Southern Rhodesia: A Bit of a Breather

SOUTHERN RHODESIA

Flying north to Europe in search of independence, Southern Rhodesia’s Prime Minister Ian Smith thought he had it in the bag. Far from it.

First stop on his carefully planned trip (TiME, Sept. 4) was Lisbon, where he hoped to pick up assurances of immediate recognition and economic aid from Portugal should the Rhodesians decide on a unilateral declaration of independence. But when he sat down for talks, Portuguese Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar offered only sympathetic smiles and the minimal assurance that the ports in Portugal’s colony of Mozambique would always be open.

Daunted only slightly, Smith winged on to London, met for eight hours at No. 10 Downing Street with Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home to plead his case for independence. On neither moral nor pragmatic grounds could Home agree. He still insisted that the black majority (3,700,000 v. 224,000 whites) be granted a louder voice before Britain would cut its final tie with the colony.

But Smith stubbornly insisted that a majority of Southern Rhodesians, black as well as white, want independence under the present system, and agreed to prove it—presumably in the form of a referendum. Smith agreed to shelve his threat of a unilateral declaration of in dependence. “We have chucked that out of the window,” he said, “for the time being.”

What made Smith so sure he could get his mandate for continued white supremacy? If he had any ideas on the subject, he wasn’t letting on in London. But back home in Salisbury, the government coincidentally announced a 10% raise in the financial qualification of Southern Rhodesian voters. Henceforth, Africans will have to prove at least an annual income of $739 before they qualify to vote—this in a country where the average African income is $319 a year. Did Smith have a trick up his sleeve? He indicated that to prove his point he might try to capitalize on the traditional nonpolitical prestige of tribal chiefs, who represent thousands of Africans and yet are loyal to any colonial government. “I don’t wish to mislead the British government,” he said. “I must not pull a fast one.” Fast or slow, the two Prime Ministers had won themselves a bit of a breather.