Page:MALAYSIA BILL RHODESIA AND NYASALAND BILL (2) (Hansard, 11 Juli 1963).djvu/3

 intentions in the world, are saying things which will cause the same sort of damage simply because they are forming a judgment from this far distance and have ignored the warnings of those on the spot.

I have said enough, but—

Mr. Cyril Bence (Dunbartonshire, East) Hear, hear.

Mr. Goodhew The hon. Gentleman has not heard it all. He is lucky. Some other hon. Members have been here all the time. In spite of the hon. Gentleman, I will finish, unlike him, because sometimes he goes on rather longer if he feels that somebody is getting impatient.

Every Member of the House will want a successful outcome of the arrangements that have so far been made. I hope that there will be universal support for the measures that are put into operation. When all is said and done, what matters to the people of these territories is that, when government is handed over, it should be handed over in such a condition that everything is operating smoothly and law and order, not chaos, prevail. With that in mind, I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will accept that I wish the Government well in this operation, although I am sad that we have been brought to this state where it is necessary.


 * 7.21 p.m.

Mr. Roy Mason (Barnsley) I should like to say at the outset to the hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) that, in the main, I do not disagree with what he said. There were two particular points he mentioned with which I wholly agree. The first was regarding the type of Government now taking office in Southern Rhodesia, and the second was the point he made about the demands that they are making for independence at this moment.

I am sorry that there has been a reversal in Southern Rhodesia of the multi-racial trends that were taking place in government. Because that has happened, it has stiffened my attitude towards resisting their demands for independence at this time. There were parts of the speech of the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) with which I agreed, particularly when he was talking about the disorders and disturbances in Nyasaland. I have been there. I have witnessed them, and, as he said, the First Secretary of State should be informed more fully by Members of this House who are receiving notes, telegrams and letters from the people in Nyasaland about these disturbances. I cannot agree with him on the point he made about the demands for Southern Rhodesia's independence. This is where we must take a different stand, although on matters of this kind we have in the main been together on previous occasions.

I do not greet this Bill and its eventual passage through the House with cheerfulness. Indeed, I greet it with some remorse and sorrow, because I am feeling for those many thousands of white people in the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, many of whom are of British stock, who in the past ten years have been genuinely and sincerely trying to build a multiracial federation in these three States. There are some hon. Members, particularly on this side of the House, who may say:"Well, there may have been a few of them, but the majority of them were not really interested in multi-racialism". My view after two visits throughout the whole of the three territories was that there was a very strong core of liberal-minded Europeans who particularly wanted this to succeed. It is with those people in mind that I speak today.

One must recognise the situation in which they find themselves, because throughout the past ten years and throughout this multi-racial experiment they have witnessed the growth, first, of apartheid just below their southern borders, the eventual exit of South Africa from the Commonwealth, civil war, disorders and bloodshed just over their northern frontiers. At the beginning of the experiment there were the Mau-Mau disorders on their eastern flanks and they saw the growth of black dictatorships in West Africa as well, all inside ten years, and at the same time as they were sincerely trying to develop these multi-racial trends in the heart of Africa.