THE TABLET December 19th, 1959. VOL. 213. No. 6239

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

DECEMBER 19th, 1959

NINEPENCE

Nato s Second Decade : The French Emphasis Thoughts on the Crowther R eport: By the Bishop of Salford Christmas at Douay : St. Gregory’s in the Eighteenth Century. By Christopher Hollis Ring Around The L oon : Thoughts of a Catholic Clown. By Michael Mardon Christmas in Korea : A Country Difficult to Love. By David Walker "As if You Meant i t ” : North-Country Singing. By H. Hardman Nazareth and B eth lehem : What the Modern Pilgrim Secs. By Cyril Plummer

The Crib at B r ignoles: A Cure’s Masterpiece. By E. Antony Roper

A Hagiograpliical Quiz and a Biblical Latin Crossword Puzzle

DECISION IN AFRICA

“ A * , act of faith ” is how Lord Perth, Minister of

State for the Colonies, spoke about the sweeping changes in the constitution of Tanganyika. The claims of the African majority are recognised by giving them seventy-five of the ninety seats in the Legislative Council, and they will have a similar preponderance in the Government. This is a personal triumph for Mr. Nyerere, on whose character much has been built and much will depend. The hope is that the African majority will be scrupulously careful to gain and keep the confidence of the European minority and the companies working in these territories, recognising in them an economic importance not only out of all proportion to their small numbers but one that must be given pride of place if Tanganyika is to prosper. For their part, the Europeans and the companies plainly have a much better chance of achieving their essential purposes of lucrative economic activity if they are not in the front line against a movement of the African native peoples for independence and control. It is far better to build on the common interest, and clear that this was no longer compatible with the older policies of giving the Africans a share in Government, but one which they felt to be derisively inadequate.

The timing of this decision is curious. Nyasaland adjoins Tanganyika, and the Africans of Nyasaland will expect the same treatment. As this is Colonial Office policy, they will look to the Colonial Office, and not to the Monckton Commission, for assurance that the inclusion of their territory in the Federation with the Rhodesias is not going to preclude them from enjoying a constitution parallel to that of Tanganyika next door. In Northern Rhodesia too, which is a Colonial Office responsibility, what is conceded in Tanganyika will be expected. Although there are 20,000 Europeans in Tanganyika, and 60,000 in Northern Rhodesia, the difference will not seem great. True, there are only two million Africans in Rhodesia, and eight million in Tanganyika, but it will be asked what point the numerical preponderance must reach before the democratic principle is conceded.

It has been conceded in Asia and Africa with a fullness and rapidity never envisaged before the war of 1939. Two things combined—the formulation of the war-aims in language which made it very difficult to deny the principles of wide suffrage and majority rule, and the Communist challenge—so that Englishmen who in the early ’thirties looked at the Government of India Bill as though it were entirely for them to decide the pace and character of political advance were accepting the Indian Republic twelve eventful years later, and within another decade African States.

The Government should surely now recognise that the Monckton Commission cannot be bound by the terms of reference envisaged seven years ago. Then it was quite rightly argued that the Central African Federation would be fatally prejudiced from the start if it was represented as tentative and something that might be abandoned if the Commission reported adversely in 1960. But that reasoning no longer holds. Inevitably the question now is whether Nyasaland should continue with the Rhodesias politically, or whether even the economic advantages are not going to be lost because of the political unrest. If the Commission sets out in February with its very limited terms of reference, we shall expect to see the time of too many busy and