§ 3.45 p.m.
§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE), rose to move, That this House approves Her Majesty's Government's proposals for the settlement of the Rhodesian dispute and endorses Her Majesty's Government's decision that they should be put to the people of Rhodesia for their judgment. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. As I see it, the basic question confronting both Houses of Parliament at the start of this two-day debate is whether the proposals in the White Paper should now be submitted to the judgment of the Rhodesian people. A long history of painful, protracted and interrupted negotiation—conducted by more than one Government—lies behind the proposals now before the House. I am glad that one of the most distinguished and tireless of this chain of negotiators, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, will be contributing to our debate.
§ Our judgment whether these proposals should properly be submitted to the test of Rhodesian opinion may turn on whether they pass the test of the Five Principles. And rightly so. The Government have always made it clear that however much they desired a settlement in the general interest, in this country's interest and in the interest of Rhodesia and the Rhodesians, they would not put their signature to an agreement which lay outside the Five Principles. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has reaffirmed this time and time again. Sir Alec is not a man to make pledges lightly or to break pledges made. Nevertheless, the Opposition, in the Amendment standing in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, claim that the proposals fail fully to meet the test of the Five Principles. I therefore deem to owe it to your Lordships to take you over this well-trodden ground rather carefully.
§ The First Principle is that of maintaining and guaranteeing unimpeded progress to majority rule. I submit that the proposals now before the House square fully and truly with that Principle. They point to the assurance of majority rule just as 287 clearly as the 1969 Rhodesian Constitution shut the door to it. Under that Constitution, the Africans in Rhodesia would have been expressly precluded from ever attaining more than parity of representation—and that in some remote future. Under the proposals, these crippling provisions will be repealed and replaced by arrangements whereby the Africans will proceed—and I readily concede that there is room for argument about the time scale of that progress—to parity of representation in the House of Assembly. As the White Paper makes clear, additional seats will be created the first four (provided that a sufficient number of qualified Africans register) at an early date and before the next general election which may not take place before 1975—and so on by defined and clear-cut stages matching the increase of registrations on the new higher African electoral roll until parity has been attained. At that stage, the next and crucial stage, the transition to majority rule, will be achieved by the creation of ten additional Common Roll seats at the first election after parity. Given the great imbalance between the African and European population of Rhodesia it should not be very long before the Africans, if only through sheer weight of electoral numbers, gain the majority of these ten seats.
§ I should like at this stage to underline two points. The first is that the ten seats of which I have been speaking will be Common Roll seats, marking an important political stage forward towards a truly multi-racial society in Rhodesia. The second point on which I wish to dwell is that progress to majority rule is guaranteed by the new proposals that African political advance will be inexorably linked to the numbers qualifying for the higher African roll. The removal of the impediment to majority rule is in its turn guaranteed by the entrenchment provisions in the proposals, the provisions to which I now turn.
§ The Second Principle provided, as your Lordships will recall, for guarantees against retrogressive amendment of the Rhodesian Constitution. It is a major feature of the present proposals than an effective blocking mechanism against retrogressive amendment is embedded in them. That mechanism grips and protects all the vital provisions guaranteeing 288 African political advance. And it specifically embraces the point put to me last week by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, the new Declaration of Rights. This blocking mechanism is firmly in African hands. During the first three years—the vulnerable years when African representation in the House of Assembly will still be small—the Rhodesians have specifically undertaken to introduce no amendments to the specially entrenched provisions. After that period it is almost certain, provided the Africans who are qualified to register do so register, that the first two seats to be elected on the African Higher Roll will have been filled. African representation in the House will then consist of 10 directly elected, and 8 indirectly elected representatives. Any amendment to a specially entrenched provision of the Constitution would therefore require 10 affirmative African votes. In other words, even if all the indirectly elected African representatives voted in favour of an amendment, the vote of two directly elected representatives would be needed to approve such an amendment to the Constitution. But, my Lords, we should not fall, I would submit, into the assumption of looking upon the indirectly elected Africans as mere creatures of the Rhodesian regime. They have in fact voted with their directly elected colleagues on every occasion since 1970 when African interests were affected, save on one occasion when one went into the wrong lobby by mistake—something which happens in other places than Rhodesia.
§ Be that as it may, my Lords, the directly elected members will, until parity is reached, be in a position to block retrogressive amendments. It is true that at parity the requirement for separate racial majorities will be dropped. But this, I submit, will not weaken the blocking safeguard in any material sense. At this stage the Europeans will need to obtain the support of at least 17 of the 50 African representatives for any amendment of special entrenched provisions of the Constitution, and at this stage either these 17 Africans will all be directly elected or their status as indirectly elected representatives will have been endorsed, and thereby strengthened, by referendum among all African voters. I claim, my Lords, with equal confidence that the proposals pass the test of the Third Principle: that there will be an immediate 289 improvement in the political status of the African population. In the purely political sphere, elections for the first two African higher roll seats will be held as soon as the necessary registration and electoral formalities have been completed. The first two additional indirectly elected seats will likewise be filled as soon as the necessary registration on the African higher roll are achieved.
§ But, my Lords, it would be a mistake to think of African political advance as but a matter of nicely calculated electoral less or more. The advance of individuals or groups within a society, be it in Europe or in Africa, cannot be contained, or cannot be long contained, within watertight compartments. The political, the social, the economic all overlap and interplay. Thus the greater protection of basic rights of freedom embodied in the strengthened and justiciable Declaration of Rights will in itself constitute an immediate improvement in the political status of the African population. By the same token the provision of substantial extra funds for development by both the British Government and the Rhodesian Government will not only promote African economic advance, in town and country; not only provide for more technical training; not only encourage the development of administrative skills; not only nourish better and higher education—it will certainly do all those things, my Lords, but in doing those things it will also sustain and stimulate the political advance of Africans in Rhodesia.
§ In addition, the specifics written into the proposals all point the same way. The intention to end the state of emergency; the release of some detainees; the special review for the others; the opening up of the Rhodesian public service to Africans—the very important commitment—all these specific measures point the same way, to an immediate improvement, as laid down in the Third Principle, in the status of Africans in Rhodesia.
§ My Lords, I now turn to the all-important Fourth Principle: that there should be progress towards ending racial discrimination in Rhodesia, a principle which I believe lies close to the hearts of most of us. As I said, the provisions in the Declaration of Rights on discrimination are the same as those in the 1961 Declaration of Rights. They are also jus 290 ticiable and will effectively prevent any growth in discrimination. This means that any new laws or any new administrative acts flowing from old laws—and this is important in the context of Rhodesia—may be challenged in the courts on grounds of discrimination. So much for further discriminatory legislation.
§
So far as existing discrimination is concerned, the agreed proposals embody a firm declaration by the Rhodesian Government to make progress towards ending racial discrimination. Given the slide which we have all witnessed these past two years, the significance of that declaration should not be too lightly dismissed. I hope, too, that your Lordships will note that the proposals provide for a Commission to review the whole field of discrimination, including a particular duty to scrutinise the provisions of the Land Tenure Act. So far as the Commission is concerned, I would merely wish to underline that its terms of reference have been agreed with Her Majesty's Government; that its membership will require our agreement and that one of its members will necessarily be an African. Its findings will be published, and the Rhodesian Government have specifically undertaken to commend to their Parliament such changes as are required to give effect to its recommendations
subject only"—
and here I quote the words of the White Paper—
to considerations that any Government would be obliged to regard as of an overriding character.
§ So much for the mutual compatibility of the first Four Principles and the present proposals. I am of course aware that some have claimed that there is no such compatibility; that others suggest that the compatibility is less than absolute, or that the proposals are in other ways defective. I should like to examine, if I may, as objectively as I can, some of the main objections that I have seen, or have heard voiced.
§ The first set of objections relate to the First Principle. The critics claim that the rate of African advance to majority rule will be so slow that it cannot truly be regarded as unimpeded. They also claim that even at the end of the day the Africans will have only a slim majority in the House of Assembly. The pundits 291 have been very busy with their slide-rules in the Press these last few days, predicting majority rule within 20, or 40 or 60 or as much as 100 years. Quite frankly, my Lords, I prefer here my own agnostic match-box. There are too many imponderables—there are bound to be too many imponderables—for us to form a really valid judgment. There is the imponderable of the take-up by the Africans of their electoral opportunity, of the pace of registration. There is the greater imponderable of the rhythm of African economic and African educational advance, the pace-setters for African political advance. But, my Lords, given a settlement; given the resulting development aid; given the likely injection thereafter of foreign investment, my guess is that these pace-setters will set a faster pace than many expect. I recognise, of course, that at the end of the day the Africans may, at best, have a majority of only 10, or less, in a House of Assembly of 110. All I would say on this point is that, as we all know very well, in the last resort it is the fact of the majority rather than the size of the majority which counts. As a certain Statesman once said, "One is enough."
§ The proposals have also been criticised for their lack of an external safeguard. But, my Lords, if we look with a cool eye at this problem, we must recognise that the reality of the matter is that unless this country—our country—or some other organisation was prepared to exercise effective physical pressure, no external guarantee could be more than a scrap of paper, if the Rhodesian authorities were in the last resort determined to break their word. But the official Opposition, like my own Party—I am not quite certain where the Liberals stand here as they seem to have their South of Suez group, if I may so term it—have always renounced force as a solution to the problems of Southern Africa. In any event, even when we had an external safeguard—such as the safeguard written into the 1961 Constitution—this did not prevent the slide towards U.D.I. and what has followed since U.D.I. A second safeguard, of the type proposed by Mr. George Thomson during his visit to Salisbury in the late autumn of 1968, may have had some value but that value, 292 at least in my eyes, would be purely cosmetic.
§ I should like to put three other considerations to your Lordships, when you revolve in your minds this absence—this admitted absence—of an external safeguard. Is it not in the interests of the Rhodesians themselves to avoid antagonising this country and the wider world through "ratting" on the proposals to which Mr. Smith put his signature last week? If the Rhodesians have it in the back of their mind to walk back on these proposals when the shoe begins to pinch, would they have been as intractable in negotiation as they have proved these last six or seven years? And there is one further consideration here, which I would ask your Lordships to ponder. Mr. Smith may not have matters all his own way in his own Parliament. It is one thing for someone to walk back from a Constitution—in this case, the 1961 Constitution—for which he can rightly claim that he was not responsible. It is another thing for that same man to walk back from proposals to which he has recently put his signature and which, possibly in the teeth of opposition, he has carried through his own Parliament.
§ The criticis have also latched on Principle Four—on discrimination. I would ask them to ponder these facts. We should first recognise that although the pace of the slide has accelerated these in the past two years, as has been obvious to us all, we must in fairness concede that racial discrimination as at present practised in Rhodesia is a very different thing from racial discrimination as at present practised in South Africa. Thus the "freezing" by these proposals of discrimination in Rhodesia at its present level is not something which we should too lightly underrate. But, in any event, the proposals to which Mr. Smith and my right honourable friend have put their signatures go beyond a mere "freeze" at the present, far too high, level of discrimination. They provide for a progressive and very necessary thaw in discrimination. There are those who argue that we should have gone further and faster in this direction. To those, I would suggest that in the present conditions of Rhodesian society an attempt to erode discrimination at a stroke could very well be counter-productive. This is a highly 293 complex and highly charged field, where emotions run very high. It could possibly be the path of unwisdom to try to remove discrimination in such a way and at such a pace as to add to racial tension in Rhodesia. To do so might very well only put the multiracial clock further back.
§
I therefore suggest that the way forward embodied in these proposals—a justiciable Declaration of Rights and an independent Commission inquiring in depth and specifically charged with inquiring into the vital area of land tenure—represents a sensible and reasonable approach. I feel that the more so, when this provision is judged against the other provisions in the proposals; against the clear-cut intention of the Rhodesian Government specifically expressed, to make progress towards ending the racial discrimination; against the fact that there will be an African member of the Commission; against the background that the membership of the Commission will require the approval of the British Government; against the commitment to publish the Commission's findings; and against Mr. Smith's assurance that he will commend changes suggested by the Commission to the Rhodesian Parliament for its approval. I recognise that the conditions attached to that,
subject only to considerations that any Government would be obliged to regard as of art over-riding character",
has been held by some to make that commitment valueless. I feel that the critics here are unfair. I cannot see how any independent Government could possibly commit itself in advance to approve and sponsor any conceivable findings of a Commission reporting to it.
§ I do not claim that the proposals covering these first four Principles are in every respect perfect. Nor do I claim that in all respects they are what some of us, in an ideal world, myself included, would have liked to secure. But I do claim that they are consistent with the Four Principles and I do claim that they represent an immense advance on the existing position. It would have been pleasant to sweep aside in one fell swoop the 1969 Constitution and all that has gone with it. But in the Rhodesia of 1971 it would be quite unrealistic. Nevertheless, I would draw your Lordships' atten- 294 tion to the fact that four of the major and most objectionable features of that Constitution have been totally excised. The income tax regulator, which could have made a nonsense of African political advancement, which could have put a brake on it for generations or centuries to come, has gone. The express bar against the advance beyond parity has gone. The ability of the representatives of the European population of Rhodesia to amend all the provisions of the Constitution at will has gone, too. And the basic defect arising from the lack of any brake on further discriminatory legislation has been remedied.
§ There are others who will be following me in this debate who know Africa much better than I know it, who know Rhodesia better than I shall ever know Rhodesia and who have been more closely involved in these negotiations than I have been involved. But, at the end of the day, we have to come to a conclusion. Trying to look at this matter as dispassionately as I can, I have come to the conclusion that in the absence of any sign of early change in the power structure in Rhodesia—and there is none—the proposals now before your Lordships are as good as we can now possibly secure. Therefore the choice before us is whether we prefer the present terms to no terms at all. I am quite clear myself that if we are thinking of the welfare and prospects of the African in Rhodesia, then it would be folly for us not to walk through the door of the settlement which the Foreign Secretary and his team have opened for us and for Rhodesia. That settlement can bring a degree of African advancement, political, economic and social, which will otherwise be denied. That door opens the way to majority rule and the prospect in Southern Africa of a non-racial society.
§
With the end of isolation there will come, I believe, an end to that siege mentality which has afflicted Rhodesia for the past half decade or so. And with the end of that siege mentality, moderate opinion in Rhodesia will once again be able to assert itself. This is the hopeful alternative which the Government believe it would be quite wrong for us to reject. It is the only alternative which can arrest the fast downward slide in Rhodesia towards a pattern of South African apartheid. That being so, my option and vote, and I hope the option and votes of
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my noble friends, will be for these proposals—but on one condition: that condition is quite simply the crucial test of acceptability. I would remind your Lordships that the Proposals for a Settlement (Annex B) begin with these words:
The proposals set out below are conditional upon the British Government being satisfied that they are acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole.
—in effect, the Fifth Principle. We can weigh this package of proposals as we may, but in the final analysis it must be for the Rhodesian people themselves to decide whether these proposals are as a package acceptable. They affect us. They certainly affect our position in the world. But they affect us a lot less than they affect the Rhodesians. And that is why the proposed arrangements for conducting the test of acceptability are of such importance. The details are clearly set out in the proposals before your Lordships' House. They provide for as fair and full a sounding of Rhodesian opinion as it is possible to devise in today's circumstances. I can assure your Lordships that we are quite determined that this test should be carried out thoroughly and impartially and it is for these reasons that the various safeguards are embodied in the proposals. Those noble Lords who may entertain doubts about the extent to which political activities would be permitted during the test should remember that this Commission will specifically have to satisfy itself that reasonable discretion and reasonable expression of opinion is being allowed.
§ I do not disguise the fact that the choice before some of us to-day and tomorrow is not an easy one. But, of course, easy choices in life are not for most of us. We do not usually have the luxury of an option between the totally tainted and the perfect and unpolluted. If it were so, I am sure that your Lordships' House would be able to join together in one long chorus of total, but perhaps rather boring, agreement on all issues. Nevertheless, my Lords, as I see it, the options before us in Rhodesia, since the renewal of negotiations and since the signature of these proposals, have become somewhat clearer. On the one hand, we have the harsh reality of a certain and progressive slide into all the 296 evils of apartheid, with its nagging and insistent affronts to human dignity and human freedom. On the other, we have the possibility of a real change of direction which these proposals open up for Rhodesia and for Rhodesians.
§ I cannot—no one can—guarantee that Rhodesia will take this chance which we have helped at the eleventh hour to create for it. It would be foolish of me to do so. But this agreement represents far more than a last rather desperate throw. If these proposals prove acceptable to the Rhodesian people as a whole—this is something which I do not wish to prejudge—they will open the country up to those moderating influences, internal and external, which have been denied and diminished by enforced isolation and the atmosphere of the Lager. They will create a totally new situation as time goes by in every field, political, social and economic. It was with this hope, but with no certainty of fulfilment, that the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary went out to Salisbury a few weeks ago. I believe that lie has succeeded in a measure far beyond what most of us believed possible. It is with confidence, therefore, that I commend these proposals to this House. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That this House approves Her Majesty's Government's proposals for the settlement of the Rhodesian dispute and endorses Her Majesty's Government's decision that they should be put to the people of Rhodesia for their judgment.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
§ House adjourned during pleasure, and resumed by the Lord Chancellor.