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Southern Rhodesian African Nationalists and the 1961 Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

John Day
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Extract

The convening of the constitutional conference on Southern Rhodesia early in 1961 was the summit of the African nationalists' achievement, from which they subsequently declined. The conference took place less than four years after the formation of the first modern nationalist party in the territory and only two years after the Government had banned it and arrested its leaders. The second nationalist party secured, a year after its inauguration and in the face of implacable hostility from the Government, the first of its major immediate aims, this constitutional conference, which its representatives attended with status equal to that of representatives from the government party. The nationalists had the opportunity at the conference to help modify the political system, in existence since 1923, from which Africans had been almost wholly excluded.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 1969 , pp. 221 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

Page 221 note 1 Report of the Southern Rhodesia Constitutional Conference, Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, February 1961 (London, 1961), Cmnd. 1291, p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 222 note 1 In the A.N.C. political programme of September 1957 the demand for universal suffrage appeared in the fifteenth of 21 sections, each on one aspect of policy; Creighton, T. R. M., The Anatomy of Partnership (London, 1960), pp. 237–45.Google Scholar

Page 222 note 2 Palley, Claire, The Constitutional History and Law of Southern Rhodesia, 1888–1965 (London, 1966), pp. 236–71, on the reserved clauses and their operation.Google Scholar

Page 222 note 3 Ibid. pp. 238 and 312; Hirsch, M. I., Focus on Southern Rhodesia (Bulawayo, 1964), p. 4.Google Scholar

Page 223 note 1 Daily News (Salisbury), 24 11 1960;Google ScholarThe Guardian (London and Manchester), 24 11 1960.Google Scholar

Page 223 note 2 At question time in the House of Commons on I December 1960, two M.P.s congratulated Sandys on taking the initiative to secure N.D.P. representation. In refusing credit for this, Sandys came near to acknowledging that he deserved it: ‘The honourable Gentleman must not embarrass me with too many congratulations on this rather delicate point.’ House of Commons Debates (London), vol. 631, cols. 565–6, 1 12 1960.Google Scholar

Page 224 note 1 The Daily Telegraph (London), 3 12 1960;Google ScholarThe Guardian, 3 and 12 1960.Google Scholar

Page 224 note 2 The Times (London), 13 12 1960.Google Scholar

Page 225 note 1 Daily News, 23 12 1960 and 2 01 1961.Google Scholar

Page 225 note 2 The Rhodesia Herald (Salisbury), 5 01 1961.Google Scholar

Page 226 note 1 Daily News, 16 01 1961.Google Scholar

Page 226 note 2 Shamuyarira, Nathan, Crisis in Rhodesia (London, 1965), p. 158.Google Scholar

Page 227 note 1 Hirsch, op. cit. pp. 12–16.

Page 227 note 2 Report of the…Constitutional Conference, p. 5.Google Scholar

Page 227 note 3 Shamuyarira (op. cit. p. 159) says that the Hirsch proposals were put forward during the adjournment; but the combined evidence of Hirsch (op. cit. p. 16) and the press at the time of the conference (The Times, The Rhodesia Herald, and Daily News, 2 02 1961) suggests strongly that the Hirsch plan was first discussed by the conference before the adjournment.Google Scholar

Page 227 note 4 Hirsch, op. cit. pp. 16–17.

Page 227 note 5 Shamuyarira, op. cit. p. 160.

Page 228 note 1 Daily News, 7 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 228 note 2 Hirsch, op. cit. pp. 36–7. In the light of Nkomo's later denial of having agreed to the franchise proposals, one might initially question Hirsch's account of the N.D.P.-U.F.P. meeting, especially as there seems to be no other version of it and as Hirsch's book did appear three years after the event. However, Hirsch was a witness of the events he describes. Admittedly, as the author of the plan adopted by the conference, he is emotionally involved in recounting what happened, but on the other hand his special interest in the conference would tend to make him an acute observer. Hirsch's description of Nkomo's attitude is certainly consistent with statements about the N.D.P. delegation in the official conference Report and in Sandys's statement in the House of Commons on 23 March 1961.

Page 228 note 3 Report of the… Constitutional Conference, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

Page 229 note 1 House of Commons Debates, vol. 637, cols. 728–38, 23 03 1961.Google Scholar

Page 229 note 2 The Rhodesia Herald, 9 02 1961.Google Scholar See also for this press conference: Daily News, 8 02 1961;Google ScholarThe Guardian, 9 02 1961;Google ScholarThe Financial Times (London), 9 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 230 note 1 House of Commons Debates, vol. 637, col. 737, 23 03 1961.Google Scholar

Page 230 note 2 Daily News, 10 and 11 02 1961;Google ScholarThe Guardian, 10 02 1961;Google Scholar and The Times, 11 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 1 Daily News, 11 and 13 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 2 See the organ, N.D.P., The Democratic Voice (Salisbury), II, 3, 19 02 1961;Google ScholarThe Rhodesia Herald, 13 02 1961;Google ScholarThe Times, 14 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 3 Letter of 17 February 1961 from Nkomo to Sandys, quoted by John Stonehouse in the parliamentary debate on the constitutional proposals; House of Commons Debates, vol. 637, col. 716, 23 03 1961.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 4 Ibid. col. 738; The Times, 18 02 1961;Google ScholarThe Daily Telegraph, 18 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 5 Daily News, 8 03 1961;Google ScholarThe Guardian, 9 03 1961;Google ScholarThe Times, 03 1961.Google Scholar Elsewhere in the speech Nkomo claimed that the delegation had signed only the agreement on the declaration of rights and the constitutional council.

Page 232 note 1 The Central African Examiner, 04 1961;Google ScholarDaily News, 20 03 and 8 04 1961.Google Scholar Four other, less senior, A.N.C. detainees had written to Nkomo demanding that he repudiate the franchise agreement, according to Edson Sithole (one of them), in the Daily News, 26 07 1965.Google Scholar

Page 232 note 2 For reports of the congress proceedings and decisions, see Daily News, 20 03 and 28 04 1961;Google ScholarThe Rhodesia Herald, 20 03 1961;Google ScholarThe Democratic Voice, II, 5, 26 03 1961;Google ScholarThe Central African Examiner, 04 1961.Google Scholar

Page 233 note 1 Daily News, 27 and 28 March 1961.

Page 233 note 2 Ibid. 5 and 27 April 1961.

Page 233 note 3 Ibid. 15 May 1961; The Guardian, 16 May 1961.

Page 234 note 1 Daily News, 12 June 1961; The Democratic Voice, II, 7, 18 06 1961.Google Scholar

Page 234 note 2 Day, John, International Nationalism (London, 1967), pp. 32–7.Google Scholar

Page 235 note 1 See, for example, a letter in the Daily News, 18 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 235 note 2 House of Commons Debates, vol. 637, col. 720, 23 03 1961.Google Scholar See also Shamuyarira, who thinks that ‘Nkomo may not have known the full implications’ of the conference agreement; op. cit. p. 162.

Page 236 note 1 Hirsch, op. cit. p. 16. Shamuyarira (op. Cit. p. 159) implies that the N.D.P. did not suggest any amendments; but Hirsch, of course, was a member of the conference and Shamuyarira was not.

Page 236 note 2 Nkomo claimed that Sandys ‘rushed us through the conference saying we must be finished by Monday ’—6 February, a week after the conference started; The Times, 9 03 1961.Google ScholarThe Guardian of 3 02 1961Google Scholar said it was believed that Sandys had to find agreement on the constitution by the beginning of the week starting 6 February, so that the constitutional proposals on Southern Rhodesia would appear before those on the Northern Rhodesian constitution, which was under discussion. Otherwise, concessions to the Africans in the north might harden Europeans in the south against concessions there.

Page 236 note 3 Report of the… Constitutional Conference, p. 5.

Page 236 note 4 House of Commons Debates, vol. 637, cols. 728 and 735–6, 23 03 1961.Google Scholar

Page 236 note 5 Daily News, The Rhodesia Herald, and The Times, 2 02 1961.Google Scholar Before the conference under Sandys started the press published rumours that Whitehead and his party were prepared to accept 10–15 seats for Africans elected on a special franchise, although an official statement firmly denied that the preliminary conference under Whitehead discussed such a suggestion. The Times, 12 and 24 01 1961;Google ScholarThe Observer (London), 15 01 1961;Google ScholarThe Rhodesia Herald, 24 01 1961;Google ScholarObserver Foreign News Service (London), 25 01 1961.Google Scholar The rumours may have been false, as Hirsch says that he presented his scheme to Whitehead only on 29 Janaury 1961 op. cit. p. 16.

Page 237 note 1 Hirsch, op. cit. p. 16; Shamuyarira, op. cit. pp. 159–60; The Rhodesia Herald and Daily News, 3 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 238 note 1 Shamuyarira, op. cit. p. 160.

Page 238 note 2 Although few in 1961 would have predicted it, the Rhodesian Front, lineal descendant of the Dominion Party, won all 50 upper-roll seats in May 1965; and therefore those Africans who won the lower-roll seats, which the nationalists could have won if they had contested them, became the official Opposition.

Page 239 note 1 Shamuyarira, op. cit. p. 160.

Page 239 note 2 Those Africans who have held the lower-roll seats under the 1961 constitution, and the similar 1965 constitution, have been reported in the world's press out of all proportion to their political significance in Rhodesia. Only a few hundred voters have elected them.

Page 240 note 1 Shamuyarira, op. cit. pp. 160 and 158.

Page 240 note 2 Nkomo did, however, say at his press Conference of 8 February 1961: ‘Because of the fact that a big portion of the report makes big changes the N.D.P. did agree to these changes. The Declaration of Rights gives us the right to campaign against discriminatory laws’ The Guardian, 9 02 1961.Google Scholar

Page 241 note 1 The Dominion Party's decision unequivocally to oppose the new constitution at the conference was much easier to reach than the N.D.P. decision, because the D.P. preferred the old constitution to the new. They opposed the constitutional proposals in the referendum, hoping to defeat them. When they failed, they contested the first election under the new constitution as part of the Rhodesian Front, which, in the event, won the election.

Page 241 note 2 Nathan Shamuyarira suggested this possibility in a conversation with the author.

Page 241 note 3 The Zimbabwe National Party, a nationalist splinter party formed in June 1961 with Mawema as secretary general, used this argument.

Page 243 note 1 The delegates may have informed some of their party colleagues before the conference Report was issued of their agreement to the Hirsch plan. However, any hostility they may have encountered was not reflected by Nkomo during the conference. Until its end he continued to support the franchise agreement.

Page 243 note 2 Day, op. cit. pp. 114–15.

Page 243 note 3 The Central African Examiner, 03 1961;Google ScholarObserver Foreign News Service, 10 03 1961.Google Scholar

Page 247 note 1 The Rhodesia Herald, 31 10 1960.Google Scholar

Page 247 note 2 Subsequent developments and crises are outlined by Barber, James, ‘Rhodesia: the constitutional conflict’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), IV, 4, 12 1966, pp. 457–69.Google Scholar