The British Government must bear full responsibility for making it impossible for the African nationalists to sit through the Lancaster House conference on the future of the Central African Federation. The walk-out staged by Dr. Hastings Banda of Nyasaland, Mr. Kenneth Kaunda of Northern Rhodesia and Mr. Joshua Nkomo of Southern Rhodesia in protest against the intransigence of the Premier of Southern Rhodesia, Sir Edgar Whitehead, and the rigid attitude of the Federal Premier, Sir Roy Welensky, is in the final analysis a reflection of the British Government’s inability to stand by Lord Monckton’s report on the Federation. While no one in his right senses expected any sweet reasonableness either from Sir Roy or from Sir Edgar, it is rather shocking to see the British Government not only knuckling under to them but also pandering to them by continuing the conference which has been boycotted by the Big Three. Earlier, the British Government had assured the African nationalists, and Mr. Joshua Nkomo in particular, that it would concurrently open talks on the constitutions of Northern and Southern Rhodesias. But it has gone back on this assurance and has postponed the territorial conference indefinitely although the African Nationalist boycott did not apply to territorial talks. This is a great pity; for the African nationalists set much store by theses territorial talks which would have enabled the Africans to bargain for a fuller representation in the Governments of the territories. From the way the British Government now insists on continuing with the Federal conference it is clear that the very idea of the Lancaster House conference was not so much in deference to the Monckton proposals as with a view to pleasing both the White Federalists and the African nationalists who are opposed to the Federation. Perhaps the British Government might have achieved a degree of success in this direction if it had not made it look as though the conference were an effort to wrest from the nationalists as many concessions for the Federation as possible in return for a few crumbs in the shape of marginal constitutional reforms in the two Rhodesias. It is more than a pity that the British Government which appeared to proceed on the basis of the Monckton report is actually going back on it.
14th December1960.
