Federation Chemicals, Limited, in Trinidad. It was started with American money, and that is why I mention it. I think it is the first time that American money has been used in the work of the Colonial Development Corporation, and I believe it is a good thing. We need money from where we can get it in most of these places. In that connection, I am a little anxious that preference should be given to Canadian money. Canada has a very close connection with the West Indies. The Report of the Economic Conference at Montreal contains two paragraphs which touch on that subject, and I hope that the Colonial Development Corporation might prefer to introduce Canadian money into the West Indies rather than American money.
My Lords, I am afraid I have been rather lengthy, but it is a technical subject which I suppose needs covering, if we are to deal with it only once every two years. I apologise for the length of my speech; but I would just wish the best of luck to all the members of the Corporation, the new as well as the old. I would also offer my congratulations to the retiring Chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Reith, who has put the Corporation on its feet in no small way, and who has not only balanced the budget, so to speak, but has also increased the money available in the way that he wished—and now, perhaps, is to hear that the financial reconstruction which he has been awaiting with such anxiety is at last to come about.
3.36 p.m.
LORD TWINING: My Lords, whilst I am very conscious of the honour to be able to speak in your Lordships' House, I find that that in no way diminishes the apprehension with which one approaches one's maiden speech. I have read the Reports of the Colonial Development Corporation every year, I think, since they began. I have read them with the emotions of hope and disappointment, and now of achievement. I feel that the

559
Report we are discussing, that for the year 1958, which really marks the end of chapter 2 of the history of the Corporation, shows some very great achievement. In the Colonial territories in which the Corporation have been operating there are countless thousands of people who have benefited from their activities. The towering figure of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, the retiring Chairman, is well known in many of these countries, and he has gained great respect there.
I can only say that I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Reith, should wish to look back in anger in some paragraphs of his Report. Those of us who have had to deal with Government Departments most of our working lives have also found, at times, that one is frustrated and irritated, and that one becomes impatient. The noble Lord, I believe, has not had the experience—I was going to say the benefit—of serving in the Civil Service, and therefore of understanding their approach to affairs. But I myself have always found, although I was a civil servant, that I could get on with the Colonial Office; and I have found that they have understood what I was talking about and can produce results reasonably quickly. I will not make any remarks about Her Majesty's Treasury, who have a very good technique of supporting their "No, no, no" with very strong arguments, even if sometimes they are not always convincing. But, as the guardian of the public purse, they have, of course, to be on their guard.
I think that perhaps Lord Reith's achievement (or what he might regard as one of his achievements) has been to see the appointment of this Committee, headed by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, to look into the financial structure of the Corporation. Like the other noble Lords who have spoken, I have had a busy week-end reading papers on Colonial affairs, though I have been unable to give the time to it which I should have liked. But no doubt your Lordships' House will be given a chance, once the Government have studied the Report and come to their conclusions, to debate the matter on some future occasion.
What I have had in mind, however, as a big query, is: to what extent have
560
the Corporation fulfilled Parliament's intentions? That is a query which, I am afraid, I find myself unable to answer, but it is a matter which I feel should be considered very carefully when the Committee's Report is being studied, so that if the original intentions of Parliament need any change, they can be made at the appropriate time. I have always felt that one could not properly appreciate the true rôle of the Colonial Development Corporation except in relation to Colonial development as a whole, and I crave your Lordships' indulgence in order to sidetrack the subject for one moment to have a look at the methods of the Corporation, some of which were referred to by the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, in an interesting debate in your Lordships' House last week.
I will not touch on foreign aid, which has come into the picture only fairly recently. There have been four types of aid from British sources. First, there are the resources of the Colonial territories themselves. During the war the territories accumulated various balances, which after the war they rapidly expended on the first steps towards development. Those balances are now exhausted. At that time, too, the territories made substantial contributions from their revenue, which they can no longer do, because the recurrent contingent expenditure on development schemes has eaten up any surplus revenue which they may previously have enjoyed. Then they went to the money markets, particularly the London market, to raise loans; and since the end of the war they have raised loans to a total of about £200 million, of which £187 million have been obtained from the London market. But I am afraid that for various reasons, during the last few months—perhaps during the last year—the London market has not been so available to Colonial Governments, who have borrowed probably almost to the full extent to which they are able to do on their present economies.
The second type of aid is that obtained from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund. Between 1946 and 1958, we are told, the territories have been made grants from this Fund of £155 million—a substantial sum. Even when divided by thirteen years, it remains a substantial sum; and I am sure that I am voicing the views of the Colonial

561
Governments in saying that it has been a very welcome supplementary amount of finance available for schemes, although I have yet to meet the Colonial Governor who has been satisfied with his share of the allocation.
The third method of financing Colonial development is private capital. During the first few years after the war there was considerable private investment in Colonial territories, but in the last year or so that has tended to dry up as a result of political uncertainties—and I emphasise the word "uncertainties". I have been having talks in the City and elsewhere, and I find that it is very difficult to restore confidence in the Colonial territories as places for the investment of risk capital. It is true, of course, that many of the more reputable firms operating in the Colonial territories are ploughing back a large proportion of their undistributed profits, but that is not enough. I hope that it will be possible during the next year or so to restore that confidence, so that investment may flow to the places where it is needed.
The fourth form of financing Colonial development is the Colonial Development Corporation. Since 1948, I believe, they have expended something in the nature of £95 million—a substantial contribution, despite some initial losses. I feel that, because of the lack of confidence about investing private capital in the Colonial territories, there will be increasing pressure upon the Colonial Development Corporation to invest more and more of their funds. They have some £50 million left, I am told. Is that enough? Well, it is not only money that counts; it is also a question of management. It is no good supplying the Colonial territories with more money unless we are satisfied that they have the management to spend it wisely.
There are a few points with which I should like to conclude, which your Lordships may take in the form of mild criticism both of the Colonial Governments and of the Corporation. The first is that I have always felt that they select in a rather haphazard manner the schemes in which they invest money. Most Colonial Governments have development schemes, and those schemes make provision for the investment of private capital and of the funds of the
562
Corporation. But it is often found that somebody says he cannot raise any money for a particular scheme, and suggests, "Try the Corporation." The result is that the Colonial Development Corporation have on their plate a large number of schemes which were financially unsound from the beginning. At one time, they swallowed some of those schemes; now they are more careful, I believe. I should like to see some better means of selecting schemes, and I should like to see Colonial Governors and Governments working in closer co-operation with the Corporation to help develop their territories.
The second point concerns local participation. I feel that it is of tremendous importance that the people of the Colonial territories should not only understand what is meant by Colonial development and what the Corporation are trying to do, but should be given opportunities of participating in the investment side and in the operational side. In the last two or three years there has been great improvement in this respect, but there is still a long way to go. I can assure your Lordships that I have been round several Colonial territories, and I have found that few people have even heard of the Colonial Development Corporation, and that fewer still understand what the Corporation stand for. There has been quite inadequate publicity. During the next decade or so we are likely to be faced with requirements from the remainder of our Colonial territories for enormous sums of capital to develop them. It may seem, in the eyes of some political leaders in the Colonies, that we have to compete with other sources—the rouble and the dollar. I heard one African Colonial leader, well known for his moderation, say the other day that if he could not get any money from Her Majesty's Government, and he did not think he would, when he came to power he could get £100 million from some other source. Perhaps he could, if he was prepared to sell his soul. But we must make sure that the Colonial territories will be able to turn to us for their reasonable requirements, particularly where the investment of money of this sort can help to build up those territories to stand firm on good foundations when they achieve their independence.
3.49 p.m.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, I regard it as a happy accident of the batting list that it falls to me to have the privilege of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Twining, upon the weighty and authoritative speech which he has just delivered—if I may say so, an imminently successful speech. I was particularly interested in the admirable summary which he gave of the various forms of aid which have been available, and are now available, to the Colonies. I assure the noble Lord that his long, distinguished and varied career, his experience, his knowledge and his abilities, will always ensure that he will be listened to by your Lordships, when he addresses the House, with both pleasure and profit.
I feel that one of the main interests of this debate will centre round the Report of the Sinclair Committee, and so far as I am concerned that interest lies specially where the Committee concerns itself with the special losses account of the Corporation. I think that all through it is a most praiseworthy Report, and I can well imagine how much the Committee owe to the services of Sir Harold Howitt, who is. I believe, a member of the firm of accountants who were appointed by the Secretary of State auditors to the Corporation. Lord Reith may well feel that the Report of the Committee has supported his long campaign to get the special losses account swept away. I do not know that I can entirely agree about that, because, to the best of my knowledge—and I sincerely trust that I am speaking correctly—I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Reith, has ever precisely defined the special losses; and the Committee only go so far as to recommend that they should be changed into a kind of deferred stock. There have certainly been arguments between the Colonial Office and the noble Lord, Lord Reith, over this matter—we have the noble Lord's own word for that—but perhaps the arguments may have spread to the auditors, who may possibly have found themselves in a somewhat delicate position in the matter.
But Lord Sinclair of Cleeve's Committee have approved the existing system with what I should call a resounding
564
ambiguity, for they use these words about the existing system:
"There is no reason why it should not be operated sensibly."
That is an ambiguity which would certainly be of good all-round application to all concerned with the Corporation. But, looking to the future, I feel that what we want from the Corporation or from the Government is a statement of what precisely is included in these special losses. I have read carefully all the | Reports as they have appeared, but it I seems to me that very little has been published on that subject. It would, for instance, be valuable to have some information on such matters as by how I much the Chilanga cement shares have I appreciated; whether there was any | option on the Trinidad cement shares; and at what price Kramer Estate shares were bought in 1949 and sold in 1951. Then there were the Eleuthera shares, which were resold to an aluminium millionaire and have since, I understand, appreciated some threefold. I would say that all these and other similar matters merit inquiry. As a matter of principle, I would say that, before passing legislation to release a State Corporation from its obligations to pay interest and repay capital on its loans by the Treasury, an inquiry into all these and similar facts should be called for.
The C.D.C. published figure for special losses is £8,022,441; and I ask your Lordships to notice that that sum j is not a round figure, but has been calculated to the last pound, evidently with meticulous care. I do not think that Parliament or the public have had a breakdown of this very considerable amount. I take it that the Treasury and the Colonial Office will have had the figures. But have these two departments agreed about them when they have discussed them? As regards these special losses, I can imagine the chairman saying—I am not quoting actual words: "This particular job will never pay. Let us shut it down and salvage what we can from the wreck. Parliament will pay off the rest," I think we I want something a little more precise than that when Parliament is being asked practically to sweep away these special losses. In particular, I think that Parliament ought to be satisfied that the assets of the Corporation which

565
have been disposed of were soundly disposed of; and, if so satisfied, should proceed to ascertain the extent of any capital gains which have been made to set off against special losses.
Surely there have been some profits on pre-1951 commitments. After all, capital values, as we know, have appreciated very much during six years of inflation. Are the C.D.C. assets worth less to-day than when they were acquired? Has there been any appreciation, for instance, on the real estate which was acquired in the early years of the Corporation? In this matter of special losses, I feel that the C.D.C. sometimes do what we are all prone to do, and that is, want to have their cake and also to eat it. These losses are a very mixed bag, and they are by no means wholly those of abandoned projects—there have been losses on other projects which have not been abandoned. They were shown in four groups in the balance sheet published by the Corporation at December 31, 1955. I feel that perhaps many C.D.C. operations from projects to loans could qualify for inclusion. Where there has been a bad investment after 1950 a home could be found for it in the special losses account after that account was instituted.
There seem to have been what might be called bulk transfers from C.D.C. accumulated deficits on profit and loss account, and in 1953 the Secretary of State waived interest on nearly £6 million worth of special losses. The following year special losses made their first appearance in the balance sheet, and they appeared at that date as £6,269,000. £6,162,000 was transferred to this account at the beginning of January, 1954, and the remainder was transferred during 1954, and £1,750,000 was transferred in 1955, bringing the special losses account up to its present figure of £8,022,441. There was in 1953 a breakdown of the £6 million-odd of special losses then quoted, but I do not find that that breakdown greatly helps towards breaking down the present figure of over £8 million, as some pre-1951 commitments must have been abandoned after 1953, and there must also have been adjustments to other losses from sales of assets. It indicates that by no means all this £8 million owed is necessarily for abandoned projects.
566
Studying the Reports to the best of my ability, I would put the losses on the abandoned projects at a maximum of £5½ million. To that we must add £750,000 for amounts now known to have been written off continuing projects. On those figures—if my figures are fairly correct—I would get a maximum of £6·3 million as attributable to special losses, with about £5·4 million, I should think, a more probable figure. But we cannot judge these things unless we have more knowledge than we have yet been given, and a more detailed and accurate breakdown of the figure for special losses.
I find it curious, too, that the figure for special losses has not been adjusted since 1955, although, for instance, the land on the island of Eleuthera, to which I have already referred, has more than trebled since the C.D.C. bought it in 1950. But in spite of that appreciation, I cannot see that the figure in respect of special losses has been adjusted. Details of the projects and investments involved in these special losses should, in my opinion, be made available for scrutiny, otherwise it might be thought that the C.D.C. wants Parliament to agree to writing off development expenditure on certain projects which should rightly be recouped from their trading operations, as is general commercial practice. Such good progress is being made with what is left of the pre-1951 projects that, given time, all development expenditure on those and on some which might perhaps have been spared the axe may be made good, taking all the C.D.C. operations together, as was always intended to be the case.
It seems to me that these are matters of fact and of principle which should be examined before Parliament can be satisfied with the C.D.C. figure of over £8 million special losses. I think, too, that consideration should be given to the extent to which this agreed figure should be off-set by special gains, such as by the sale of part of the C.D.C. investments in Chilanga Cement, Trinidad Cement and East Africa Industries, Surely, profits on all those projects should be set off against the special losses. I think Parliament might well ask for these details in the light of C.D.C.'s wish and repeated urging to get a waiver on the special losses. I think it world also be relevant to ask for information on the

567
probable valuation of the remainder of C.D.C.'s assets, investments and projects. Fourteen out of twenty-one C.D.C. directly operated projects made a profit in 1955–56, and the losses on the others were only small, apart from a loss on the Macalder-Nyanza Mines, for which there were good reasons. It is customary practice nowadays for companies periodically to revalue their assets. One project helps to pay for another, and I think C.D.C. might follow this excellent example and write down its special losses by any resultant surplus over book values of assets in projects and investments. In my opinion, there should be no writing off of public monies until the balance sheet has been tidied up by such a revaluation.
The noble Lord, Lord Reith, claimed in 1956 that, in contradiction to what was happening prior to his becoming Chairman of the Corporation, everything was now going to the pride and satisfaction of the directors and that mistakes were to be attributed to his predecessor. That is all very well; but I think that Lord Reith has perhaps lost sight of the original purpose for which the C.D.C. Act was passed. The noble Lord, Lord Reith—I speak with respect—is a man who is apt to judge success in commercial matters by a profit; and he has achieved profits for the Corporation. But is it not possible that in doing that the original purpose of the Act has somewhat been lost sight of? It was always intended to be an Act which would engage in marginal ventures, ventures such as ordinary industrial enterprises would not take on. I hope myself that we shall now get back to the original purpose of the Act which, in the terms in which it was passed, I feel can do a great deal for some of the backward territories for which we have responsibility.
Those are the two things I would venture to put before your Lordships. We should now do these two things: insist upon an inquiry, a scrutiny, into the nature of the special losses—a thorough investigation with all the facts brought forward about them—and from now on restore the Colonial Development Corporation to the functions for which it was originally set up.
4.8 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, before making the few remarks on these subjects that I wish to make, I should like to add my tribute to those that have been paid to the noble Lord, Lord Twining, and the memorable maiden speech to which we have had the privilege of listening this afternoon. He speaks with such great and recent authority on most Colonial problems that it will indeed be a pleasure to look forward to future contributions from him to debates in this House. The boisterous energy with which he has so successfully fulfilled the duties of his various offices will indeed be an addition to our debates, and we shall look forward to hearing him frequently in the future.
One of the advantages of speaking after many other speakers in a debate of this sort is that it eliminates the necessity for saying half of what one intended to say. As the noble Viscount who introduced this Motion said, this is not a controversial subject. The noble Earl who represents the Colonial Office may take another view on that, but certainly it is not a controversial subject in the sense that Members of the House differ from each other. In past years we have rather concentrated on saying from time to time what we thought of Colonial Office control, although, as has also been said, I have no doubt that in this case much of the blame which the Colonial Office are getting might be better addressed to the door of the Treasury.
The subject of our debate to-day, the Eleventh Annual Report of the Colonial Development Corporation, is remarkable, as I see it, in two respects. It is the last Report to be signed by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, who retired from the chairmanship at the end of March, and it is marked, as The Times says, in the most appropriate possible manner by the extinction of the debit balance on current operations, that had to be carried forward from year to year in the Corporation's balance sheet. In passing, I think it is worth mentioning, as an example to other Corporations and Departments, that this Report and Accounts was published on June 3 of this year as a House of Commons Paper. It had been signed by the Chairman and the members of the Corporation on March 26 and then submitted to the Secretary of State for the

569
Colonies. This is indeed quick work, as such things go, involving, as it does, the gathering together of Reports and Accounts for the year ended December 31, 1958, from subsidiary and associated companies and projects all over the world.
It is, if I may pause to say so, Lord Reith's substantial achievement that during the eighth year of his term of office he has not only brought the Corporation to the profit-earning stage but has, in the process, built up an intensely loyal and highly competent team, which is one of the things at which he is known to excel. As your Lordships know, Lord Reith has a gift for imaginative leadership and for creative organisation. All the public service that he has rendered to this country has a quality peculiarly his own. For himself, as for others, he insists on "filling the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of journey run." He wastes neither words nor time nor money. It is true that his refusal to waste words has sometimes been the source of criticism in this House when his Reports have been considered, but I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, that it is a refreshing pleasure to read a Report in which no words are wasted. In the result. Lord Reith has given to Parliament, in the Colonial Development Corporation, a precision instrument for the execution of its purposes, and has left one more monument to his capacity for public service. I say all these things particularly because I myself had the privilege of working for a time under Lord Reith in the Corporation, and I felt that this appreciation from the Back Benches of this House might well find an echo in other parts of it.
To turn to the Report, I do not propose to weary your Lordships with repetition, since the ground has already been so ably and fully covered, not only by the noble Viscount who opened the debate but by other speakers, that it will spare me the necessity of going into any of the figures or financial details of the Report. Over the past few years the intrinsic difficulties arising from the financial structure of the Corporation have been fully debated in this House. The Report before us speaks for itself, and when in paragraph 14 the Chairman says in his typically laconic manner that
570
the "CDC has done some good" the under-statement has considerable force. Every critic of the Corporation should read paragraph 14 on page 11 of the Report, in which its achievements are summarised. It is true that in paragraph 7 the Report deals rather drastically with relations with the Government. It is to be hoped that, with alterations in the financial structure, the seemingly vexatious over-lordship of the Colonial Office will be modified, or perhaps even entirely eliminated.
The Corporation's pleas over the last few years for some reorganisation of its financial structure have received considerable sympathy and support in this House and in another place. The noble Lord, Lord Twining, said that he had considered what were the intentions behind the Colonial Development Corporation. I think a great deal of trouble in the execution of its work, and a great deal of the friction which has arisen between the men who are trying to do the work and those in the Colonial Office who are also trying to do what they conceive to be their duty, arose from a great deal of vagueness in its inception. This Corporation, like some others, was started in a fit of nebulous enthusiasm, and I think that as we have gone along we have all learned a great deal of what it was possible for it to do and what it was not possible for it to do. For that reason alone, perhaps it is desirable that considerable thought should be given to reorganisation of its structure.
The Report of the Committee which has just sat under the Chairmanship of Lord
Sinclair of Cleeve has been received. I personally had the pleasure of reading it over the week-end, and I was delighted to see that it fully supports the pleas which Lord Reith has been urging over so many years. The Report will, I hope, in due course be approved by Her Majesty's Government, and so make the Corporation's future operations easier and perhaps make it easier to keep in line with its stated aims and objects. To quote The Times comment:
"Most of the detailed cause of delay and frustration suggest that Whitehall has been trying to judge commercial affairs by other than commercial standards. In the long run the C.C.D. will stand or fall on its commercial success or failure, and under Lord Reith's direction it has scored some substantial successes."

571
The last success of all has been the "posthumous" victory, so to speak, which Lord Reith has won, represented by the findings of Lord Sinclair of Cleeves' Committee.
In setting up the C.D.C., Parliament, I think, clearly intended that the Corporation should support risky and marginally profitable projects. But it is also required by Statute to pay its way. Under its present financial structure it is almost impossible to do both those things. I need not go into any further detail on that aspect. It has been so often emphasised that either the Corporation must refrain from undertaking much development for which it was established or it must fail in the requirements to pay its way. Despite these difficulties and restraints, the Corporation, as the Report states, feels that it has done some good and has made a worthwhile contribution to Colonial development over these past eight years. Its activities, as it says, are helping to create more wealth in the Colonies, and through its projects more people have been better fed, better housed and better clothed. What greater tribute could be paid to the work of the Corporation than that? I feel great sympathy with its concluding sentence, which was quoted (so I need not quote it again) by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, at the end of his speech to-day. In conclusion, I should like to congratulate the Board on the last year, which was a very successful year, and to wish it the greatest of successes in the future, in perhaps easier conditions.
4.20 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, at the beginning of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, I felt that he used a word inadvertently, but one that, frankly, jarred me, when he was speaking of the number of debates that we shall have this week on Colonial affairs. He said that he recognised the amount of hard work involved, but that he would gain a great deal of fun out of it. I do not believe that any noble Lord in this House has entered this week without a very heavy heart and, as to some of us, with a good deal of emotion. No doubt the debates this week on Central African affairs will cause great divisions, but I believe that this afternoon there
572
will be no division in extending our congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Twining, on a remarkable maiden speech, and also passing our compliments and our gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Reith, who this year gives up the chairmanship of the Colonial Development Corporation. These are the last accounts that the noble Lord, Lord; Reith, is presenting, and it is these that we are considering this afternoon.
There are, as we know, a number of disturbing points, in particular that in Section 7 on which my noble Leader, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, spoke at some length, and which has been mentioned by other noble Lords. I do not wish to dwell too much on this, but I would ask the Minister whether, in principle, the Colonial Office work on the Colonial Office circular despatch of January 20, 1950, which is detailed in | the Colonial Development Corporation Report. This ruling says that the Corporation should be in some degree insulated from the complex and many-sided internal procedures upon which Government policy is founded. It earlier says:
"The first is that the requirements of official administration should not nullify that measure of independent executive responsibility."
We all recognise that the Secretary of State appoints responsible people to manage the affairs of the Colonial Development Corporation. If you do not give that responsibility to the Board, I believe that you place them in an intolerable position, not only so far as business is concerned but so far as their staff, in particular their overseas staff, are concerned; and I hope that the noble Earl when he answers can give us a definite ruling.
The Colonial Development Corporation is going through a difficult time—in fact, it is going to face a severe contraction in areas in which it may work. As we know, the Corporation is not to be permitted to carry out any new work or new project in emerging territories—those territories which obtain self-government. What, in fact, does this mean? In physical terms, it means by October, 1960, a contraction in area from 1,962,000 square miles to 1,446,000 square miles, a reduction of 26 per cent. in area; but in population it means that they will be able to operate only in an

573
area 52 per cent. less than they are operating to-day. It may be said in some parts that the Corporation will be able to concentrate their efforts in a smaller area. This may be so. But it must be faced that the Corporation is going to have to work in an area far more backward than the area in which it works to-day; and this is bound to have a most serious effect upon the type of work the Corporation can undertake.
We have had over the week-end an emergency printing of the Sinclair Report. I do not think that this is an opportunity really to discuss that Report, because I believe that the Report is not in many hands; but noble Lords on this side of the House hope that at a not-too-long-distant date we shall have a full debate on this Report. As we have heard, the Corporation has made a substantial profit this year. It is a profit that has grown. But, as the Sinclair Report says, from the way the Accounts are produced to-day we do not get the true picture. There is the question of the interest charges on the outstanding loans. As we know, the Corporation draws its capital from the Treasury. It was granted a seven-year interest holiday. But we now find that the Corporation will have to pay that interest over a period at the end of the seven years. According to the Sinclair Report, this means that the interest outstanding on January 1, 1959, is in the region of £8,400,000. If you take that into account and also the special losses, you have a figure, I believe, of £15½ million. What opportunity has the Corporation of paying back to the Treasury that large sum of money when to-day it is operating on approximately £56 million?
I believe it is utterly impossible for the Corporation ever to pay back the interest and the special losses, and I hope that the Government, when they study the Sinclair Report, will come to the same conclusions as has the Sinclair Committee—that is, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, that it should become a special "C" Stock. I think that that is a very good suggestion, although perhaps from the accountancy point of view the Corporation would prefer to see the whole amount written off. Whichever way it is done, I think the Government must recognise that it is quite hopeless to expect the Corporation to pay back this very large sum of money. I
574
would ask the Government to consider very carefully the conclusions of the Sinclair Report. As I say, we shall have an opportunity of discussing it, but I hope that by the time we have this debate the Government will have carefully considered the Report and will be able to come to Parliament with definite proposals.
4.31 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF PERTH): My Lords, I think we are all indebted to the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, for bringing this Motion before your Lordships to-day. It is quite true, as the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, pointed out, that we missed a year last year; and it seems to me that we have only just got under the ropes this year, but I am very glad that we have done so. Since the Motion was laid and the Report of the Colonial Development Corporation was published there has, of course, been the Report of the Sinclair Committee. As various of your Lordships have pointed out, that Report is not only of great importance and has a great bearing on the accounts, but is something we have all got to study very carefully; and perhaps, in due course, we may debate our conclusions on it. I will not go into it in any great detail to-day, but I will refer to it from time to time as it helps to illuminate points.
I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Twining, on his maiden speech. Curiously enough, some years ago, I, too, made my maiden speech on the report of the Colonial Development Corporation. But there is this difference between my efforts and his: he spoke in a far lighter vein, and with full knowledge and experience; and he made a contribution which I am sure all your Lordships will recognise as of the greatest value. I look forward to any other speeches on Colonial affairs that the noble Lord may make. I think it is also appropriate, although there has been little time to consider it, for us to thank Lord Sinclair of Cleeve and his other members, Sir Archibald Forbes and Sir Harold Howitt for their report. In particular, I want, on behalf of Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, to say how very much he regrets not being able to be here to-day. He hopes that nobody will

575
think that it is any discourtesy to your Lordships' House. But even before he undertook to produce this Report for us, he asked if he would be allowed to leave for South Africa, where he had a longstanding engagement for July 23; and much as he wanted to try to change it, that just was not possible. I am sure that we all understand, and that we are very grateful for what he and his colleagues have done.
As the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough says, the 1958 Report of the C.D.C. is a memorable one as being the last Report of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, as Chairman. He has had over eight years as Chairman, and during that period there have been great developments in the Corporation and our warm thanks are due to him for all the services that he has given us. When he took over it was a weak child, not three years old. Now he has left it a sturdy youth. But, as the Sinclair Report shows, this youth cannot, as things stand, make his own way in the world without an allowance or subsidy from father. That is something we shall all have to consider in due course; but it is quite clear from the Sinclair Report that that is the case.
We find from the Corporation's Report what important things the Corporation has done during the tenure of office of Lord Reith. As several noble Lords, including Lord Milverton, have pointed out, they are to be found in the synopsis of physical results in paragraph 14 of the Report. I do not think I need go into great detail because it is all set out in paragraph 14, but the Report shows how many things have been covered and what a good spread there has been of the Corporation's work throughout the Colonial territories. In a sense I am not altogether surprised at this outcome, when we think that some £60 million has been spent during the time. But for me this is not indeed the noble Lord, Lord Reith's greatest achievement in his tenure of office. Rather do I find it in the point referred to by several other noble Lords: that success must first depend upon first-class management. To me, as Lord Milverton also pointed out, that is what counts. When we look back on what Lord Reith has done, I would say that it is in building up this first-class management, both at home and in the
576
regions, that his greatest performance lies: and I want to thank him on behalf of the Secretary of State and others for this work.
I am sorry, as others of your Lordships are sorry, that we have in this last Report one that is in some degree a complaining Report. It was "not a happy year," we find. Speaking personally and frankly, I am both sad and surprised at this tenor which runs through the Report, because I personally have tried over the past years to ensure smooth working between the Colonial Office and the Colonial Development Corporation. In particular, your Lordships have referred to the item under paragraph 7, "Relations with Government." It refers to "many irritations," and goes on to say
"…relations with Government departments became such that the Corporation felt frustrated and discouraged…"
Generally through the Report there runs a theme of unnecessary delays, of applications held up, and so forth. The noble Viscount said that it seemed that the Government had been very slow on these things. I therefore thought it was both necessary and appropriate that I should get down to what are the facts over the last year.
The facts are, my Lords, that during the last year there have been 21 applications for capital for new projects or supplementary projects. Of these 21 applications, the answers to 16 have been provided within three weeks, on an average, of the request from the Corporation to the Colonial Office. With the other 5, it is true, there has been delay in answering of over a month. Then we come to the items where they ask for clearance in principle before getting on to Stage 2. Here there have been 57 requests for clearance in principle, and of these no fewer than 49 have been given the answer within a month. Only 8 have taken a longer period.
Noble Lords must remember that the Secretary of State has a very real responsibility to Parliament for the money which is spent by the Corporation. There is also the eagle eye of the Public Accounts Committee and, generally, we have to see that what we are given as a task is carried out. In that I would say that we have had a great deal of help from the Treasury. I certainly would not

577
want to shield behind them and say it is their fault if there have been delays. I do not believe it. I think that, all in all, we have not only done well, but, as the facts I have quoted show, have really acted pretty quickly in the requests, bearing in mind that so much money and important questions are involved.
There are, in fact, only two cases of special difficulty. These are mentioned again and again in the Report. They are Lake Kariba and the Nigerian Development Corporation. In both cases there were very difficult issues raised. I do not think I will bother your Lordships with the considerations that did arise, but in both cases, happily, we have been able to give the answer the Corporation wanted. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, asked whether I can confirm that we are carrying out the procedure which is laid down in the 1950 Circular, as to
"the need to insulate the Corporation from the complex and many-sided internal procedures upon which Government policy is founded."
My answer to that is: Yes, and the Corporation does work entirely through or with the Colonial Office. So much for the facts.
I am also the more distressed at the criticism that runs through this Report when I remember that about the summer of last year I suggested to Lord Reith that we should revive a procedure which had been carried out in the early days and then dropped—namely, that if there were any difficult questions, questions of friction, the best method would be to have what we called "summit meetings", meetings between the Chairman of the Corporation, one of the Ministers at the Colonial Office and a Minister of the Treasury to see whether we could not smooth them out. That was a suggestion which lay on the table for the last six months of last year and was not availed of. Instead, we found what was in this Report. Since that time it has been availed of, and we have had some meetings; and I think I am safe in saying that everything is now going smoothly and there are no causes of complaint on one side or the other. So much for the facts on the delays in regard to applications.
In the Report, however, we find with them a possible other cause for the irritations, for the dismay—namely, in the
578
words of the Report, "no capital reconstruction". I believe that this is really the heart of the matter. I believe that this is why the Corporation has been distressed. Your Lordships will remember that Parliament gave the Corporation the task to break even, one year with another, and to pay interest and repay capital. It is clear from the Sinclair Report that that has become an intolerable burden, and I think that if we look in the Report we shall see it says that that burden has so far been sensed rather than felt or shown clearly by the accounts. I think we are really beginning to get down to what is the heart of the matter.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I feel that we must say from the Opposition Benches that we have pointed out the general sense of this lack of being able to get on for the last three or four years. We have referred to it almost every year.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, that may be, but the effect of the present instruction which Parliament gave to the Corporation—an instruction originally laid down by the Labour Party when they were in office, and which we have been trying to operate—has, I think, only recently become completely clear, and has been sensed, rather than made clear in the Accounts until now. But what do we find? We find in the Sinclair Report that this trend—that is, an increasing annual cash deficit—
"indicates the hopelessness of the outlook as regards repayment of the outstanding debt within the terms of repayment attaching to the loans from Her Majesty's Government";
and again, that
"a point will ultimately be reached when there will be no prospect of its"—
that is the Corporation's—
"being able to discharge its obligations."
What has the Corporation been doing? The Corporation has sensed this and suggested palliatives to try to meet the point.
It is suggested we should have lower interest rates for the Corporation. But I must say to your Lordships that, if the Corporation should have lower interest rates, let us be quite clear what we should be doing. We should be subsidising the Corporation in a way that no other national institution has been subsidised in respect of any loan. I

579
think it is much better that, instead of giving a subsidy of a disguised kind—and that is what it would amount to—one should come out into the open and put it in another form.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I doubt whether the argument of the noble Earl would stand up. If we consider the loan, the very large loan, of £50 million to a private steel firm in this country to be on the best borrowing rates of the Government at any time, and compare that with the statement which has just been made, I do not think the argument stands up.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I would assure your Lordships that the terms on which the Corporation borrows are exactly similar; that is to say, the best terms the Government could give, whatever may be the going rate. Again, in regard to palliatives, the suggestion has been made that interest should be waived or losses written off. The noble Lord, Lord Winster, made a very interesting speech on this question of losses and their being written off. I do not want to follow him on that, for this reason. This is only one factor in the problem with which we are faced—namely, of the Corporation being given the task of trying to break even one year with another, and it comes clearly from the Sinclair Report that this just is not being done. Among the various palliatives, there is a suggestion that the Corporation should in some way work in with the Colonial Development and Welfare Funds—funds which are, of course, grants; but if they did work in with them, that would again mean a form of hidden subsidy.
Lastly, another palliative which has been suggested is that of finance house loans on a large scale. I should like to clear up what I think is a misunderstanding in the use of the words "finance house", in inverted commas as it appears, I think, in the Report. It is a term of art which is used to describe those loans which were not in the normal course loans to promote a particular venture but rather a fixed-interest loan which was devised as a way of trying to show improved earnings for the Corporation. I do not want your Lordships to think there was anything wrong in that,
580
but I recall that noble Lords opposite, or certainly honourable Members in another place, were the first to say: "This is getting out of balance. This is not the purpose for which the Corporation was wanted," and that the number
should be very much less. Over the last few years that course has been followed. So I feel, although there are these various palliatives, we cannot agree to them or would wish to check them. That, I think, is the basic reason why we have found in the Report of the Colonial Development Corporation this year so much mention of irritations and so on. But, as I say, the Sinclair Report has done us all a very great service in that it has brought out very clearly for the first time what is the Corporation's true position—and, after all, that is the first step towards being able to get things right. If we know what are the facts then we can get at the solutions. I am not going—and I am sure none of your Lordships would expect me to to-day—to tell you what is going to be done. After all, I saw the Report for the first time on Friday, and we have had no chance to consult among ourselves or with anybody else.
I would now for a moment turn to the Corporation's Report for 1958 and look at one or two things. I will not go into great detail, but I think it is important to look at the profit for the year, to which so many noble Lords have referred. They have referred to the profit in relation to 1957. I would just make these two observations. In 1957 there was not what I think one might justly call a "windfall", in the shape of a profit on realisation of land investments of some £380,000. Furthermore, in the 1957 Report there was written off before the result was shown some £400,000 which was not done this year. I am not saying that it should have been done, but it was written off on that occasion, and so comparison is difficult. This year, when there was a very big write-off, that was written off in the Special Losses Account.
I think I should make this one other comment on the results of the year. As, again, the Sinclair Report shows, the Corporation will continue to show a surplus on profit and loss account, but only by excluding the accumulating liability for interest, postponed during the so-called fructification period. As the noble

581
Lord, Lord Shepherd, pointed out, this figure is to-day around £8 million. In this one year alone, the obligation here has risen either by £1,400,000 or by £1,800,000, depending on what rate of interest, compound or simple, may be charged. And, of course, this problem gets worse. If you again look at the Report, for the coming years you will find that, on the figures—which must necessarily be tentative and are a conjecture—this fructification of interest will accumulate to some £18 million before not very long. That is one more case where we shall have to think very seriously as to what is to be done.
Turning to other things, I would agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, that it is a welcome thing to find an American partner in one of the schemes. He says he hopes a Canadian partner will take part, too. I think I can say that; the Corporation will be only too happy if a Canadian partner can be found who is ready to do it. I am sure I am speaking for them when I say that they are very ready to go into partnership with any reliable people, wherever they may come from, who can help them in their task of developing the Colonies.
I personally have had the good fortune to visit two of the Corporation's ventures this year during my travels. I saw the tea plantation in Tanganyika which is being operated in conjunction with Bird and Company. That is a very remarkable venture, and I feel confident that it will have success. But what perhaps will interest your Lordships more than whether or not it is a success on its own is the fact that it is planned to work in at the same time with a large growing of tea by the local peasants: that is to say, there is the main area which is run by the company, but the factory which has been set up is large enough also to take growings from local peasants who are being taught how to grow tea. I think that that is the best kind of development you can have, bringing the local native inhabitants into the work. The other project which I visited was that of the Kilembe Mine in Uganda. That is a very exciting project. One day it may prove to be a great copper mine. It is showing a profit at the present time. It is situated in a most romantic place. I had forgotten that that is a venture with the Canadians—Frobisher, I think it is
582
—and that project is something which may well one day prove of great value to Uganda.
Now the question was raised in the Report about the emergent territories. Part of paragraph 13 reads:
"CDC regrets that the restrictions imposed upon its future activities in these areas will deny them full use of its unique facilities and managerial experience at the critical transitional stage in their development."
My Lords, I do not quite understand that, because it was specifically announced some little while ago in Parliament—I think at the time we were discussing the Overseas Resources Development Act, and the increase in capital under it—that the Corporation was to be allowed to operate in the emergent territories if the Governments of those territories wished to use their managerial skill in one capacity or another.
LORD SHEPHERD: But the noble Earl will agree that there was no question of the Corporation putting fresh capital into the territory.
THE EARL OF PERTH: That is quite true; no fresh capital for new developments, but they can carry on with some of the old ones. But I am reading what it says in paragraph 13 of the report:
"…the restrictions imposed upon its future activities in these areas will deny them full use of its unique facilities and managerial experience.…"
I do not quite understand that in relation to what is in fact allowed to them at the present time.
My Lords, I have referred to the Sinclair Report earlier in my speech, but probably it is appropriate for me to make one or two preliminary—and I would stress the word, preliminary—comments on it. I would not wish to go into any detail on the scheme—as to whether it should be "B" stock or "C" stock or "A" stock. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, asked me whether the Report meant that the overall earnings would have to be paid into the "B" stock. I am afraid I have not the certain answer, but I am practically sure the answer would be, "Yes", if that scheme was to be followed. Again, I should like to say how grateful we are to the Committee for their work. Anything which has to do with figures and capital set-up is always a tricky job; and the first thought that came to me was how skilful

583
the Committee have been in setting out clearly the state of affairs; the problems, and the possible solutions of them.
The first and most important finding is that, on the basis of the present structure of operations, the Corporation cannot hope fully to meet its obligations in the longer term, with the present system of financing by means of fixed interest advances from the Government. It also shows that a number of commercial ventures which the Corporation has undertaken give the prospect of
only a very low rate of return on the capital invested. On that point, the noble Lord, Lord Twining, raised the question whether Parliament's: intentions had been fulfilled: and, of course, it is a very difficult matter.
On the detailed recommendations I am not going to comment. There are clearly many ways of dealing with the question, and we have in mind consultation not only with the Treasury but also with the Colonial Development Corporation itself, and very probably—and I think most naturally—with the members of the Committee, who have such a wealth of experience on these matters and who have given so much time to the affairs of the Corporation. But of one thing I am quite certain, and that is that the Corporation's position, its earnings or its losses each year, should be crystal clear in any subsequent set-up and capital reconstruction. Further, it is, I think, essential, as public funds are being invested, that we should have the right balance between the various activities of the Corporation, and that investments of a risk-bearing kind should be on the most appropriate basis.
My Lords, the task of the Corporation is a formidable one. It has to undertake itself, or contribute to, Colonial development in addition to that carried out by the Governments or private concerns is the Colonial territories. It has invested to this end in a great number of Colonies, over one half of the total, ranging from Tristan da Cunha to Nigeria, and it has undertaken many types of activity. The value of additional development of this kind to the well-being of the Colonies was recognised in the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1958, when the Corporation's capital was increased to £150 million; and I want to leave the House in no
584
doubt of the importance which the Government continues to attach to the improvement of the economic and social life in Colonial territories, which the Colonial Development Corporation has been, and is, assisting in a number of ways.
4.58 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, first may I again thank the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate which I initiated this afternoon for the very helpful way in which they have participated. I should like to share with the noble Earl the pleasure of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Twining, on his maiden speech this afternoon. I wish he were here, but he has left. Nevertheless, he will be able to read to-morrow that we congratulate him upon it.
I do not wish to add in any way to the length of the discussion that we have already had on this subject. I was not very impressed by the noble Earl's answer to the criticisms contained in the Report itself. Some of the statements that he made to us I thought savoured very much of the Civil Service answer; and I should like to have another look at it before I form a final judgment upon whether the criticism in the Report was justified or not. Certainly I join in the last wish that the noble Earl has expressed. I hope and pray that the work of the Colonial Development Corporation will be allowed to go on smoothly and without handicap, and that it will have such beneficial results that it will be a consolidating factor, not only in the life of the Commonwealth but also in the economic progress of the whole world with which the Commonwealth deals. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
WAGES COUNCILS BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
MENTAL HEALTH BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.

ADVISORY COMMISSION ON CENTRAL AFRICAN FEDERATION
5.1 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH rose to draw attention to the proposals of Her Majesty's Government for an Advisory Commission on the Federal Constitution of Rhodesia and Nyasaland as reported to Parliament on July 21, 1959; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. We are to consider to-night the proposals of the Government with regard to the appointment of a Commission to inquire into and report on the situation with regard to Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia and the Central African Federation. The proposed terms of reference, which were contained in a statement made by the noble Earl, Lord Home, in your Lordships' House, on July 21, were [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 218 (No. 104), col. 310):
"In the light of the information provided by the Committee of Officials and of any additional information the Commission may require, to advise the five Governments in preparation for the 1960 Review, on the constitutional programme and framework best suited to the achievement of the objects contained in the Constitution of 1953, including the preamble."
The words at the end of the terms of reference, "including the preamble", are vastly important because of the commitments which lie on Her Majesty's Government for the remaining Protectorates in this Federation, which must be carefully considered before any final steps are taken in the review which may take place in 1960 or in the later part of the period laid down in the original Act.
Since the Government announced the setting up of this Commission, other things have transpired. It is difficult for those of us who have read the Devlin Commission's Report to keep the information we have gained from that Report entirely out of our minds when discussing purely the issue of this Commission. I want to do so, so far as possible, because we are coming to debate the
586
Devlin Report on a Government Motion which has already appeared on the Order Paper, but the story that has been unfolded to us of the position in Nyasaland, and to some extent also in Northern Rhodesia, and its general implications with regard to the Federation, can hardly be absent from our minds altogether when discussing the question of this Commission.
I would, first of all, ask a question of the noble Earl. If there is; to be a Commission, is this the right type of Commission? The noble Earl will remember that on July 21 I said that it was not the kind of inquiry the Opposition would have liked. But much of the fact-finding work of the type of Commission we
should have preferred may have been covered by the Devlin Commission. Having
regard to the knowledge which is open to us now in the Devlin Report and to what is left to be done in the matter, is this the right type of Commission now? I do not know whether on July 21 the Government had had time to consider in any sense at all the Devlin Report. Its printing date is July 16 and the statement made about this Commission in both Houses was made on July 21. I should hardly think it likely that Her Majesty's Ministers would make a pronouncement with regard to this Commission without any reference at all to having read the Report of the Devlin Commission.
In the light of the general situation as we have it revealed to us in that Commission's Report, is this the type of Commission we want? What is left for it to do? The real object was stated in the terms of reference as advising the five Governments "in preparation for the 1960 Review". I should have thought that a large part of the political history and facts needed for that inquiry are embodied in the Devlin Report. What else remains to be done? A review of the kind foreshadowed by the Statute for 1960 is a matter of conference between the five Governments. As I read it, that was what I have always thought would happen. I thought that in the light of the experience of the Federation since 1953, of the general state of development, political, economic and social, and of the possibilities for the future, the conference would make some review plan for the future of the Federation.
I hope that it will be completely understood, in what I say on this question, that we are not against the principle of federation—not at all. No one who has made any study, even a passing study, of the situation can afford to overlook the economic factors between the three States and what can be accomplished by their working together cooperatively. I think that that is likely to be of special value to Nyasaland. On the other hand, we made it perfectly plain that whilst, as a Government, in 1950 and 1951 we were considering most sympathetically the question of federation, when it became clear in 1951 and 1952 that a large portion of African opinion was dead against it, we urged the Government in 1952 that it would be wiser not to proceed with the proposal until there had been much more consultation with the African population to try to get a better start to any Federation than was possible then. That was our position, and it is our position now.
In the light of all that, is this type of Commission really what is wanted? Look at the proposed size of the Commission—twenty-six members and an independent chairman; thirteen of the members to be proposed by the Federal Government and by the constituent Governments. It seems to me that at an inquiry said to be preparatory to the conference in 1960, the representatives of the Governments ought not to be members of the Commission, but witnesses to be examined by the Commission. Those are the people who ought to be under examination, to get the real basic situation of policy in their minds to be considered by the Commission and the inquiry, if there is to be one.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, just in case there should be any misunderstanding, may I point out that the individuals will not be parliamentarians or officials of the Governments; they will be individuals.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: I take the point at once; but there is no doubt as to who is appointing them. I have put my position, and I do not think it is altered at all by the intervention of the noble Earl, at which I do not take any offence
588
at all. The position is, therefore, in our view, that such a Commission is not suitable for the task which is before it. If you read the terms of reference care fully, and take into account that it includes the question of the preamble, then it seems to me that it may well be expected, because of its constitution now, to be doing the real work of the governmental conference which under Statute must be held in 1960 or later. This is not a preparatory Commission. This is something which is supposed to prepare practically the basis of any changed Constitution of the Federation for the future. That is an entirely different thing.
Then I would ask this. Is such a Commission advisable at the present time, in view of the circumstances of the last five months? I was very much struck by one phrase used in the reply of the Secretary of State, Mr. Lennox-Boyd, in another place to the debate held last week on this very matter. He had been dealing with the attitude of the Africans to federation, and he said that it all arose from fear—and he went on to say something about the Africans and fear. Of course, fear is the most disturbing of all emotions. But fear is not confined in this matter of politics in Central Africa to the Africans; the fear is also to be found in the other side. Apparently the great attempt on the part of the European section is so to arrange things for the future that they will never be in any subservient position in an African State. That is how I read their attitude. When you come to consider the actual, basic population facts and the political rights facts of the present situation, and if that is the attitude of the European population—fear of what their future may be—you can understand the genuine fears of the Africans. Those fears have been seen in the last few months to be widespread, not only in Nyasaland itself but also in some parts of the native population of Northern Rhodesia; and there is the fact also that in Southern Rhodesia action had to be taken in regard to the population there. This is widespread evidence of the fear.
What has led to the development of this fear? We say that in 1952 the fear of the Africans was known. They feared that if they went into a Federation their own political progress to independence

589
would be checked and delayed and possibly never fully achieved. Some of them feared that their possession of land would be endangered. They feared that if they went into federation in their present political circumstances, with lack of voting power and representation, they would gradually become in the same position as they claim the Africans in Southern Rhodesia are—Regarded completely and definitely as being of a lower social strata in the future of that State. That is what they feared; and, for all those reasons, they had a very genuine fear. If you look at the figures given in another place (I do not need to go into them in detail) you find that there are 70,000 Europeans in Northern Rhodesia compared to 2¼ million Africans, and in Nyasaland little more than 8,000 Europeans compared to 2¾ million Africans. When you see the complete paucity of the political rights and representation of those Africans, then it seems to me that their fear of what was going on was not without foundation.
In the light of what has been happening in these most regrettable events of the last few months, is this the moment to proceed with the appointment of this Commission on this very doubtful basis and with the sort of function which we think is not right at the present time? It seems to be very doubtful indeed. I hope that it may be possible, when we discuss the Devlin Commission's Report on Wednesday, to go into more detail about that aspect. But I myself am persuaded that it would be an exceedingly good thing if the Government thought again about this Commission: whether they have the right composition; whether they have the right terms of reference; whether this is the right time to do it; and above all, from a general, political and human point of view, whether it would be at all politic to send such a Commission out there at the present time, or within months to come, until there have been changes in the Constitution out there.
You cannot hide from yourself the fact that Dr. Banda is still in durance vile. But if anybody has read, as I hope most of your Lordships have, the Devlin Report from cover to cover, there can be no doubt—at least, there is no doubt in my mind—that Dr. Banda ought to be free already, and that the time is overdue for him to be free. There are many
590
questions that will have to be raised on the Devlin Commission's Report, but in such circumstances I am bound to ask: is this the time to go on with a Commission of this type? The noble Earl the Leader of the House may well say: "What the Leader of the Opposition is arguing is that all this should be put off indefinitely." But I am not doing that. I am trying to bring home to your Lordships' House the fact that you will never get rid of the Africans' fear, nor will you remove any of the grounds for their doubt and suspicion, unless political advancement is given to the African in Nyasaland and in Northern Rhodesia before you proceed to consolidate the Federation.
Their fears have been increased by what has been revealed to us in the last few days. We did not know all the details: the promises made to the delegation from Nyasaland which saw the Secretary of State for the Colonies in June of last year. He was unable at the time to make any final answer to them, but said that a statement would be made by the Governor on his return to Nyasaland from leave the following August, when he would be able to tell them what was going to be done. And what happened? Nothing was done—nothing at all. Not the slightest promise; not the slightest endeavour to show that some political advancement would be permitted to the Nyasas. How do you expect to overcome their fear? How do you expect them ever to accept the finding of a Commission like this, in which they have neither part nor lot on a regular basis of human rights and human representation? That is the situation.
I could make a very much longer speech if I wished. But I think I have said enough to open the debate on this particular issue. We shall have a lot more to say about it on Wednesday, but I do beg the Government to think again. I suggest that they have a great margin of time left to them for reconsideration of the fulfilment of the Statute. Some of the natives cannot understand why the Government should have rushed, at the earliest possible date under the Statute, to have this review of the Federal issue before political advancement is given to Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. Under the Statute, the Government have until the end of 1962, if they so desire, to have the Federal Review.

591
They might change the whole atmosphere of the native future:, and the possible future of Central Africa, if they would now get about the business of seeing that the Africans have a greater amount of political advancement within the next twelve to eighteen months and can be represented on a proper basis in the ultimate process of looking to the review under the Statute. I do beg the Government to consider the question from that point of view, and I shall welcome it very much this evening if the noble Earl, with all his intimate knowledge of this matter as Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, could say that this matter is worthy of reconsideration, and that there should be no dubiety in the mind of the African as to what are his chances of being met on the road to real and immediate progress and towards being treated as a human being with equal status and equal rights.
5.23 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, the noble Viscount who has just addressed the House has pointed cut the difficulties—perhaps I should say the temptations—in straying over the narrow path which the Motion places before us, and going into more wide aspects of all the difficulties in Central Africa. In fact, if I may say so in a very good-natured way to the noble Viscount, I think perhaps he was not entirely innocent of straying into the pros and cons of Central African federation. I hope that I shall not be tempted to stray too much from the narrow Motion, and that noble Lords following me will agree that we are dealing only with the proposals of Her Majesty's Government.
The details have been gone into considerably by the noble Viscount, and we shall hear more of them, so I propose to be very brief and address myself only to one general observation, subject to one or two minor points. First of all, the Labour Party are disappointed that this is not a Parliamentary inquiry. I go halfway with them. I am not quite sure that the present set-up is as good as it might be, but I am not entirely satisfied that a Parliamentary inquiry is the only answer. My second criticism is that it is unclear from the words of this Paper whether the minority of the coloured representatives will really have a fair say, and how they are to be
592
chosen. I put that point rather crudely because it is a broad and pertinent straight question in the formation of this Commission. Thirdly, I would ask: does the set-up really allow for the renunciation of federation if this Commission should come to such a conclusion as that renunciation was perhaps in the end desirable?
Apart from those points, I should like to give a much more general one, and that is the vertical axis off political thought in the free world, particularly in the world of the emergent nations, though not, of course, of those nations behind the Iron Curtain. This vertical axis is, quite obviously, always moving slightly to the Left. I suggest that Her Majesty's present Government, being a Conservative Government, are quite naturally not placed on the Left of that axis, but are certainly placed slightly to the Right. The Paper refers to the five countries who are going to be a party to this arrangement; and we start, of course, with Great Britain, with its Conservative Government. I need hardly remind your Lordships that any Government, whether it be Conservative or Labour (I will not go further than that), must realise that even in this country it does not command the majority of the votes of the people. We know that at the last General Election more people voted against the Conservative Party than for them; yet they are in power. And the reverse may happen. The Government, of course, as they well know, are responsible for the views of those who do not always subscribe to their political programme
Of those five countries, first comes Great Britain, with its enormous influence; and she is well represented on this Commission. Second in importance, I take it, is the Federation; and nobody listening to, or reading, the remarks of those in charge of the Federation of Central Africa would think they are at the Left of the axis of political opinion. Thirdly, we come to Southern Rhodesia; and I think, from what we know of them and the things that have been said, even if your Lordships read speeches in support of the Southern Rhodesian aspect of affairs in this House, you will find they are well to the Right in this vertical axis. Therefore we rely on the two junior partners, the Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland Protectorates,

593
who look to this country for their welfare, who are in a very minor position. I wonder whether, in the set-up of this Commission, with its rather large number of people taking part (all appointed, I am quite sure, with complete integrity and with no will in the world to weight the thing one way or the other) the two smaller countries of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland are really given a fair share.
I will say no more, except to ask Her Majesty's Government to remember their grave responsibilities to those who stand to the Left of this vertical political axis as well as to the Right, and perhaps to look into this matter again to see whether they cannot appease some of the unease that I think is felt in this country, that the Commission, as at present proposed, does not basically engender all the confidence we should like.
5.28 p.m.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I think I can best respond to the thoughtful speech of the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition by describing in quite unequivocal terms the objects of the United Kingdom Colonial policy in that part of Africa which is known as the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. First, it is to create a multi-racial society in which the three races who claim to live there as of right—namely, the African, the European and the Asian—should be able to do so in complete confidence in each other, and in complete security as equal partners. Secondly, if one takes the political structure of the whole, that there should be three self-
governing units, within a whole. We believe that socially, economically and politically there are advantages that they should co-operate in federation and, at the proper time—and I emphasise the words, "at the proper time"—should become eligible for full membership of the Commonwealth.
The noble Viscount says he trusts that our view is that before federation is consolidated there will be a substantial political advancement in Nyasaland and Rhodesia. If by that he means before there is full independence for the Federation, then we are on common ground, because it is our desire to see a substantial political advancement in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. To that
594
conception of independence for the Federation I will return in a moment. As the noble Viscount indicated, I do not think there is any quarrel about the conception of federation itself. I do not see how there could be. We have federal systems in the Commonwealth, and they are quite consistent with our evolution within the Commonwealth from a Colonial Empire to a family of free and independent countries with full Commonwealth status. But where the difference has emerged is not in the difference of principle but in the method of advance, or what was feared was likely to be the method of advance, towards Federation. These fears exist to some extent among the Africans, and I think it is clear that there is apprehension among the Opposition in both Houses of Parliament here.
For the purposes of our debate I think it is well to remind ourselves that there are two hard and fast elements, and it is well to start with them and be realistic. There is a Federation in Central Africa which has in fact been working for six years and has a lot to its credit. Secondly, Parliament is charged with a review to start in 1960 or, at most, two years later; that is the maximum amount of time that was visualised in the Act. So this is not virgin ground on which we stand to-day, and this is not a new problem which Parliament is debating. Whether you like it or not, there is a great social and political experiment in this part of Africa which is already under way, and if there were to be a fundamental change in the conception—and on the one hand amalgamation has been advocated, and on the other secession of one of the units—then any change of that magnitude would mean that a great deal had to be undone, with the widest implications and consequences for the peoples of all races in that part of Africa, and very probably, in my view, the end of the multi-racial hopes for that part of that continent.
In 1960 the whole Constitution comes under review, and the question which the noble Viscount and his colleagues have raised in their Motion to-day is what should the preparations for 1960 be, in particular in the light of the misgivings that have been raised in Africa, and what should Parliament do. I take it there will be no difference of opinion that what we want to do is to re-create

595
confidence between the races and confidence that partnership can be demonstrated to be real. On the broad objective, too, between now and 1960 I believe we can probably concur. That is that we should try to facilitate, here in this country and there in Africa, an understanding of the meaning and the purpose of federation, and secondly, in the words of the Prime Minister in another place, that we should try to creat a "common mind", the greatest area of common consent, on the next stage of constitutional advance for these territories. I have been in all these: territories, and in the Federation, several times in the last few years; and from my contacts there and my experience here I can say without doubt that there is very little understanding, and there has never been that cool and balanced appraisal of the purposes of the Federation which is essential if policies are to be firmly based. But what do I conclude? That there has been plenty of emotion, plenty of prejudice, plenty of propaganda and not
enough knowledge. That is one of the reasons, indeed, why I believe that between now and 1960 we must have some commission and preparatory machinery.
I am going to give the noble Viscount, if I may, three illustrations, because they were brought to my mind by his speech, of the need for this education and knowledge; and in particular I am going to draw the illustrations from the context of African fears; I remember that they were mentioned by the most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of York when he was last speaking in this Chamber on this subject: he said there was no doubt that the fears were there, and he asked whether some way could be found of removing them. The three illustrations I wish to give to the noble Viscount are these. He talked of the African's land, the fear of the Africans that by some means the Federal Government or the Southern Rhodesian Government would, as the result of federation, grab their land. Your Lordships know, I believe, that to an African his land is everything. It is impossible under the Constitution that the Federal Government could grab the Africans' land, and nobody would ever suggest it now or in any future review. Perhaps it is no use Sir Roy Welensky saying that,
596
or the noble Viscount or indeed me, because we are thought to have rigid positions in this matter; but an impartial and objective body could say so and might very well carry conviction and remove that fear.
Let me take another example. There is the fear of the African that the powers, when they are shed by the United Kingdom in respect of the two Northern Territories, would be assumed by Salisbury (and therefore the word "domination" is in common currency in Nyasaland), and that the units would be dominated by
the centre. We hear that fear time and again. But that is not the conception. The conception is that as power is transferred from the United Kingdom in respect of the two Northern Territories it will be transferred not to the Federal Government but to the Governments of the two Northern Territories, which will progressively become more and more representative of Africans until they have African majorities.
The third illustration I would give arises from the fear that British protection would be prematurely withdrawn. Sir Roy Welensky has made it clear beyond doubt—and he has repeated it in the last few weeks—that protection by the United Kingdom Government for the two Territories of the North will continue as long as the people want it and as long as the United Kingdom consider it to be necessary. On this aspect of the constitutional structure in the Federation some very clear thinking and analysis has to be done, because I think it can be shown that in this question of the powers which are to be exercised, and this question of British protection, the fears of the African have no basis.
I will put it in this way. There are two types of independence so far as the Federal Government is concerned. There is independence for the Federal Government within the sphere of those subjects which are allocated to it by the Constitution. That is one thing. And the Federal Government practically enjoys that independence already. The only other substantial power that might be given to the Federal Government would be to be represented, in its own right, in foreign capitals, for what that is worth. That is one type of independence, the independence within those subjects allocated by the Constitution.

597
Then there is another type of independence, the one of which the noble Viscount has spoken and which the Africans have in their minds—namely, independence for the whole Federation. Independence for the Federation within its own sphere of government may be much nearer. Independence for the whole Federation within the Commonwealth, is obviously further off, because that immediately brings into play as the noble Viscount will have noticed, the terms of the preamble and the consent of the peoples concerned. So it is clear to me, and I think it will be clear to your Lordships, that both here and in Africa there are the most widespread misconceptions, and that the process of public education is essential to enable people to have confidence in the action of Governments when the time for the review comes in 1960.
If only these three fears could be removed by an impartial Commission, the whole relationship between Africans and Europeans might be changed, and the whole Federal scene might be altered. So I conclude that we should send a Commission. When the noble Viscount says to me that the Devlin Report has shown that there are universal fears of federation in Nyasaland, and particularly on these subjects which I have mentioned, then I conclude that it is all the more necessary to send a Commission which is comprehensive and, so far as we can make it, objective.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I am not quite sure what the noble Earl is saying. As regards that fear being removed, the real position is that, after six years of federal experiment, no progress at all has been made in the political advancement of the Nyasaland population—none at all. They have no confidence and no faith at all. How long is it going to be before they are in a position to have a representative voice for themselves, of their own equal status and humanity, all-in on their part? They are getting nothing in that direction at all. If we could have some assurance on that point then we should be getting somewhere.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, the Colonial Secretary could have gone ahead with considerable constitutional advances had it not been for the most unlucky intervention of the riots and the
598
troubles. Again in another place the other day he announced certain advances. But I have said without doubt (I do not think there is any difference between us) that our idea is that there should be the most substantial political advance. A good start has already taken place in Northern Rhodesia. I do not want to make this in any sense a Party speech—I am appealing for a bipartisan approach to these matters if we can get it. But I must point out that if records are to be compared there was not a single protected person in the two Northern Territories with even a vote when the noble Viscount and his friends were in command of the Government of this country. Now there are twelve Africans in the Federal Assembly; there are eight elected Africans out of twenty-two elected members in the Northern Rhodesian Assembly, and two Ministers there. Indeed, the same kind of political advance will be open to Nyasaland when things settle down.
I am not going to describe again to the House the form of the Commission to which the noble Lord, Lord Rea, referred when he asked some particular questions about African representation, to which I shall come. But I shall bring to the notice of the House two significant characteristics of it. The noble Viscount and his colleagues would like a Parliamentary Commission. Well, within this Commission the only Parliamentary element is the United Kingdom Parliamentary element, and so the authority and influence of the United Kingdom are recognised. We hope to get two or three people of independent, objective outlook from the United Kingdom, and two or three from the Commonwealth.
But it is said that there are too few Africans on the Commission, and that five out of twenty-six is too little. I really think that the right comparison, if comparisons are to be made, is between five Africans from the Federation and eight Europeans. It is a difficult balance to achieve, and difficult to get this absolutely fair and right in terms of life in the Federation at the present time. It is perfectly true that the Africans have the numbers. But let us remember, too, that the Europeans are responsible for the wealth of the country, and that at the present time all the development is in European hands and indeed the future

599
prosperity of the country depends upon them. It also depends on the Africans and Europeans working together, because each is indispensable to the other.
I would say that, taking the country as a whole, it would be difficult to find a Commission which was more representative and more fair. I was indeed glad that the noble Viscount did not reject the Commission out of hand, because I hope that he will be willing to consider the replies that I make to his criticisms. Would a United Kingdom Commission, drawn only from the United Kingdom Parliament, be better, with no one from the Federation at all? The noble Viscount says that the Government are going to select the members Who else could do it? But should it be a United Kingdom Parliamentary delegation only?
I want to ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues, what they would say to the people of the three territories when they come and say this, "These matters concern our daily lives and our existence, and we believe that Europeans and Africans, sitting round a table together, could help to dispel the fears and to create a common mind. We do not ask for Parliamentary representation; the United Kingdom Parliament has the supreme position, and therefore it is quite right that you should have a Parliamentary element. We do not want that; but we do want fair-minded, sensible people to help you to understand and to help the Commission to understand, round the table, the facts of life in Africa." How do you reject that plea? Could there be a more reasonable view? The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will remember the Round Table Commission, the Simon Commission on India—
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: So do I!
THE EARL OF HOME: And the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, with his acute, long, almost Irish memory, will certainly remember it, too. But I seem to remember also the strong plea of the Indians to be associated with it. That plea was rejected, and as a result a good deal of trouble was caused which might easily have been avoided.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, would the noble Earl forgive me for
600
interrupting his most interesting and powerful speech? I was going to make an intervention solely for the purpose of making what I hope to be a moderate contribution. But in regard to the Indian Round Table Conference, what the noble Earl has forgotten is that the mistake made by Mr. Baldwin was to appoint an all-British Commission, and that the situation was saved by our introducing a Congress element.
THE EARL OF HOME: But is that not what I am saying? I am saying that this Commission should not be entirely all-British, and that we should have both a European and an African element. I am not quite sure whether the noble Viscount had better not tear up his notes and make up another speech, otherwise I am afraid that he might find himself agreeing with me—and he has never done that before. Therefore, the Government have thought that, although a United Kingdom Parliamentary delegation is always a most useful thing, in this case it would be too narrow, and that we should go for something more ambitious, more creative and more constructive, to try to arrive at a common mind.
I am glad that we have heard no more to-day of Africans not being of the right type and not gaining the respect and confidence of their own people. I have myself met dozens of Africans in this part of Africa, and I find it very difficult to be patient, listening to that kind of argument, because many of them are fitted by every qualification of mind and judgment for public service of this kind. The noble Viscount certainly did not make this kind of suggestion, but it has been made before. Certainly we shall find Africans who can command, confidence——
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: I do hope that you may, by a little private persuasion of Sir Roy Welensky, do something for the African Minister now in the Federal Government who has to leave the European section of Salisbury because he cannot, by law, live with his wife and family there—a Minister of the Crown in the Federal Government.
THE EARL OF HOME: That is a quite irrelevant interjection at this time. The idea of this Commission is that we should

601
not invite to sit on it people who are committed. The Commission can hear all views of anybody in the Federation. The members should therefore be people who would take a balanced and objective point of view. I can give an assurance for Sir Roy Welensky and Sir Edgar Whitehead that they, too, have it in mind to appoint fair-minded people to this Commission who will make a real contribution to it. But the noble Viscount criticised this as pre-judging 1960. I do not think that, on reflection, he will think it is a very valid criticism. Governments are entitled to seek advice. Advice does not commit but it is often a useful and welcome guide.
Lastly, the terms of reference. They have been drafted, as the noble Viscount will see, so that the Commission can collect all the information it wants. He said something to the effect that, after Devlin what else was there to say, and what information to find? Well, my Lords, he may remember that a C.P.A. delegation went out to the Rhodesias not long ago and came to the conclusion that the case for federation on the economic side was overwhelming. The future of this part of Africa is going to lie in this, as Africans know. We are talking in terms of safeguarding the rights of Africans; in no time we shall be talking of safeguarding the rights of Europeans and Asians. Therefore there is a great field to be explored by a Commission of this kind. For instance, what kind of machinery should be set up to safeguard the rights of races and minorities in a truly multi-racial community? We have drafted the terms of reference so that all information will be available to the Commission—information collected by officials or any additional information they may need to get on the spot. We have put the terms of reference in the framework of the existing Constitution, and again I believe that, on reflection, that will be seen to be right; because if there are questions of a very fundamental kind, which in fact would alter the Federation out of recognition, they must surely be reserved for the 1960 Review.
Naturally in a problem so complex as this there must be different ideas as to how the approaches to 1960 can best be handled. That is what we are discussing today. There are two broad objectives:
602
first, how to enable the people here and in Africa to understand all the issues at stake in the Federation and in Africa; secondly, to create, both in the United Kingdom and Africa, the widest area of common consent on the nature of the road ahead. The Devlin Report makes it more urgent that this should be judged by fair and impartial people.
I should like to tell the noble Viscount that I have no thought whatever, and neither have the Government, of political advantage. As for the design of the Commission, I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Rea, who was talking about the political poles and the political bias of different Parties, that the Commission has only three Conservatives out of twenty-six. That is the most it can have. We have designed it sincerely with the desire that this House and another place should get guidance before the 1960 Review on the best way to achieve what I believe is our main desire, a multi-racial society in Africa. I beg the noble Viscount and his friends not to be precipitate and not to turn down this idea out of hand. There is at stake here the future of race relations in a continent, and should we succeed in the experiment we are making of building a multi-racial nation, then we shall have set not only an example to the Continent of Africa but an example in racial harmony which will have the deepest significance for all mankind outside.
6.55 p.m.
LORD ROBINS: My Lords, when, a few weeks ago, I was preparing to address your Lordships for the first time on matters relating to the Central African Federation, I was given two very sound pieces of advice: first, that I should confine my maiden speech to a quarter of an hour, and secondly, that I should be non-controversial. This afternoon my noble Leader has made it quite easy for me to keep within the time limit by his masterly exposition of the Government's case. But it may not be so easy for me to remain non-controversial on this occasion. I hope, therefore, that you will bear with me for a very short time if I make some remarks on the proposed Commission, and if they are tinged with some flavour of federal outlook.
Having spent practically all my working life within the Federation and having

603
seen these territories grow from countries administered by chartered administration to one self-governing Colony, and the others to progressive communities under the Colonial Office, I feel I have some authority to speak with knowledge of local conditions. I could have wished that the noble Viscount, the Leader of the Opposition, had left out of his speech any reference to the Devlin Commission. I personally had thought whether I should say something about it, but I felt that the Commission was appointed as an ad hoc body to deal with a certain state of affairs and we should not allow ourselves, in considering broader issues of the future of the Federation, to have the issue clouded by a local and, we hope, temporary issue. So I do not propose to say anything about it at all.
The ground of the Federal position has been covered very thoroughly in the Press and in both Houses of Parliament and by conversations with the Prime Minister of the Federation, who has had the opportunity of consultations and of addressing Members of both Houses. I am glad to find that it is common ground that the
principle of federation is accepted by all Parties. That certainly is a great advance, and it would have been a very serious disappointment to me if, having spent all those years in the Federation and in those countries. I had found that what we had attempted to build up over the past thirty-five years was going to be thrown away or so materially altered as not to be of any use. To postpone the Commission would be the greatest possible mistake. It would create in those countries a feeling that their brethren in Great Britain were not sufficiently interested to tackle the immediate problems with which they are being faced and that we felt that with a General Election and other local issues before us we were prepared to put off consideration of Colonial matters.
Preparatory work to the larger Commission to be held over for 1960 or later must be done. It cannot be done in a hurry and we know full well that in the Federation there is a tremendous amount of work to be done, a tremendous amount of information to be gathered, to put before any body that meets after 1960 to consider the future of those countries. The constitution of this Commission has
604
been announced. Its size, twenty-six in number, and its composition are such as to make it fully representative, and my only feeling is that it is perhaps unduly large. But then, I know that to cover every type of person who is entitled to express his views there must be a fairly large number. I hesitate to think what the roads to the hotels of the territories in Africa are going to be like when this Commission, with all its secretaries and other ancillary persons, finds itself travelling around throughout the three territories. It cannot be fewer than 50 or 60 bodies in all, and probably a good many more. However, that is a thing we have to put up with and provide for.
It must be the hope of everyone who has the welfare of the people in the Central African territories at heart that all Parties in Great Britain will cooperate in this Commission. I think it would be considered by people out there as an
extremely bad gesture if any Party in Great Britain withheld their assistance from a Commission which, after all, is out to get the truth and to provide the material for the 1960 conference to do their work. So, I hope that the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition will be able to tell us later to-day that his Party, at least, will take part in this Commission. Furthermore, perhaps I am going to say something that will not be very popular in your Lordships' House, but I hope that the Chairman of this Commission will not be purely a lawyer or a politician, but that he will be a man of wide experience, administrative and human, who will be able to contribute something to the human problems that have to be considered and will not base his conclusions merely on legal or on political grounds.
The main difficulty I see, which has been mentioned by several of your Lordships, is the difficulty of getting responsible Africans to serve on this Commission. That is certainly a problem. But there are responsible Africans, and I have no doubt they will come forward when the time comes and offer themselves to assist in what is, after all, as much their problem as it is the Europeans'. I very strongly resent—and it is resented in every part of the Federation—the title of "stooges" that has been put upon those Africans who

605
are ready to come forward and assist both in government and in other public affairs.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD ROBINS: If that sort of language is going to be used when this Commission is set up, it will create the worst possible impression and probably do untold damage. It has been suggested that on the Commission there should be representative members of the African National Congress. The African National Congress is at present an illegal body. I do not suppose that any of your Lordships would suggest for a moment that the instigators of violence and lawlessness should, even if they are leaders of the African Congress, be allowed to serve on the Commission. By all means let them come forward as witnesses. There will be dozens of other witnesses, European, Indian and African. Let those men be brought forward. Who minds if Dr. Banda gives evidence? But to suggest that they should be put on the Commission seems to me to show great lack of realisation of the facts.
As I see it, the Commission's duty will be to record basic facts and to educate the ignorant public in the United Kingdom on the facts of the Central African Federation, and if it does that it will certainly accomplish a great deal. It must consider at the same time the progress which has been made in all three territories of Central Africa—and I put the items in what I consider to be the order of importance. First, economic: there is the increase in wages, both for African and European, and the amount of savings in banks, building societies and other forms of investment. Secondly, social: there is the fact that Africans are now accepted in the civil service and can get to any grade to which their qualifications entitle them. The standard of living of the African has increased since the war by nearly 100 per cent. Housing has now been taken up as one of the principal causes throughout all three territories, and particularly in Northern Rhodesia; and the colour bar is now being relaxed in many ways. For example, in both Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia there are now hotels where the African is received on exactly the same footing as the European.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: Not Ministers. I wish they would treat the African Minister in the Federal Government on equality with the whites.
LORD ROBINS: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Viscount repeated what he said previously. The Minister concerned is housed in a Government house which is built in a special suburb of Salisbury which is provided for African Members of Parliament. I think at present you have done a great disservice in trying to point out that this was; in some way an insult to the Minister concerned. It is nothing of the sort. The African now has his own trade union, and in Northern Rhodesia the principle is soon going to be established that he will have a trade union which will be of mixed European and African composition.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, am I to understand that having a set of houses built in segregation for African Members of Parliament is a sort of lightening of the colour bar, or is that maintaining it?
LORD ROBINS: My Lords, if the noble Viscount pursues that point I am afraid I shall waste a good deal of time. It is not a question of the colour bar. It is a question of finding under existing legislation a suburb of Salisbury where houses could be built for African Members of Parliament. That is where this Minister is accommodated.
Under educational facilities, we have the establishment of the university college, which is a completely multiracial institution. We have the secondary schools, which are now for Africans as well as Europeans and Indians; and I am sure that in due course they will be extended to Nyasaland. Finally, we have the political advancement which is shown by the membership of the various Legislatures. As my noble leader has pointed out, in Nyasaland there are proposals to increase the number of African representatives to the Legislative Council. I feel quite certain that once the state of emergency has ceased those matters will be carried out. I put the political advancement last. We do not want in the Federation or in its territories to create an electorate that merely votes for candidates designated as lions, or ostriches or even snakes. We want

607
people who will know what and whom they are voting for. I would remind your Lordships that all that takes time; and once again say that since 1924, since these territories became more self-governing, tremendous advance has been made.
I once more plead, as I did in my speech on the previous occasion, that this Commission should take into consideration and record the extent to which the brains, the influence, the money, and the experience of the white population have contributed to the benefit of the Africans. What I plead for on behalf of my fellow Central Africans, white or black, is patience and understanding on the part of the Press and the politicians in this country. We do not resent criticism if it is fair; we welcome advice if it has knowledge behind it. My Lords, if the Commission that is to be appointed can proceed with those ideas in their mind, it will do nothing but good.
6.11 p.m.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this, as has been said, is a difficult debate to keep within the terms of the Motion. We are discussing this proposal to have an Advisory Commission. It is very difficult to discuss that proposal without talking of the terms of reference, of what that Commission should do, which envisage the future of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland; and it is very difficult to talk about the future and completely to ignore the past. But I will do my best to keep off the subject which is obviously going to be the occasion for a great "free-for-all" next Wednesday. When considering this problem, I think it should remain in the back of our minds that Africa has an unhappy history. The relation between the African and the white man has not been, in most parts, a happy one. I do not want to raise that matter now, but we must remember that as a context when we come to consider the problem. The harvest which was sown is now being reaped—and not always very happily. But, as I say, I do not want to dwell on that subject; I want to come straight to the big problem which we are discussing, and that is the question of this Commission and of Federation.
The whole crux of this problem is that there are two big factors. One, which
608
has been emphasised by the noble Lord who has just spoken, is the economic one; and I must confess that I agree with the Government on this point. I think that the economic interests of that part of Africa are overwhelmingly in favour of federation. There is no question of the advantages to Nyasaland and to the other countries, or of the advantages to Southern Rhodesia from the wealth of the copper belt, purely from the economic view, in joining up and running this big area as one. But there are other factors which come in and which are, I would suggest, equally important. There is not only the economic, but the political and, one might say, the human factor. It is the question of money to provide schools, roads, doctors, sanitation, agricultural advice—all the things which a country of that kind need—as against the very real desire of the African to be treated as a human being; to have the rights and the privileges not of a second-class citizen, but of a first-class citizen. The ideal, of course, would be to combine both. Can we do that?
The real problem—and I think we ought to face it—is the attitude of mind of the settler in Southern Rhodesia. I do not want to make an attack, because I think we should remember that the settlers are energetic, hard-working white men who have gone to Africa and who have very often made a great success of a very difficult proposition. For that we should respect them. But, my Lords, their point of view in regard to the African is, in the consideration of this side of the House, absolutely deplorable. The point of view of the more reactionary settlers is that the African is hardly human. He ranks above the cattle, below the dogs. I am not exaggerating that.
Of course, there are many more enlightened settlers, and I think enlightenment is coming; but if you talk to the extreme, to the right-wing, the point of view which is emphasised in the rules and regulations and laws is, to my mind, devastating—the laws which will not allow the African to ride on a tram, or to go into a hotel, or to sit in a cinema, or to be anywhere in contact with the herrenvolk, the super race. I think that all that is absolutely deplorable. And that, my Lords, is the basis of the whole trouble. The African

609
in Nyasaland—and it will take a lot to persuade him otherwise—believes that if once federation becomes a permanent, established fact, he will be under that white domination and his status will be for ever that of the South Rhodesian African native now. If you can persuade him otherwise, you will have taken a very big step forward.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I take it that the noble Earl is willing to persuade him otherwise if he is himself convinced that the fears can be removed.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: I am afraid I did not quite catch that.
THE EARL OF HOME: The noble Earl does not seem to me to be trying to remove the African's fears. I think it is perfectly clear that the three big fears which I mentioned in my speech can be removed, because there is not any foundation for them; and I hope the noble Earl will help in removing them.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: I am coming to that, if I may, later on, with what I hope is a constructive proposal; but I felt it right to set out what is the big stumbling block—and it is no good denying it, or trying to gloss over it. It exists in the African's mind, at any rate. But even where there are benevolent ideas and plans—and one must give credit for these—there is often a misunderstanding of the African mind. This is shown in the housing, which has been going forward now at a tremendous rate. Whereas the African naturally likes his little wooden, thatched house, separate from the others, where the air flows through it, he is now often housed in a compound, clustered together with his neighbours—much better built houses, but not what he wants. That is a small example; and you find lots of similar misunderstandings which undoubtedly could be cleared away but which have not yet been approached properly. I should have thought that the three big factors that influence African thought, and the three big desires of the African—I do not know anything of the West African, but I imagine it is the same throughout the continent—would be hunger for land, hunger for meat, and hunger for education. There is a tremendous desire to try to get education, which, up to now, has been bitterly frustrated. The chances of the African
610
getting higher education, except in a few missions and so on, are practically at zero.
Now, as we say, that is the fear. What can be done to remove it? I do not want to make a critical, obstructionist speech. This is a terribly difficult problem. Anyone who has ever come into contact, as many noble Lords have, with the Africans knows how exasperating they can be. They have not yet advanced to that stage of democratic knowledge that we know in this country; it is no good thinking or pretending that they have. But it is a very different thing to stop their advancement and treat them as they often are treated. But what can be done?
I would seriously suggest this to Her Majesty's Government, because I think it is really very important. I suggest to Her Majesty's Government that if they want to find a solution of this problem, the great thing is to do nothing. The crux of the solution is delay, is not to have this 1960 Conference, at which decisions would have to be taken; and not only should it be put off until 1962 but if there is any way of doing it, by another Act of Parliament, perhaps, it should be delayed even longer. I will explain my reasons for saying this. In practice, as the noble Earl has pointed out, federation has been going on for some time. It has had its ups and downs, but it has been going and has had certain advantages. For instance, some £3 million has been granted to Nyasaland, which is of considerable benefit. If we can postpone any ultimate decision and let things run as they are, we shall not frighten the Africans in Nyasaland. They will agree to go on.
But there is a much more important advantage in delay. Recently the Southern Rhodesians have been making great advances. They have been trying to prevent the colour bar from being so extreme. They have been making important steps in housing and education, and some firms, particularly some English firms, have begun to give very good conditions to their workers. Of course, the opponents of federation say that when federation has been established, and particularly if a large measure of independence is coming to the Federation, that improvement may stop. But I think that they are wrong.

611
I think that if there is no federation, that improvement will go on. If there is a demand for federation—and I think that the Southern Rhodesians want it badly—they must see in time that the only way to get it is by persuading the Africans in Nyasaland that it will not be a disaster for them. And only time can do that. I think it is inconceivable that we can force federation on the unwilling population of Nyasaland. We cannot do it, and if we try to do it I believe that the disturbances we have already had will be nothing to those that we shall have. Let the matter lie, and little by little the present trend will become an atmosphere wherein constructive proposals may be made. That is my plea to your Lordships. Do nothing and put off.
Perhaps it is a good thing to have this Commission of Inquiry, but it must be made up of people who command respect all round. And I would say, though this may sound a little cynical perhaps, that the Commission should be instructed to take a long time in their deliberations. The longer they can take and the longer they postpone taking any drastic decision, the more hope we have of working out a constructive plan. Above all, let the Commission have very wide terms of reference. Let them discuss the whole problem of federation and even the question of federation with Tanganyika. If we can act in that way, I believe that, however black the picture may look, ultimately we may bring some sort of constructive peace to this large and important part of the world.
6.24 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I am not going to follow the noble Lords, Lord Huntingdon and Lord Robins, either in extolling the virtues of the Europeans in the Federation or in pinpointing their failings. A vast number of facts and figures can be adduced in evidence on either side, and reading the OFFICIAL REPORTS of another place over the years, I never cease to be astonished at the different and strange conclusions that are sometimes drawn from these facts and figures. Surely that is properly what this Commission was designed to do: to inquire into and report upon the facts so that everybody will get an objective and factual picture of the situation.
612
Like other noble Lords, I am going to stray from the narrow path and go beyond the immediate consideration of the Commission, because it was evident that the whole field was covered in the debate in another place and one or two points emerged which may be commented upon without breaking the rules of procedure in your Lordships' House. As your Lordships know, for the three years during which I have been in your Lordships' House I have never failed to take any opportunity of appealing for a non-partisan approach to this problem of Central Africa. Therefore, your Lordships will neither expect, nor get, a partisan speech from me. I cannot help remembering that more than eighteen months ago, when I made such an appeal, the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, who followed me, said that he was shocked that the two main political Parties in this country should be regarded by the people in Central Africa as supporting the Africans and the Europeans respectively—the Labour Party supporting the Africans and the Conservative Party the Europeans. Unfortunately, this is now a fairly well known feature of the situation.
The noble Lord added that his Party would gladly co-operate in this matter, provided (and there are always provisos), that it was along democratic lines. I noticed last week that when the noble Earl the Leader of the House made a statement, which the Prime Minister had made in another place, about the appointment of this Commission, the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition said that they were very willing to do all they could to make things go well in Central Africa, provided (again the proviso) that essential principles were observed—or words to that effect. In listening to members of the other Party over the years, not only in Parliament but outside, it has been my impression that what they mean when they refer to these "essential principles" and "democratic lines" is universal adult franchise—or, bluntly stated, as Mr. Gaitskell himself did, one man one vote. I think that this summing up was made perfectly clear in the speech of the right honourable gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in another place last week. But, then, the Opposition always qualify it. They say, "Not

613
now"—but they do not say when. Nor does the Conservative Party say when.
I am bringing this point up because I do not think that we can shirk this difference. So long as we shirk it, there are going to be reasons for people in Central Africa accusing us of playing at Party politics. I do not believe that there is so much difference between us on this point. I want to deal with it in two phases. First of all, I think that we have to consider other countries and not confine ourselves to considering one small part of the world. I am not arguing that universal adult franchise has caused unfortunate events in various parts of the world, but I would put it to your Lordships as a question: has it guaranteed Parliamentary democracy or individual liberty and justice to all in Russia, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in South America or, to come closer to parts of (he world with which we have had dealings and for which we have had responsibility, the Sudan? That is not now a member of the Commonwealth, but it reverted to a military form of Government. So did Pakistan. I am not sure how Parliamentary democracy is working in Ceylon; I believe it is at a rather difficult stage. And I think we have 1o admit that the Parliamentary form of government existing in Ghana is not what would be tolerated here in Westminster. There are reasons for it, and I do not criticise; that is not the reason for my speech. But we have to face the facts. I merely say that one man, one vote, does not guarantee Parliamentary government or representative government, which is surely what we are aiming at in Central Africa.
I come now to the second part of this argument. It really comes down to the time factor. As Mr. Gaitskell said, one man, one vote, must be the ultimate objective. I think the Conservative Party agree with that; I do not think they have ever denied it. But it is a question of when. My impression is that some of the members of the Party opposite are thinking in terms of five years; and most of them are probably thinking in terms of not longer than ten years. Sir Roy Welensky said: "Not in my lifetime." Well, his political lifetime may be as much as thirty years, but more likely twenty years. Is there no ground between the Parties for coming out into the open on this subject
614
and making it quite clear, without saying, "You shall have universal adult franchise in ten, fifteen or twenty years", that that is the objective?—because it can be calculated fairly accurately, based on the figures of education and the number of technicians and civil servants required to run the country. You can work out reasonably well how long it will take to get to the stage when Africans can be governing in the majority; and, looking ahead, I do not suppose that there are many people who would deny that that will occur in due course.
I think I should in this context quote from Sir John Moffat, because he is greatly respected by the Party opposite and was quoted with evident approval by their Leader in another place last week. This is a speech which I have referred to before, made on July 1, 1958, on" Co-operation between peoples of the Federation". It is full of interesting matter, and I hope that noble Lords interested will read the whole speech. He says:
"Once established, a democratic government is faced with this cardinal difficulty of democracies, and that is of granting democratic powers to undemocratic elements in its society which will be perfectly willing to use those democratic rights to acquire power, and when they have acquired it will use that power to destroy the democracy. That has happened times without number."
He goes on, in referring to the situation in Central Africa and to the time, which he says is ascertainable, even on the present basis of franchise—that is interesting—to say:
"Now, it is possible that when that situation has been reached, the African majority may be ardent and devoted democrats. It is possible, Mr. Speaker, but I do not believe it. It is possible, but the only evidence which I have available to me on which to base any judgment at present confirms my doubts in this matter. Until our African people cease to demonstrate that they are wholly subject to the extremist elements within their own society, any swing of power would be in effect a transfer of power to these extremist elements. As I have already indicated, that would mean the immediate death of democracy."
I am sure that the Party opposite do not want to see that happen in the Federation. Therefore I think we have somehow to get together on this question of the universal adult franchise and see whether we cannot agree, because until we do I do not see how we are going to approach the subject in a

615
manner which will be really helpful to the Federation and which will gain the confidence of all its peoples.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to study in more detail the speech by Sir John Moffat to which the noble Lord has referred. But it stands on record that many years before, as quoted by my right honourable friend in another place, in 1952, we showed that they were likely to make a great mistake in forcing through in Central Africa, with only a European majority, something which would decide how racial questions in the future might have to be settled. There is the difficulty.
LORD HASTINGS: If I were to pursue that thought it would take me back to the Moffat resolutions and Northern Rhodesia, and one would go talking on the whole subject, which again can well be reviewed by this Commission, if it goes out. That is what I wanted to say on that part, because I think it is tremendously important, and I believe there is the possibility of the two Parties being able to agree on this matter. I would simply appeal to the Party opposite to consider that in the terms in which I have put it. Of course, it does affect the question of representative Africans which is brought up time and time again. Who is a representative African? One gets the impression from the Labour Party that the only really representative ones are the members of the African National Congress. But I think they would do well to bear in mind what I have quoted from Sir John Moffat. That is all I want to say on that matter.
I now turn to the Commission and to its constitution. Certain criticisms have been made of the half whose 13 members are coming from outside the Federation; but it has been made evident by our noble Leader and by the Prime Minister in another place that their minds are still fairly open on this subject. In regard to Commonwealth representatives, I must say that I should very much like to see them extended from 2 to 4. I think you need the Canadian and the Australian who can look back on the difficulties of federation, how they were overcome, and perhaps how trivial they seem in retro-
616
spect. On the other hand, it will be useful to have a West Indian and a Malayan, not only because they would represent black and Asian respectively but because they are at present coping with the difficulties of a new Federation, and I think they may have something to contribute. I think it would make for better balance to have all four of them.
When it comes to the Parliamentary members, I rather wonder whether 6 is enough, because 3 have been promised to the Opposition, and I am wondering how your Lordships' House is going to come out of this arrangement. I think there ought to be one from each side. The other place is not going to accept fewer than 3 on each side, I think. So it seems there might be a case for 8 instead of 6. These are details that might well be considered. When it comes to the other half, you have this difficulty of appointing the Africans. I am certain that my noble Leader was right in saying that the proportion is 5 out of 13 from the Federation and not 5 out of 26; and in view of the present situation there, it is difficult to see how you can appoint more. Everything will depend on the people who are appointed.
I had some sympathy with the speech of the Leader of the Liberal Party in another place, when he put forward many of these difficulties and even suggested that it might be better, if they could not be overcome to everybody's satisfaction, not to have a Commission at all; and I think that that is the feeling of some of the noble Lords of the Labour Party. Nevertheless, I rather agree that something must be done so that we can get a balanced, objective and factual Report, which will put an end to the mud-slinging which, unfortunately, has been going on not only between our own Parties here but between the two countries. Therefore, I would support the sending of a Commission, with possibly some modifications.
I would say that I do not think a Parliamentary Commission—which was originally proposed in all good faith and sincerity, I realise, by the Party opposite—would in fact serve its purpose. I do not agree that it would have the maximum confidence of the people in the Federation, simply because we have quarrelled too much about it—let us face it—and both our Parties are branded

617
with being prejudiced in favour of one side or the other. You can get agreement in a Parliamentary delegation which goes out on a goodwill tour and is not expected to investigate deeply. It produces a report of impressions. I have been on one, and it is difficult to agree, even then; but we managed to produce a report, as did the delegation to Central Africa. But a Parliamentary Commission going out and looking into these essential facts, and then drawing conclusions and producing a report, would never get an agreed report. It would merely produce two quite different reports, I am sure. Therefore, I think it is better to bury our Parliamentary Commission, so to speak, in the middle of a larger Commission. I think that that is the best thing, and I hope the Labour Party will come round to that conclusion.
To finish, I will go back again to Sir John Moffat. This is something which might come within the purview of the Commission when it goes out. I will read it, because I think it administers a necessary corrective to our own thinking in this matter. It is at the end of his speech, and Sir John is putting forward views for the future. He said:
"I believe that a democratically-elected Parliament must be free to govern without interference in its function of governing, but that under the existing situation which confronts us here it is necessary that its capacity to use that power for purposes other than governing, in other words for racial purposes, should be strictly curtailed."
He goes on to suggest a special body, and I will read this because I think it makes quite good reading, if your Lordships will forgive me. He suggests a sort of constitutional court, and he goes on:
"This body I have in mind would carry out on a wider field the functions of the African Affairs Board and would get its powers from the present reserve powers of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. I am not contemplating a Senate; we know how a Senate can be packed for political purposes; nor am I considering a titleless House of Lords with powers only to delay; I am not considering any association of venerable old gentlemen armed with nothing more lethal than artificial dentures. I am considering a body with genuine teeth and a capacity to use them."
Later, he goes on:
"The reason is that the House of Commons measures up to none of the essential requirements of the type of arbiter I have in mind. It lacks knowledge, it lacks experience, it lacks
618
countless other things; but its main disadvantage, to my mind, is that if we are to progress towards nationhood here we have got to start by realising as early as possible that we inside this Federation, by mutual discussion, concession and agreement, must work out our own destiny."
6.45 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I am bound to say that I regret that the terms of reference of the proposed Commission are that it should be an advisory body and not a purely fact-finding body which would be charged not only with the duty of discovering and presenting the existing state of affairs in these territories, but also of including, hearing and presenting the present-day opinion expressed by anyone in these territories who chose to come forward and give his opinions and views to the Commission, but stopping short at that and not proceeding to advise the five Governments on whom the ultimate responsibility rests.
The existing estate of affairs or atmosphere in Central Africa is, I understand, one of a somewhat uneasy calm. I believe that it cannot be put higher than that. Now it is vitally important that the utmost calm should prevail throughout the time—and I imagine that it may be quite a long time—during which this Commission is going to be in Central Africa doing its work. I cannot help feeling that when it becomes known among Africans that this Commission is going to advise the five Governments, they are going to feel disquieted. The noble Earl the Leader of the House has said that advice does not commit. We in this House can readily appreciate that, and I believe that the British public can easily appreciate that. But I do not feel quite so certain that the average intelligent African in Central Africa can so readily appreciate that. I cannot help feeling that if the African of to-day has a fault—and I say this in all friendliness—it is that he is perhaps rather too ready to leap to conclusions which may or may not be correct. I cannot help feeling that when he discovers that a Commission is coming out not only to discover the facts but to advise upon what is to be the political future of his country, he may get rather excited and start vehemently to present his opinions to the Commission; and equally vehemently, perhaps, he may be tempted to decry the opinions

619
of others with which he does not happen to agree.
If any excitement of this kind is aroused, I should like to see this Commission able to proclaim from the housetops, "We are not here to decide your future; nothing that we decide is going to seal your fate. We are here merely to discover the state of affairs and to hear what opinions; you have out here as to what should be your political future." I feel not only that it is the duty of the five Governments to decide this question when the time arises at the 1960 Review, but that it should also be made manifestly plain that the five Governments, and nobody else, are, in fact, deciding it. I think it would be the greatest pity if anyone could come forward and suggest that the Governments were undecided, uncertain or ignorant, and were leaning upon the advice that had been given to them by a non-Parliamentary Commission.
I hope I am wrong in this view that the Africans may become unduly excited about the Commission being advisory. But even if I am wrong about that, undoubtedly the advice presented by the Commission, when it is published, will arouse a number of hopes or fears among a great many people in these territories; and I can see a most unhappy and uneasy interregnum between the time the Commission's Report is published and the holding of the 1960 Review; a period of mounting excitement and impatience, everybody wondering whether his particular hope or fear is going to be realised. And here again I cannot help but feel that a great strain is going to be placed upon this rather uneasy calm which prevails in these territories.
Suppose that at the 1960 Review the Governments decide, for one reason or another, that the Commission's advice is not acceptable and is not to be adopted. It seems to me that would present a somewhat embarrassing situation, although it may be a not unfamiliar one, in which it might be said, "You went to all this trouble; we had all this excitement; this Commission was appointed, and now you fly in the face of the advice of your appointed representatives". That, of course, holds good only provided that the Government represented at the 1960 Review is the same
620
Government as appoints the Commission. But we have to face that that may not be the case; and one has then the further rather unhappy prospect, possibly, of a Colonial Secretary from the United Kingdom attending the Review feeling bound to pay some attention to the advice of a Commission about which he may or may not have been happy when it was appointed, a Commission with whose members he may not be in agreement, members whom he might well not have appointed, or recommended to be appointed, if he had been in office at the time of the appointment of the Commission.
Supposing the Commission does not have an advisory function, does not its composition become all the easier? Because, whereas I do not suggest that fact-finding is by any means always easy, nevertheless it is very much easier than propounding the solution to the problem when the facts have been established. I do not think any judge would dissent from that view. It seems to me that, so long as the Commission was to be a purely fact-finding body, it would not be difficult to find persons to serve upon it who would command everybody's respect; fair-minded, competent and impartial persons who could well be relied upon to discover the facts and present them to the five Governments. But directly you import an element that the Commission is to be advisory you are liable to get a tremendous amount of discussion and anxiety about the personalities who are to form the membership of the Commission.
I agree, if I may say so, with the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Robins, both of whom said they thought this Commission looked like being a great deal too large. I think this was possibly the only point on which those two noble Lords were in agreement. They thought it looked too large—twenty-six members with their attendant staff. The Commission will, it appears, present quite a problem in logistics for whoever has to look after the members during their time in Central Africa; and it may well be that they will be a good deal less mobile than they would have liked.
To conclude on a happier note, I do most heartily welcome the proposal to appoint upon this Commission two members of Commonwealth countries, and in

621
particular the hint made by the Prime Minister recently that the two representatives would in all probability be drawn from the newer Commonwealth countries. They happen to be the countries with the darker skins, and they happen to be the countries which have themselves recently faced—indeed, some of them are at this moment having to face—just the sort of problems that Central Africa will very shortly have to face. I feel sure that two such representatives will receive a very special welcome as members of the Commission upon their arrival in Central Africa, and I believe that their sympathetic understanding of this problem will be of very great value to their fellow members of the Commission.
6 57 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I am very grateful to Lord De la Warr, because he has allowed me to go in ahead of him. I do not intend to speak very long, but my speech has got longer and longer the more I have listened to the debate. It took me back thirty years, when all these things were discussed in almost the same terms in regard to the Indian Commission. It was said, "You must have wise men go out and advise on all the facts." One of the most brilliant members of the Commission is here to-day. But it was all beside (he mark; it was not facts you wanted; you had to get hold of human sympathies. I was quite inexperienced when I was pushed into the India Office. My Under-Secretary said, "First of all you must have men of experience, trustworthy men". I said, "What about the Indian element?". He said, "We shall have to find trustworthy co-operative Indians." I think if you look through the biographical book of the members of the Indian Conference you will find a list of some of the most brilliant Indians and servants of their country you could wish to meet. It gave me a circle of friendship at that time which was incredibly rich. But they were not the people who were competent to speak for the Indian mind, and that is exactly what is the matter with all the talk going on to-day.
You say, "We will have Africans". But you do not want just Africans; you want the confidence of Africans, and that you have not got. I will not mention the Devlin Report because this is
622
intended to be a brief and constructive speech. The noble Earl made a very powerful survey of the whole subject, but the one part which was relevant was blank; he never told us how he was going to fill in the African part which is the vital part of the whole plan. What happened in the Indian case? The same thing. We had our Commission; it produced the Simon Report, the most complete survey of Indian affairs at that time and which was, as you could imagine, a mine of information. We had our Conference; we had the Indian princes—they were supposed to be on our side for all time. We had the Indian representatives; we had labour. I remember it all in the Royal Gallery, the brilliant scene addressed by His Majesty. But we did not get what was the vital element: that was, the confidence of the Indian people. The whole of that first Conference really was feeling about to find how we could get representatives of the Congress. We begged them to come. We begged Mr. Gandhi to send representatives. He would not come or send representatives. He sent observers. He sent Mr. Ramaswami Ayar, a lawyer from Madras; he sent the distinguished Indian poetess Sarojini Naidu; but they were not co-operating;
they were there as observers. The co-operation was done by all the competent
persons of standing that Sir Arthur Hertzl had assured me must go on the list. It was all no good. We had not captured the Indian mind.
I will tell your Lordships how the thing finished, if it is not boring your Lordships. We had our Conferences, we had our Committees and we had our discussions. Certainly we got a great deal of information on the basis of the Report prepared by Lord Attlee and Sir John Simon and the members of the Commission. But we did not get the representation of the Congress. That was the important point—we had not got them. What did we do? We had a wonderful ending. The cinemas were not doing much in those days, but I had arranged for a film to be taken of the finale. We had the Guards band to play in a room nearby, all set out in a brilliant scene—the last scene. But it was nothing, except for one thing which happened at the end of the Conference. In a little room downstairs, Room B. Lord Sankey,

623
Mr. J. H. Thomas and I with three non-Congress Indians, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Mr. Sastri and Mr. Jayakar, who was a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, got together and composed a letter. The letter was not from me; it was not from any Britisher at all, but was a letter from them to someone in India.
After an hour or two the letter was written. It said: "We are confident that the British mean to play fair in this matter." The letter was sent by me as Secretary of State. It was sent not as an official letter, but it was sent with all speed to a gaol where Mr. Gandhi was and it had this effect. It was followed by the interview with Lord Irwin which roused such a fury in the heart of Mr. Churchill. But that was the beginning of the understanding. I am convinced that if you wish to come to terms with Africa you must tread the same road. Unless you have a representative of the African National Congress it is nothing at all.
I venture, therefore, to lay this thought before your Lordships. It is a very long road. Gandhi was invited and Gandhi came. What actually happened was that he was in Simla. Sir Cowasji Jehangir told me that the old man was there in Simla and was told, "You have got this invitation to go to London, to the Conference." That was the vital element in building up what is now our glorious Indian Republic. He was in Simla and he said, "I do not know." He was told that the train was on the plain, and they said, "You must go and you must get there quickly." Private people were not allowed to have a motorcar in Simla, and Gandhi had a moral human objection to riding in a rickshaw. So he flung his cloak over his shoulder and bolted down the hill, jumped into a third-class carriage and came to London. That was the beginning of the understanding with India. I plead with the Government to remember that. I shall not: discuss the Devlin Report now, but it shows one thing: that the confidence of the Africans is with their own Congress. Somehow or another you must bring in the African National Congress. There is no other way to secure the confidence of the African people themselves.
7.4 p.m.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, has, as usual, made a most interesting speech. I am quite sure that he has said a number of things that we all feel that we shall have to consider very carefully. Obviously, the tremendous problem ahead of us is to gain the confidence of the Africans. The trouble is that at the moment it is extremely difficult to find Africans whom we can really consider to be spokesmen for the masses. What are the masses? What do they really feel? At the moment everything is going so quickly that only a few leaders have been produced. I think one can say that the finding of constructive leaders for the Africans is not going to be helped by a potential Prime Minister describing those who are prepared to co-operate in responsible posts in Government as "stooges" or "quislings".
Nor are we going to be helped by speeches such as that which the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, delivered. It was quite clear at the end of his speech that he was obviously favourable to federation and wished to help make it a success. But I just cannot understand the mentality of those who preface these speeches on Colonial and Commonwealth problems by phrases such as "The harvest that was sown by the white man is now being reaped." What did we find there 65 years ago? We found slavery, the essential link in that slavery being the selling of Africans to Africans. We found ritual murders, poverty, disease, soil deterioration and ignorance. The seed that we sowed was education, hospitals, well-cultivated fields, roads, bridges, factories and other developments. The harvest that we are reaping to-day is that of the education that we took to Africa. It is quite true that we have created our own troubles, but that was because we quite rightly took education there, and we have created a number of educated men who want to advance. That is the problem. It is a difficult and serious problem, but one I think that none of us regrets.
All that I really wished to do was to say a few words of welcome to this Commission. My first thought was that there have been quite enough Parliamentary and other Commissions in regard to East and Central Africa during the last few

625
years. But I was particularly impressed, and converted to the idea, by the words of the noble Earl the Leader of the House, who stressed the desirability of building up greater knowledge on our part here of Rhodesian conditions, of the tremendous progress that has been made during the last two years. I do wish that all of us, on both sides of the House, would realise that sometimes the way to make greater progress is to express satisfaction at what has been done, rather than to pick on some of those problems that remain and keep harping on them. I think greater knowledge of what is happening in Rhodesia is important. That is why I welcome the presence of Rhodesians on the Commission. We need greater knowledge on their part of the feelings of people in this country as to our traditions and our treaty and other obligations. I am quite sure that ignorance is the root of a great deal of our problem at the present moment.
I think that Sir Roy Welensky should be congratulated on the courage he has shown in accepting this Commission. There is an all-too-popular idea here that there is only one sort of nationalism to-day—black nationalism. There is a white nationalism, too. There is a tremendous pride in the Rhodesias as to the social, material and political progress that has been made there during the last few years. They are a proud people, and they have every right to be proud of their achievements. That is another reason for welcoming the presence of Rhodesians on the Commission as a recognition of those achievements: a reason, too, for congratulating Sir Roy Welensky on accepting this Commission, in spite of certain obvious political difficulties with which he is faced there.
Finally, I should like to add my voice to that of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, in welcoming the presence of other members of the Commonwealth on this Commission. This is a really historical step that is being taken. Great work has been done in building up relationships between this country and other members of the Commonwealth. But it is of vital importance more and more throughout the Commonwealth that the Commonwealth countries should build up their relationships with one another and increase their understanding of each other's problems. I close by adding my
626
appeal to the appeal of other noble Lords to the noble Lords opposite not to reject the idea of this Commission. There may be features of it which they do not like, but I think the Prime Minister in another place made it clear that there were details still open to discussion. But in these issues do let us do all we can to ensure that, somehow or other, we fight our way through to greater understanding, and, in that way, to solutions of the problems of this Federation which we are discussing to-day.
7.13 p.m.
EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, I do not want to go into the wider aspects of federation. I want to confine myself strictly to this device of a Commission being sent out. I have very little knowledge of the Rhodesias: I have been there only for a short time, and I have not been to Nyasaland. But I think one wants to be very clear what is wanted. The original conception was that Parliament should send out some people to get information. That was quite a good idea. But it has been changed: it is now a business of making recommendations. That is in anticipation of something that is going to happen later on. And as soon as that is done it raises all kinds of difficulties.
I also have recollections in regard to India. We were appointed, seven of us, representing the British Parliament, and we were sent out. We were boycotted by
the Nationalists, the Congress Party. We endeavoured to overcome this opposition—because we realised that a mistake had been made—by trying to get people to co-operate with us. They were excellent people. The only trouble was they were not representative of the main political forces in the country. If they had set up an Indian Committee, first of all, and had sent us out to co-operate, it might have been all right. As it was, we made our Report,
such as it was, but we were boycotted by the live people in India. And by "live people" I mean the Nationalist Movement.
I am rather disturbed at the setting up of a body of this kind. It is rather mixed. It is selected partly from here, partly from the Commonwealth; partly of white people from Central Africa and partly of Africans. It seems to me that the Government are combining in one

627
body people who should be giving evidence and people who should be hearing evidence. The noble Earl said that one cannot have these people who talk about murder. In all our dealings in the British Commonwealth we have always had to deal with the Nationalists. In South Africa eventually we had to deal with Smuts. In India, it was Nehru and other people who had been put into prison. If you send out a Commission of any kind and you ignore the Nationalist leaders, you will fail. I do not know any of the National leaders personally. They may not be very wise or experienced, but in so far as they are the recognised leaders of nationalism you cannot ignore them. If you do you only strengthen their position.
LORD ST. OSWALD: Recognised by whom? I am sorry to interrupt, but recognised by whom as the leaders?
EARL ATTLEE: It is a question of recognising a faction. If you have someone who quite obviously has influence with the African himself, it is best to consult with him and not to ignore him and put him in quarantine. That is a short point to remember when dealing with a nationalist movement. If you do not deal with the leaders they have, you will get worse ones later.
You are in danger here of doing what I have heard so often, getting a nice moderate opinion. You have to deal with people who often have extreme opinions, and you have extremists on both sides in Central Africa with whom you have to deal. I cannot quite make it out. These are, somehow or other, going to be completely impartial people. You cannot get impartial people unless you get nonentities. You are going to get people from this House and the other place but you cannot get people who are impartial unless they are either nonentities or know nothing. You will get a clash of opinion and will probably get separate reports. But it seems to me that there is a great danger here of anticipating everything, and queering the pitch for what might come on in 1960 or 1962. I agree how dangerous it is to fix a date for these things. Whenever you fix a date in advance it means that the people working with things as they are are looking ahead for that date and not facing the present. I would not have a date
628
but would watch how things progress. If you want to send out a fact-finding body well and good, but do not combine that with making recommendations. Because it is a fact-finding body, whatever they find is bound to be used for or against; and a subsequent Government will have to deal with things as they seem then, and not as they seem now.
So apart from being much too large, this will not be a useful device for dealing with what is the major problem we have to face in many parts of the Commonwealth—the putting in one area of people of different races and different stages of civilisation. It is the greatest difficulty we have and you cannot deal with it by some amiable formula. Every case is different and I do not believe this is the right way of going about it.
7.19 p.m.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I am personally grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition for putting this Motion on the Paper and for the speeches that have followed from both sides of the House. They have fairly recognised that this is one of the most complex and challenging problems with which any Party or Government in this country could be faced. Parliament as a whole is faced with this problem, because although we might avoid, as the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said, a decision in 1960, we cannot avoid it in 1962. A statutory duty is laid upon us to have a review not later than then. Therefore, while we balance the arguments for delay which were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon—and I see his reasoning—on balance it seems better to face the difficulties now; and if they were faced fairly and objectively, then there would be a better chance of restoring the confidence of the communities of this part of Africa in each other.
The noble Lord, Lord Airedale, propounded the difficulties which are really inherent in any Commission, in that it may by its finding raise hopes or fears. At least let me at once set his mind at rest on one thing: this Commission will certainly not decide anything. I hope it will assemble the facts, analyse the facts, advise us on the facts and give us indications as to how we might wisely proceed; but certainly it will not decide anything and decision will be reserved

629
for the Governments in 1960. He and the noble Earl said that this Commission was clumsy and too large. Of course it is larger than I should have liked to see it. But if we are to try to bring in people from the Federation, and to try to create what earlier I called a common mind—it is at least a respectable and honourable ambition, although noble Lords opposite may disagree with it—if we are to do that, then we have to bring in Europeans and Africans and we cannot have purely Federal representatives. The Opposition would have criticised us for that. We must have representatives from the units which compose the whole. Although it is large, I believe it is manageable.
My noble friends on this side of the House, Lord Hastings, Lord Robins and Lord De La Warr, gave us an account, which I think is certainly true, of the advances that have been made in the Federation and they made a plea that we should make these facts known and that the people should be given more knowledge. That is precisely the purpose that we have in mind. The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, gave us some most colourful recollections of his memories of India on the approaches to independence. They were most interesting and I am sure the whole House thoroughly enjoyed them from one who saw them first hand. I should like to look at his speech and read it again, because I agree that we must, if we possibly can, get on to the Commission the type of African who will inspire confidence in the great majority of Africans. I think that that is important, and it is not only important in respect of the Commission which may precede the 1960 Review, but it is important that we should carry African opinion with us in the 1960 Review itself. Therefore, if he will allow me, I will look at the precedents he has quoted and consider the speech which he has made.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has great experience of these matters. He prefers a fact-finding Commission if there is to be a Commission at all. He is afraid that a Commission with so many independents from here or there will be composed of people who do not have a "mind", because they are uncommitted. I should not be quite so pessimistic as that and I believe we can find good men from both here and elsewhere.
630
My main reason for asking the leave of the House to speak again is that the Government, above all, want to carry the country and all reasonable people here and in Africa with us on the next stage of constitutional advance in Africa. Therefore I will give the closest consideration to the speeches that have been made from all sides of the House. And I end with the hope I expressed at the beginning, that the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, will not close any doors and will enable us all, if at all possible, to go forward with what I believe is a constructive plan preparatory to 1960.
7.25 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I am grateful to all the Members, in all parts of the House, who have taken part in the debate upon our Motion. Whilst, of course, it was we who put down the Motion, we know that to everybody in the House it is a fundamental subject that has been under discussion. It would not matter quite so much who put the Motion down, because there was tremendous interest from all parts of the House. I am grateful to the noble Earl the Leader of the House for the manner in which he has dealt with the debate. I entirely agree with what he said about the speech of my noble friend Lord Stansgate. I do not agree with all of it, but at least he made a reasonable case.
As to the last approach which he has just made, after listening to my noble friend Lord Attlee, I feel that there is something to be said. We want not only something done which will be really effective in bringing immediate improvement in specific relations between the States out there, and the peoples out there, but something which will be the basis of a permanent pacification and an advancement of the races there—we want something permanent. We do not see that that is going to happen unless you can make an early advance in the political status of the peoples in Northern Rhodesia, especially, and in Nyasaland. I gather from what the noble Earl has just said in his concluding sentences that he wants to get over to the people of those territories out there the belief that political advancement is a real part of the Government's programme. It was towards the end of the speech which the Secretary

631
of State for the Colonies made in another place last week that he spoke of making some improvements in the African representation on the Legislative Council. It is frightfully late—I repeat, frightfully late—because he had told the delegation from Nyasaland, as I mentioned this afternoon, that the Governor after going back in the following August (that is, August, 1958) would say what was going to be done; and nothing has happened since.
I do beg the noble Earl, in thinking along the lines on which he finished his concluding speech to-night, to realise, first of all, that you must make it absolutely plain to the Africans that advancement of their status is an objective; and then you must do it upon a basis which does not enable it to be just cast off as only another one or two instances of nomination and selection. You have really to improve their political status. If this franchise is not universal, at any rate it should very largely increase the free electorate so as to get a representative opinion. In view of the general nature of the reply of the noble Earl the Leader of the House, I think the best thing we can do is to think again about the matter and I ask leave to withdraw the Motion to-night.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL
HUMBER BRIDGE BILL
MID-WESSEX WATER BILL
PORTSMOUTH CORPORATION BILL
SHELL-MEX AND B.P. (LONDON AIRPORT PIPELINE) BILL
TEES VALLEY AND CLEVELAND WATER BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.

HALIFAX CORPORATION BILL [H.L.] LEE VALLEY WATER BILL [H.L.] SOUTH WALES TRANSPORT BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.