DE-FEDERATING IN CENTRAL AFRICA
SIR,—You have been generous to me and to Mr. Baxter in giving us space. I hardly dare hope for more, but probably before your next issue appears the 'courageous policy of partnership' which Mr. Baxter extols will have taken another blow with the passage of the Electoral Bill, and African opposition will have become more bitter and determined. Does Mr. Baxter really think that I 'raked together every grievance that can be thought of in my letter? It is clear that he does not know a fraction of the hard feeling among European and African 'liberals' and the hatred of those subjected to discrimination in the Federation.
Does Mr. Baxter remember how Schreiner implored the British Government not to hand over the Africans of South Africa to a settler government when the Union was being formed? Does he think, in the light of all that has happened since, that it would be right to call him a 'faint-heart,' a 'reaction- ary,' backward-looking' and without a true concern for the Africans? He and those who supported him were called all that, but they were terribly right.
Africans are afraid of the Federal Government because they believe it will treat them as the Govern- ment of the Union treats Africans in South Africa. The impatience of the Federal Government to revise the Constitution before 1960 and the way in which it is being revised are further signs to them that this is true.
Governments in Africa are paid for the labour they export. I proposed that Nyasaland should be paid for hers. It is worth £4,000,000 a year.
Mr. Baxter writes of the 'magnanimity' of the Federal Government in granting the franchise to the three-quarters of the population who are British Protected persons (or rather to those few among them who qualify by income and education). Can he not see that magnanimous superiority is as insulting as social contempt? Africans must not be expected to be grateful for this condescending gift of a common human right.
Incidentally, Nigerian British Protected persons have had votes for years. It is not a precedent, One more point to answer. It is the Territorial Governments that limit free movement. The Federa- tion is corrupting the Protectorate ideals of the North and Nyasaland. Much is going that was once worthy of Britain in her protectorate mission.
The Africans no longer stand alone in seeing that de-federation must be considered if the erosion of their safeguards under the Federation goes any farther. I wrote that it would not be difficult. Dr. Creighton has noted very wisely the difficulties in personal politics, and Mr. Baxter has said that it is a horrid thing to suggest but not that it cannot be done. The Times, in its leading article of February 3, says it must be considered.
Let us continue to consider it in the light of Mr. Todd's defeat.—Yours faithfully,
49/50 Denison House, 296 Vauxhall Bridge Road, SW I
THOMAS FOX-PITT
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