Page:MALAYSIA BILL RHODESIA AND NYASALAND BILL (1) (Hansard, 11 Juli 1963).djvu/22

 different colour from his own.

I was in the Federation in 1953 when it was launched. I was there shortly afterwards when Her Majesty the Queen Mother came to Bulawayo to open the Central African Exhibition, and I remember the dominant theme in this massive exhibiton. It was racial co-operation and racial partnership. In those early days of the Federation, in its boom time, there flourished a society known as the Capricorn Society which had the laudable object of encouraging, not only in the Federation but throughout the whole of Central and Eastern Africa, the theme of equal racial opportunity and racial partnership.

In those days, in 1953, 1954 and 1955, capital flowed into the Federation from all parts of the world. Skyscrapers went up almost overnight. Hotels and new blocks of flats were built rapidly. It was in those early days that the plans were first set afoot to launch the massive Kariba scheme, which is a wonderful example of inter-territorial co-operation, and new factory estates sprang up rapidly on the outskirts of the major cities, largely financed and developed by off-shoots of British manufacturing companies.

I think it is safe to say that in those days the whole world watched this experiment in racial partnership with interest. From over the border in the Union of South Africa as it then was 1469 they watched this experiment with a certain amount of scorn and prejudice. They believed that they had found the right answer. I believe that the Communist world watched this experiment in racial partnership with a certain amount of fear and trepidation in case it should succeed, and throughout the Continent of Africa and most of the rest of the world there was a feeling of interest, careful expectation and careful application to see whether the experiment would achieve fruition.

I think we have to recognise that this experiment in racial partnership in the Central African Federation has failed, but at least Her Majesty's Government tried, and I take this opportunity of paying every credit to the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) who, when we was Colonial Secretary in 1950, had the initiative to set up the Officials' Conference to work out a federal blueprint. Furthermore, I congratulate the Government for going ahead in 1953, and trying to make this racial partnership work.

The failure of the efforts of both parties to some extent in respect of the Federation may not be complete. It may be possible that in the months that lie ahead before next December and after my right hon. Friend may be able to salvage from the wreckage of the Federation at any rate some of the advantages which the territories enjoy at the moment through their association.

Through my letterbox today I received a copy of the Malaysia Bill. At a time when so many people throughout the world are laynig stress on the necessity not for independence but for inter-independence; at a time when I receive a Bill which calls for the association of a number of territories in South East Asia into a greater Malaysia Federation; and remembering that over the past months the Government have made the most stringent efforts to become a member of the closely knit European community, it seems a strange anomaly that we should be engaged today in dissolving a Federation of the Central African States.

One might perhaps be forgiven for thinking that there is more natural reason for these three territories in Central Africa, which are all part of the same land mass and geographically ad-join one another being associated than there is for us wanting to go into the Continent of Europe and join the Common Market countries in a close knit association when we have a belt of sea between us. There is no such natural barrier to a close association in the Federation of Central Africa and I urge my right hon. Friend to save what he can from the wreckage.

I welcome the announcement in the White Paper that Her Majesty's Government will assist in the evolvement of effective new forms of collaboration between the territories. The recent conference at Victoria Falls produced some hopeful auguries in this respect. For instance, it agreed that the citizens of the Federation should all continue for the time being to be British subjects. The Northern Rhodesian delegation suggested the continuance on a co-operative