People, Traditions, Culture and History of Malawi (Nyasaland)

The 1964 Malawi Cabinet Rebellion: Time Magazine

2011-10-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

This is how Time magazine of the US reported the 1964 Malawi Cabinet Revolt on 2 October 1964. The article was entitled Malawi: Challenge for Father

The small, gnomelike man danced on the floor of the Parliament chamber, fluttering his fly whisk and shouting, "Decision! Decision! Decision!" He was Prime Minister H. Kamuzu Banda, 58, and he was demanding a clear choice by Parliament between him and a band of five rebel Ministers led by the second most popular man in Malawi (formerly Nyasaland), Education Minister Masauko Chipembere, 34. Parliament's members gave Banda a vote of confidence by acclamation.

Hypnotic Image. Instead of curing the crisis, the overwhelming vote deepened it. Malawi's first major crisis, after only nine weeks of independence, has all the bitterness of a family quarrel. The young dissidents had revered Banda as a father and, until now, he had regarded them as dutiful sons. As Hastings Banda, he had spent 32 years in the U.S. and Britain, where he built up a large, and mostly white, medical practice and fought at long range for the freedom of his native land.

Kamuzu Banda and Kanyama Chiume

When he finally returned home in 1958, the dedicated young nationalists made him a gift of the leadership of the independence movement. They built him up as the Lion of Malawi, Ngwazi (Supreme Chief), and called him Messiah. For his part, Banda dropped the Hastings and became H. Kamuzu Banda, a name more appealing to Africans. But what stunned Banda's ministerial "sons" was the discovery, after independence, that Banda believed his press notices and was hypnotized by his own carefully fabricated image as savior of his people. He took complete charge of the fledgling Cabinet, reserving for himself most of the important portfolios. He called the Ministers "my boys," seldom let them speak up with ideas of their own, and once boasted on the floor of Parliament, "I tell them what to do. I make all the decisions!"

Kamuzu and some of his first cabinet members

The Malawi crisis dismayed Western observers for, as one diplomat put it, Banda's "are the most realistic, sensible and encouragingly pro-Western policies in Africa today." Banda stood firm against recognizing Red China, even though Peking is reported ready to extend credits of up to $50 million in return for recognition. Another trigger of the revolt was Banda's negotiation of a trade pact with Portugal, whose policies in Angola and Mozambique are anathema to African nationalists.

No Jellyfish. When Parliament adjourned, the rebel Ministers took their case to the people, defying Banda's ban on public meetings. Banda defended himself by charging that the rebels "tried to hire a witch doctor" to murder him. Snorted Banda: "I am a Prime Minister with a spine, not a jellyfish kind of Prime Minister who is afraid of his subordinates — so now they have to kill."

The rebels' revolt struck a sympathetic chord among many Malawans who revere the Lion but wish he would soften his autocratic ways. Nevertheless, bustling little Prime Minister Banda was still hale and hearty last week and so confident of winning that he refused to attend a peace conference with the rebels arranged by the British Governor General.

Gwanda Chakuamba Speech in Malawi Parliament during 1964 Rebellion

2011-10-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Speech to the National Assembly (in Zomba) Made by Member of Parliament (MP) for Port Herald (Nsanje) North, Hon. Gwanda Chakuamba on the 8th of September 1964.

It is indeed very shocking and very disappointing and undoubtedly very, very disgracing. Perhaps my honorable colleagues will express themselves without equivocation in this unfortunate time in the history of our new nation. But I should say this that if I fail to express myself in this House, I shall supplement or fulfill my objectives by deeds outside this house. (Applause).

Mr. Speaker may you excuse me if I fall victim today to verbosity. This may be so because of the tragic situation that now exists in our country. A situation that has been very deliberately formulated by power-hungry maniacs; a situation that has deliberately been formulated by idiots who don’t know what they are talking about. These hypocrites…These traitors Mr. Speaker, used to tell us that whenever they go abroad they are respected because of the Ngwazi, but the same traitors when they go abroad go and project themselves as Deputy Ministers, Deputy Presidents of the Malawi Congress Party, these traitors now have a mission outside this country to preach to the people outside the boarders of this country the gospel, have been engaged in suppressing activities. They have been collaborating with traitors of fellow African countries in order to achieve their personal ambition.

Mr. Speakers, Iam going to single out one person in this whole collection because if I do so I will simplify the whole problem to me, and I think to my very honorable colleagues. Just imagine, Mr. Speaker, this man, Kanyama Chiume, Publicity Secretary of Malawi Congress Party, and just a few hours ago Minister of External Affairs, told himself and projected himself out of this country as deputy Prime Minister of the state of Malawi (Interjection: shame!). Just imagine Mr. Speaker, this man, Kanyama Chiume in the Pan African circles and international campuses against the Prime Minister Ngwazi Kamuzu Banda. His policy on external affairs, his policy on foreign affairs-just imagine, a man who preaches a gospel of unity, loyalty to the Ngwazi, obedience to the Ngwazi and discipline. Just imagine, Mr. Speaker, that this man Kanyama Chiume, in this House led us singing “Zonse Zimene za Kamuzu Banda.” In this house and attending to our self government this man, Kanyama Chiume, in this house told us there would be biblical war in Heaven between Lucifer and God Almighty. He told us in this House. I think that is what he is planning. He even fought against Kamuzu. He meant it; he knew what he was talking about. Now we are not surprised; we are not at all surprised. But he must also know one thing, that when Lucifer did it he met his necessary end. He was thrown down on earth, and here he is with us, but this earth itself is not Heaven. I don’t know where he is going to be thrown out. (Applause).

…It is indeed very disgraceful. People imbued with selfish goals have forced him to escort this course of action. People inherent with selfish characteristics and personal aggrandizement of power have forced him to disgrace for a while from his nation building task. These people imbued with malice have forced us to open a new chapter in the history of our nation. The steady pace of progress in the economic and social spheres has been deliberately halted by these people. I must say, and I must repeat, that the Honorable member referred to has got an account to settle with the people I represent. If it was his intention to make our history, the history of this country black, I must say here and now, we are prepared to make the devil black so that his origin is not traced. They will leave to regret the consequences of their actions as Lucifer now regrets on his earth awaiting his doom.

Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would like to address these remarks to the Ngwazi. With your permission, I want to say to the Ngwazi we still love him. (Loud applause). How many times Ngwazi do you want us to assure you of our unquestionable loyalty to you? How many times Ngwazi do you want us to assure you of our unquestionable confidence in you? How many times I ask? This motion of no confidence in you, your Government, and your leadership of the Malawi Congress Party should be the last motion to be debated in this House. Let this House no more debate motions of this sort. It is a very disgracing motion. Very wide powers were given to you; Ngwazi, by the four million people at a conference in Nkata in 1958, and very unlimited power were also given to you by the four million people of this country at their conference in Nkhotakota in 1960. These people who have disgraced us in the eyes of the world are no more fit to be members of the mighty Malawi Congress Party. They forfeited that privilege to be members of that Central Executive. Their continued presence in that Central Executive will not be to the interest of the country. It will not be to the interest of people that love you with their entire mind and their hearts. It will be on top of that, a gross embarrassment to you and the party. Ngwazi we ask you, we ask you to expel them from the membership of the Central Executive and from the membership of the Malawi Congress Party. Let them go out and challenge you openly and instead of being inside and challenging you from within; let them go out and form their own party so that we can be able to meet them as opponents in the opposite camps. If we meet as opponents within, it will be more dangerous and more damaging to the cause that we have been fighting for a long time. They have grossly disappointed us; they have grossly disgraced us; they deserve any sort of punishment and you know best what sort of punishment it will be. We are not going to dictate to you what sort of punishment befits them but I still contend that the word conspirators, the word traitors, is the most appropriate word to use.

Mr. Speaker, Sir, iam compelled by circumstances every day to ask my fellow honorable members to have a look into our country’s constitution. It is quite clear that the provisions are inadequate to deal with critical situations like this. We must have a constitution which will abolish the title of Prime Minister, because the Prime Minister according to our understanding of the word means the first amongst equals and I think that is why there has been this trouble. He has been regarded by the cabinet ministers as the first amongst the equals. Kamuzu is not the first among the equals in this country. He is not and will never be, so that if a constitution is devised to give him unlimited powers, to make absolutely clear that he and he alone, is a supreme in this country, I don’t think there will be any more confusion.

… And lastly I would like to ask my friends to join me. It is a short chorus but I consider it very important. I would like my honorable colleagues to say with me “Down with the traitors, down with the conspirators, down with power hungry maniacs and long live Kamuzu, long live Ngwazi and long live Malawi Congress Party.” (Applause).

Masauko Chipembere Speech in Malawi Parliament during 1964 Rebellion

2011-10-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

Except of a Speech to the National Assembly (in Zomba) Made by Minister of Education and Member of Parliament (MP) for Fort Johnston East (Mangochi), Hon. Henry Blasius MasaukoChipembere on the 9th of September 1964.

…I, wrongly or rightly, regard myself as a man of some principles, a man of some honesty, a man of some courage, a man of some respect-respect which I enjoy among the members of the public and I wouldn’t dare for a moment retreat from my principles. I wouldn’t dare for a moment abandon my friends and colleagues. It would have been an act of real betrayal for which I would be ashamed for the rest of my life, if I had decided to remain in the Government, while some of my friends have been dismissed.

These are my colleagues. I have worked with them for a long period of many, many years. They have been faithful to me; they have been helpful to me; their work has earned them great praises, both from the public and from the Prime Minister (Dr. H.K. Banda). Today, here, they are being described as traitors. History will pass its judgment.

…Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have resigned in sympathy with my friends. I myself had not been dismissed, but I believe that I have a duty to lodge a humble and loyal protest by resigning my portfolio to show the world that I humbly refuse to agree that dismissal was the solution to the problem he was facing in this situation. I believe that a man of great resources like the Ngwazi could have thought of a better solution, wiser solution, a solution that would have ensured continued stability and peace in the country. He should, for instance, have called his Members here. He could have called a conference of the Malawi Congress Party as he often does to discuss particular situations, or District Committees, including Women Leagues, and the Youth League. He could have informed them: “This is what my ministers are saying. This is what my ministers are doing.” And the country would have been very happy and proud to have been brought into the confidence in that manner. The people of this country are never happier than when the Ngwazi shows clearly that he is taking them into his confidence, and wants to consult them at every level and on every step. He could have done that, but he didn’t. So i felt that I must humbly show him that I do not consider it to have been a wise step. And this is normal procedure, its normal procedure…So today I hope nobody will call me a traitor by resigning.

…Mr. Speaker, Iam a student of history, and as I keep saying, that when I was sent to Gaol by Mr. Justice Cram, I did nothing but cram, I did a lot of reading and one thing which I leant there from my reading was that history takes long to declare its verdict; history takes long to declare its judgment. The scoundrels of today may be heroes tomorrow, the villains of today may be declared saints tomorrow, it may be after their death. So, although today I may be condemned, I may be declared a traitor, I know that ultimately, however long it may take, my stand will be justified, and I wish to declare to my fellow Honorable members that, whatever will be the position, I will not have grudges against them. They are my fellow members of the Malawi Congress Party.

…Whatever allegations may be made against me today by men, who have held me in great respects before, and I know that there are quite a number who have done so; I will not hold it against them. I will realize that it is the strain and stress of the time that has made them say these things.

…But let me not hide one thing, lest I should be alleged to have deceived. I have a duty to go and explain to my voters why I have resigned. They used to take great pride in the fact that their constituency was represented in the Cabinet of the country. They will be shocked and sad to see me returning as an ordinary back bencher, going to join them in fishing at Malindi. So it is my duty to explain to them, and I will do so in public; I will not hold secret meetings as has been feared in this House. I will organize public meetings, and I will invite my nearest colleague, Mr. George Cecil Ndomondo, member of Fort Johnston West. I will invite him, and any other Malawian, to come and attend this meeting, where I will explain myself along the same lines which I have explained this afternoon. I will add not a single word, nor will I retract a single word. That is what iam going to do, and let no man believe that anything has been organized. The crowd which is cheering outside, when did I organize it? I noticed when I came in. Am glad to hear that the Honorable member is in doubt because he says it is possible it was organized. It shows that he is not quite sure.

Henry Masauko Chipembere

NYASALAND 1959 DISTURBANCES REPORT OF COMMISSION OF INQUIRY

2011-09-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

NYASALAND (REPORT OF COMMISSION OF INQUIRY)

Deb 28 July 1959 vol 610 cc317-454

Mr Reginald Manningham-Buller The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller)

I beg to move, That this House takes note of the Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry and the Despatch from the Governor of Nyasaland thereon, and extends its thanks to the Chairman and members of the Commission for their work; endorses their conclusion that a policy of violence was adopted by the Nyasaland African Congress Leadership and that the declaration of the state of emergency was fully justified, deeply regrets the loss of life that occurred but acknowledges that prompt and effective action by the Governor prevented the development of a more serious situation; expresses its gratitude to the Administration and to the Security Forces for their loyal service in circumstances of great difficulty and looks forward to the restoration of normal conditions in Nyasaland and to the continued constitutional and economic progress of its people on the basis of respect for law and order.

§This Motion begins by taking note of the Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry and the despatch from the Governor of Nyasaland thereon, and proposes that this House should extend its thanks to the Chairman and members of the Commission for their work. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, I did not suppose there would be any controversy about that. The Commission was appointed on 6th April. Members of the Commission spent five weeks in Nyasaland, they sat for a week in Southern Rhodesia, they heard evidence from 455 individual witnesses and, they say, about 1,300 witnesses in groups.

§May I say, in passing, Mr. Speaker, that I am rather intrigued about how that was done. Hearing witnesses in groups strikes me as a somewhat novel procedure. It would certainly save time in the courts, but it sounds rather a noisy business, and questioning witnesses in groups must have been rather difficult. Still they did it, and they studied no less than 585 memoranda.

§I mention these facts, which the Commission itself records, for they clearly establish that its task was no light one. I should not like it to be thought by anyone in this House, or by anyone outside, that because the Government do not accept all the Commission's conclusions and all its criticisms we are not grateful 318to the Commission for voluntarily devoting so much time and effort to its task.

§I have seen it suggested in various quarters that the Government, having appointed a Commission such as this, presided over by a distinguished High Court judge, are under a duty to accept all that the Commission says. That really is not right. It is, of course, the duty of every Government to give careful consideration to the report of any commission they appoint, but no Government, by appointing a commission or committee, either pledge themselves to, or are bound, to accept all its conclusions or criticisms or recommendations if any are made.

§I remember, in the days of the Labour Government, serving on a very powerful committee with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Cross-man). We were the only two Members of Parliament on it and, odd though it may seem to some, we got on very well; we even shared a cabin on the "Queen Mary" without quarrelling. That committee was presided over by not one but two eminent judges: an American judge of high repute and an English Lord Justice. It presented a unanimous report, but the greater part of our conclusions were not implemented.

§No one at that time suggested that the Labour Government were bound by what we said, and the present Government are not bound to accept all that this Commission has said. I can assure the House, however, that the Government have given the fullest possible consideration to the Report and to the despatch, and it is my task today to tell the House to what extent the Government accept the conclusions and criticisms and, where we do not, our reasons for not doing so. But before I start on that, may I remind the House of the circumstances which led to the appointment of the Commission.

§The House may remember that when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies announced, on 3rd March, that the Governor had that morning declared a state of emergency, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) alleged that the Governor was not acting freely and that my right hon. Friend was—and I quote the hon. Gentleman's words—"abdicating his responsibilities to the 319Central Government". The hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) went so far as to allege that there had been a disgraceful surrender on the part of our Government and a conspiracy between the Prime Ministers of the Federation and of Southern Rhodesia. The members of the Commission say that they were satisfied that they were given all the information bearing on this and that they had, and I quote their words, … no reason to think that the decision to declare a state of emergency was not the Governor's own.

§I hope that in the light of this finding we shall hear, if not an apology, at least no more of an allegation that was, and has been found to be, wholly unfounded and which cannot have helped to alleviate the situation which existed on 3rd March.

§The Opposition that day really challenged the need to declare an emergency at all. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East asserted, and again I quote his words, that:… the real position in Nyasaland … is that a few panic-stricken people are now precipating trouble."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1959; Vol. 601, c. 217.]

§The Commission says, in paragraph 149 of the Report: We apprehend, however, that it will be generally agreed that on the facts we have found and in the situation that existed on 3rd March, however it was caused, the Government had either to act or to abdicate; and … it had to resort to emergency powers.

§May I remind the House of some of the facts the members of the Commission found. They were satisfied that by the beginning of 1959 the extremists had made up their minds to adopt a policy of violence—[An HON. MEMBER: "The right hon. and learned Gentleman accepts that one."] In January, there was the emergency meeting of Congress, and I sympathise with the members of the Commission in their difficulty in finding out many months later exactly what happened. They say that there was an acute conflict of evidence as to what was decided and discussed. The agenda was so secret that Mr. Chipembere, in his letter to Mr. Chiume, avoided committing it to writing, but he said that Congress would adopt "action" as the official policy and "action in the real sense of action."

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§The Commission thinks that the document set out in Appendix II of its Report gives as good an impression as can be got of what went on at the meeting, and concludes: Perhaps the effect of it all can best be summed up by saying that there was to be an all-out campaign to defy the Government, violence not excluded.

§Then follows the pregnant sentence: When would the violence begin, how far would it go, and what form exactly would it take? The only answer is that it would depend on what happened. If it started in some places and was not checked, it would certainly have spread"—

§these are the Commission's words— 'and might have gone very far. That was the real danger in the situation.

§It was not long, as the Report shows, before violence started, and it was not just in one place but throughout the country.

§On 11th February a crowd of 400 people assembled at a court in the Central Province. They refused to leave, assaulted two court messengers, an officer of the veterinary department whose collar bone was broken and who was knocked unconscious, and two of his African staff. On 17th February, in the Zomba district, a crowd armed with pangas and axes took a man out of his vehicle and threatened two of the District Commissioner's messengers, one of whom was struck. On 19th February a District Commissioner and about 20 policemen faced a crowd of 600 or more. The District Commissioner was attacked with sticks and received a scalp wound which had to be stitched. Considerable damage was done to an airfield. Thirteen prisoners were released.

§On the 20th, Mrs. James, one of the two Europeans left on the airfield at Fort Hill, was in the radio hut when a mob of about 200 people, armed mostly with pangas and suchlike, advanced towards her. Some of the crowd were saying that they would kill her. She was not injured, but it must have been a terribly unpleasant experience indeed for her. Fort Hill was not reoccupied for a week.

§On the 22nd an African leader of a group of Africans spoke to the head of an American mission and, pointing to an African servant, said that when they spilt the European blood they would spill his. On the 23rd, a warning letter 321was thrown through the window of an African District Assistant threatening him with stoning or death if he associated with Europeans.

§On the 28th a crowd of about 100 Africans surrounded the house in which an African Federal Member of Parliament was staying, threatening to kill him. The Commission found that the hand of Congress was at work here. There was clear proof of it in a letter written by one Congress member to another. That is what the Commission said. The letter said: Mr. Mzemba was staying here. … He had organised an underground movement of villagers of more than 100 people. They came and besieged the Mandale store where he was staying. Fortunately enough, it was after the K.A.R.s had arrived. That was going to be the end of him.

§I ask the House to note those words in the letter sent by one Congress member to another.

§I have briefly summarised some of the events which took place between the emergency conference and 3rd March. These events are all recorded in the Commission's Report, and they confirm the correctness of the Commission's finding that at the conference Congress decided to adopt a policy of violence. The assaults to which I have referred, the threats to murder the African servant when they spilt the European blood, the threats to kill Mrs. James and the apparent attempt to kill the African Federal Member of Parliament—[HON. MEMBERS: "How many were killed?"]—all, I suggest, indicate that violence, personal violence, the killing of Europeans and Africans—[HON. MEMBERS: "How many were killed?"]—was not excluded.

§In addition to these facts, the Nyasaland Government had received before 3rd March reports of informers. It is true that the Commission regarded their evidence as the least valuable, as less valuable than the evidence of detainees who made statements which they subsequently withdrew. The Commission gives no grounds for treating the evidence of informers in this way. As the Governor points out in his despatch, the information which came to him came from seven separate and independent sources.

§They were not all informers in the ordinary sense. They were in different 322parts of Nyasaland. Each was ignorant of the others' existence and of the others' reports.

§The fact that so many reports were received from different sources so widely apart and substantially to the same effect, all of them saying that bloodshed had been discussed at the emergency conference—and the Commission found that it had—four of them mentioning the murder of Government officers and three of them the murder of Africans, was something the Governor would have been failing in his duty to ignore.

§The Commissioner of Police had told the Governor that his view was—I quote the Commissioner's words: … that the information about a plan for the mass murder of all Europeans and Asians, men, women and children, in the event of Dr. Banda being arrested, was correct and must be accepted seriously.

§In the light of these facts and in the light of this information, I submit to the House that the Governor deserves not condemnation or criticism but commendation for declaring the state of emergency. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I further assert that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East was entirely wrong in asserting that the real position in Nyasaland was that … a few panic-stricken people are now precipitating trouble …

§

The Commission, as I have said, apprehended that it would be generally agreed that the Government had either to act or abdicate and had to resort to emergency measures. I ask—the House should be clearly told—whether that conclusion is now accepted by the Opposition. [HON. MEMBERS: "We accept it all."] I rather gather that it is, for they have tabled an Amendment asking the House to accept the Report of the Commission. They do not say" with acknowledgments to the Manchester Guardian", but they should. I see that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East has his name to the Amendment.

§Acceptance of the Report means acceptance of this, the Commission's most important conclusion. It means the rejection of the Opposition contention—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) will have a chance to make his own speech—put forward by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, that the323declaration of the emergency was at the instance of the Government of the Federation. It means recognition of the fact that the emergency had to be declared for the reasons given in the Report, and recognition of the fact that it was not true to say that the real position in Nyasaland was that …a few panic-stricken people are now precipitating trouble …

§We should welcome this belated admission of error on the part of the Opposition—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—which appears to be implicit in the Amendment, but we are entitled to a clear and unequivocal statement from right hon. and hon. Members opposite that the declaration of the emergency was justified. In the Government's opinion, the Commission was right in this, its main finding, and the Governor was right to declare a state of emergency. Indeed, if he had not done so he would have merited the most severe criticism. In our view, whatever may be the attitude today of the Opposition, that finding will, as the Commission expected, be generally accepted every where.

§It is true, as the Commission says, that no European was ever killed. But is this a ground for challenging the declaration of a state of emergency? Is it to go out from this House that in future no such declaration is to be made unless and until a European has been murdered? I do not think that anyone will seriously suggest that. Here there was at least a great deal of talk about beating and killing

§—I quote the words of the Commission—at the emergency conference followed, to use the words of Mr. Chipembere, by "action" in the real sense of action—with threats to murder and serious assaults. As I say, in my submission, the Governor would have failed in his duty if he had not acted as he did.

§Some people seem to be under the impression that because the Commission found that there was no "murder plot" my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State put a false case before this House to justify the declaration of the emergency. Some may even think that this finding of the Commission 324shows that there was no need for the declaration at all. What I have already said should put that right Whether or not what was decided on at the emergency conference amounted to a plot to murder, there was, as I have shown, and the Commission has found, abundant reason for the declaration.

§There is, though, one passage in the Commission's Report which may be taken by some to support the contention that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend put a false case before the House. In paragraph 176, the Report says: In the House of Commons references to massacre and murder and to plots were being freely made on 3rd March, by yourself and by Mr. Amery, the Under-Secretary of State. We understand that you had received the intelligence report of 13th February. On the evening of 3rd March you said that a massacre was being planned. Later in the debate Mr. Amery said there was a conspiracy of murder and he referred to Mau Mau and to a blood bath.

§Reference to HANSARD of 3rd March shows that references to plots were not freely made either by my right hon. Friend or my hon. Friend. Neither of them referred even once to a plot. They never used that word. The phrase "murder plot" did not appear in the White Paper. It was never used by Ministers. It was, as the Commission recognise, an expression applied by others to the White Paper. It made a good headline. On 3rd March references to "massacre" were not freely made.

§My right hon. Friend used the word once and I should like to remind the House of what he said. He said this: That information made it clear that plans had been made by Congress to carry out widespread violence and murder of Europeans, Asians and moderate African leaders; that, in fact, a massacre was being planned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Tuesday. 3rd March, 1959; Vol. 601, c. 290.]

§That is the one reference that my right hon. Friend made to that.

§It is true that my hon. Friend described the meeting of Congress on 25th January as a conspiracy to murder. If killing Europeans was then decided on—and the evidence available at that time was all one way in favour of that conclusion—that was a correct description. He, too, used the word "massacre" once. He said that if we had not taken appropriate action at the right moment there may well have been a massacre of325Africans, Asians and Europeans on the Kenyan scale. He said, too, that if a state of emergency had been declared before there had been sufficient forces in the country there may well have been the blood bath which we feared. He made a reference to Mau Mau and said: We have had it all before. Remember Mau Mau."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Tuesday, 3rd March, 1959; Vol. 601, c. 337.]

§Mr. Chipembere it was, so the Commission says, who expressed the belief that to extract Nyasaland from the Federation they must have a plan which must include something quite akin to Mau Mau.

§I cannot see that either my right hon. Friend or by hon. Friend used language on that occasion which was in any way exaggerated or unjustified, bearing in mind the information then in their possession.

§I have dealt with this at some length, for though the Commission may not in this passage have intended to criticise the language used by my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend some might infer that it was doing so. I want to make it clear that on the information then available what was said was fully justified. What was it that was called a murder plot? It was a summary of the intelligence reports published in paragraph 24 of the White Paper and also in paragraph 152 of the Report. In that paragraph of the White Paper the Governor after drawing attention to the secrecy of the emergency conference, wrote: By the 13th February, however, the Government was in a position to assess reports of the proceedings at this meeting. According to these reports agreed at the meeting …

§and then follows the summary.

§The summary begins by stating that unlawful meetings and processions should be held throughout the Protectorate. That was done. The Commission held that the greatly increased number of illegal meetings held by the conference suggests the execution of a deliberate policy.

§The summary goes on to say what was to happen if Dr. Banda was arrested. If Dr. Banda was arrested, his lieutenants, Mr. Chipembere, Mr. Chisiza, Mr. Chiume and Mrs. Chibambo were to inform all branches of Congress of his arrest, and that violence was to begin on a day fixed by them called R-day.

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§Contrast that with the notes printed in Appendix II, a document which the Commission regarded as giving as good an impression as can be got of what went on on the 25th February.

§These notes say that if Dr. Banda was arrested Word will issue from the Central Body telling all"—

§and "Central Body" is, perhaps, not an accurate way of referring to Dr. Banda's lieutenants— people to start war after two days.

§There is, it is true, no reference to R-day, but both the summary in the White Paper and in this document state that violence or war was to start after information had been received from Congress headquarters. Both the summary and the document specified sabotage—of the very nature that occurred before Dr. Banda's arrest.

§The summary names certain officials who were to be killed, Europeans including missionaries, and Africans classed as "quisling". The document states quite shortly that Europeans were to be hit or to have their throats cut, and that people who discredit Congress should have their names written down.

§The Commission found that during the period 25th January to 3rd March branches were sending up suggestions for the black list

§which was to consist of Africans, and that suggestions for their treatment varied from deportation, when self-government came, to killing.

§Comparison between the summary of the reports contained in the White Paper and this document does not, I submit, justify the conclusion that the summary should be rejected out of hand. That there were discrepancies between the summary and the document in Appendix II—the document which gives as good an impression as can be got of what went on at the conference—is only to be expected.

§But the salient fact remains; both the document and the summary support the view that the policy of violence adopted by Congress did not exclude murder if Dr. Banda were arrested. That there was great talk of beating and killing at the conference the Commission finds as a fact. It says that with all that talk it is certainly conceivable that some Africans were thinking about murder". 327But the Commission did not think that there was anything that could be called a plot; it found that there was talk of beating and killing Europeans, but not of cold-blooded assassination or massacre. It attached importance to that. I am sorry, but I cannot appreciate the significance of this distinction. It is too subtle for me. As the Governor says, massacre may be a matter of numbers, but murder is murder whether it is called killing or assassination.

§The Commission says that it does not think that there was, except in a very loose sense".

§a plan, but, whether loose or detailed, or whether called a plot or a plan, the important question is: did Congress, at the conference, decide on not just a policy of violence short of murder, but a policy which contemplated and did not exclude murder? What I submit is very significant is the fact that the Report summarised in the White Paper came from seven separate and independent sources. That would appear to indicate a general and widespread belief, even if ill-founded, that Congress had adopted a policy of violence which included killing.

§The document in Appendix II supports that conclusion. The writer of those notes must have believed that after Dr. Banda's arrest they were to kill Europeans. Taking full account of what the Commission has said, for the reasons I have given and for the reasons the Governor gave in his dispatch, the Government cannot come to the conclusion that what happened on 25th January at the emergency conference did not constitute a very real threat to the lives of Europeans and those Africans who had incurred the enmity of Congress. But whether the Government are right about that is really of little consequence for, as the Commission recognises, even if there was no policy of murder, conditions were such that the Government had to resort to emergency measures.

§The Commission criticised the White Paper in other respects. It criticised the passage dealing with Dr. Banda's speeches, and it clearly subjected that dispatch to a meticulous examination. The Governor has made his reply to those criticisms and I do not think there is any need for me to take up time by 328reviewing them and the Governor's replies. The Government, having considered the criticisms, hold the view that, in general, the dispatch published in the White Paper conveyed a true picture of the situation in Nyasaland.

§It is always easy to be critical of someone else's choice of words, and I hope that I shall not be thought unduly critical in expressing the view that the choice by the Commission of the expression "police State" to describe Nyasaland after the proclamation of the emergency was singularly unfortunate. During an emergency many of the freedoms normally enjoyed have to be restricted. We found that here, during the war years, and I think we should have been very angry, and justifiably angry, if anyone had described Great Britain during the war years as a police State. These words carry a very unpleasant innuendo.

§Mr. William Blyton (Houghton-le-Spring)

Gestapo.

§The Attorney-General

The Governor points out that "police State" is not a correct description.
The Commission says that the reason why it had to hear witnesses in private was that under these conditions many Africans would rightly have declined to testify in public. The Commission goes on to say that the authorities had made it clear that no African ran any risk of prosecution or detention as a result of what he said. It is my right hon. Friend's warrant of appointment which required the Commission to sit in private. He imposed that requirement for two reasons.
The first was that it would protect African witnesses from intimidation by the supporters of Congress—and the Commission records that intimidation was one of the weapons of Congress—and the other was that it would enable those in the Government service to speak with greater freedom than it was desirable they should do in public. It is, indeed, unfortunate that the Commission should put forward a wrong reason for my right hon. Friend's decision, and that it should have based that assertion on calling Nyasaland a police State.
I now come to the measures taken on and after the declaration of the emergency. First, there was "Operation Sunrise", in which 263 persons were arrested 329before 6th March. The Commission says that it thinks that unnecessary and, therefore, illegal force was used in making a number of those arrests. The Governor's dispatch shows that he does not condone the use of illegal force; nor do we. The Commission refers to the arrest of 10 individuals out of 263. It sets out, without comments, the facts in relation to eight of them. It is not clear in how many of those eight cases the Commission thought that illegal force was used, or whether it thought that it was used in a number of cases to which it did not specifically refer.
The use of illegal force is to be regretted, but it must be remembered that the situation was critical. I quote the Commission's words. It said: The Government were right in thinking that the arrests would be strongly resented. The trouble came later in the day: and that it did not come at the time of the operation was no doubt due to the speed and secrecy with which it was carried out. Later, the Commission says: They were carried out in the main by small groups of inexperienced officers, operating often in unfamiliar terrain to arrest people they did not know personally and whose arrest they feared might provoke violence by the local population. In the circumstances it is to be regretted, but it is not altogether to be wondered at, if, in some of the 263 arrests, more force was used than was strictly necessary.
The Commission says, too, that illegal measures of restraint were also employed. That, too, is very regrettable, but again, perhaps not to be wondered at, bearing in mind the fear that the arrests would immediately provoke violence and also bearing in mind that attempts had been made, sometimes successfully, to release prisoners before the emergency was declared. The Commission investigated every incident in which firearms were employed. I must say that I doubt whether its views on all the incidents will be universally accepted.
It says, for instance, that it is not satisfied that the man who came out of the crowd and walked after the District Commissioner, whose back was towards him, brandishing or pointing a spear, was really going to attack the District Commissioner. It says that it was not satisfied, that the inspector thought that the District Commissioner was in immediate danger. If he had it appears 330to think that he would have shouted to the District Commissioner rather than to the man. He did shout, as the Report says, to the man before he fired. Surely that shout would have warned the District Commissioner, if he had heard it.
The Commission does not refer to the coroner's verdict, which was that the shooting was entirely justified to prevent the rioter from attacking the District Commissioner. The Commission says that, having seen all who were responsible for the shootings, it was satisfied that each man did what he did because he honestly felt he could not discharge his duty in any other way. I propose to leave this matter there.
The Commission made further criticisms with regard to the subsequent operations, to the burning of the house, the confiscation of implements, and the use of force. The Governor has replied to them, as the House will see in paragraphs 48 to 51 of his dispatch, and I need not detain the House to remind Members of what the Commission or the Governor has said on these matters.
I now come to Dr. Banda. He was detained on 3rd March, and I should perhaps point out that the making of detention orders is a matter for the Governor alone. His power to do so derives from the proclamation of an emergency under the Emergency Powers Order in Council, 1939. The constitutional position is this. My right hon. Friend has no power to order the detention of anyone in Nyasaland, nor has he power to order the release of anyone detained. He can, of course, inform the Governor of his views, but he cannot direct the Governor to detain or to release from detention. I thought that it was desirable that that position should be clearly stated.
Two views can be taken of Dr. Banda. One that he is more or less a figurehead and that Mr. Chipembere, Mr. Chiume and Mr. Chisiza ran Congress and were responsible for the adoption of the policy of violence. That appears to be the view taken by the Commission. The other view is that, though he chose to dissociate himself so far as he could from any public association with the policy and acts of violence, in fact he connived at, and was a party to, that policy. These are, as I say, two possible views.
331I should like to remind the House of the facts which were found by the Commission. Dr. Banda was elected President General of Congress in April, 1958. He was given sole power to appoint the other officers of Congress. He appointed Mr. Chipembere, Mr. Chiume and Mr. Chisiza. The first two, the Commission says, were extremist in their views, and Mr. Chisiza was introduced and commended to Dr. Banda as a man of extreme views. These were the three that Dr. Banda appointed to the high offices of Congress. It is not, I suggest, without considerable significance that Dr. Banda should have appointed these three extremists.
The Commission found the following facts. In paragraph 93 of its Report it states that it was the extremists who, at the beginning of 1959, had made up their minds that they would get Congress to adopt a policy of violence. I do not find it easy to believe that Dr. Banda can have been ignorant throughout of their intentions. In paragraph 95, it is recorded that at the beginning of January Mr. Chisiza asked Dr. Banda's consent to the holding of the emergency conference. In paragraph 97, I think it is, it is recorded that Dr. Banda received delegates at his house. He did not attend the meetings to discuss the agenda at the conference, one of which took place, so the Commission records, in his own house. One wonders why he did not. It was, apparently, at this meeting, during discussion of the secret items, that Mr. Chaluluka began to falter, and on 25th January Mr. Chaluluka was thrown out of Congress.
It is surely very difficult to believe that Dr. Banda was ignorant, and remained ignorant, of the secret items to be discussed at the conference, secret items which were apparently discussed at the meeting of the Executive Committee in his House. He was, the Commission says, the undisputed leader. I find it very difficult to believe that he really did not know what went on in his own home. That conference adopted, so the Commission says, a fresh policy of violence, an all-out campaign to defy the Government, violence not being excluded There was a great deal of talk about beating and killing.
The Commission was invited to believe, as it says in paragraph 102, that 332between 25th January and 3rd March the decisions taken at the conference were not mentioned to Dr. Banda, despite, as it says, the fact that branch meetings were taking place all over the country at which the delegates were reporting what had happened. If he, the undisputed leader, did not know what had been decided upon, then he must have been about the only member of Congress who did not. Surely it is not without significance that shortly after the conference Dr. Banda told an audience that moderate leaders were no use. Hon. Members will find that in paragraph 141.
Dr. Banda addressed a public meeting at Zomba on 20th January and spoke about the arrest of 50 women. He was followed by Mr. Chipembere, who told the crowd, "If we are men, not women, we must see that the women are released now, this very instant", and a crowd of 400 or 500 rushed to the police station, shouting and waving sticks. The police drew up a cordon and were heavily stoned. There was Dr. Banda on the spot. He did nothing to stop the crowd. The Commission says that Mr. Chipembere was afterwards rebuked by Dr. Banda—one assumes that was the evidence of Mr. Chipembere or Dr. Banda—but Dr. Banda did nothing at the time. He made no attempt to stop the crowd. Indeed, the Commission says that he never did condemn violence categorically.
These facts, which are all recorded in this Report—these statements which can be found in the Report in different paragraphs; these facts found by the Commission—create a strong probability, nay, I would say a strong presumption, that Dr. Banda, the undisputed leader, was a party to this policy of violence. The Commission was impressed by his charm. It thought that Dr. Banda was a frank witness, and it made it clear that its view of him depended very largely on the impression that it formed of him as a witness.
The Commission posed the question: was his absence from the meeting on 25th January deliberate and did he know what was going to be decided and discussed? It says that its answer to that depends on its impression of Dr. Banda as a witness and what it knew and had been told about his character. It dealt with 333this in paragraph 166. One wonders who its informants were. It says that it accepts Dr. Banda's account—but it does not. unfortunately, tell us what it was—of how and why he was absent from the meeting of 25th January.
The Commission does not, in fact, answer the question: did he know what was going to be discussed and decided? except by saying that it found the relationship which Dr. Banda's evidence shows to have existed with his lieutenants quite a convincing one.
The Commission thinks that he would never have approved a policy of murder and that he would have intervened decisively if he had thought it was so much as being discussed. I would be interested to know—so would we all—what grounds it had for deciding that. Dr. Banda never raised his voice against violence. If he had condemned violence, the Commission says that Congress would never had adopted that policy. The Government find it impossible to acquit Dr. Banda of responsibility for the policies of Congress and of complicity in them.
There are occasions in my profession when one argues in the Court of Appeal that the decision of a judge on a question of fact is wrong. Here, to adopt the phrase we sometimes use in the courts, I submit to the House that the Commission's decision with regard to Dr. Banda was against the weight of the evidence which the Commission itself found, and that its impression of him as a witness is wholly insufficient to rebut the presumption arising from the facts which the Commission found and to which I have referred. The Government regret that they cannot, in the light of the facts to which I have referred, take as favourable a view of Dr. Banda as that taken by the Commission, based, as the Commission frankly says, on its impression of him as a witness and on what it knew and had been told of his character.
It was the Congress policy of violence which led to the declaration of the emergency, and violence had started before 3rd March. To adapt the language used by the Commission, how far would it have gone? What form would it have taken, if it had not been checked? No one can say, for it was checked. But surely the Commission was right in 334saying that it might have gone very far. In the light of our knowledge of what has happened in the countries close by, can one safely assume that, if it had not been checked, there would not have been great suffering and loss of life?
The Report shows the strong reaction to the arrest of the leaders of Congress and a series of disturbances all over the country. They had to be firmly and speedily dealt with. I am sure that the House will recognise that. We greatly regret that, in dealing with these disturbances, 41 lives were lost and injuries were suffered.

§Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, West)

How many whites?

§The Attorney-General

We deeply regret that, after the adoption by Congress of its policy of violence, 51 people died and 79 were wounded. But one wonders what the roll of casualties might have been but for the prompt action taken. An hon. Member opposite talks about the lives of Africans. It was not only the lives of Europeans which were threatened. The lives of Africans and Asians as well were threatened. While we regret the loss of life, we are thankful that the prompt action taken and the loyal service of the security forces did avoid all risk of a major catastrophe.
I ask the House to consider with me, calmly, the position in which Sir Robert Armitage found himself at the end of February. It was a difficult position for any Governor. There were the acts of violence. He had before him the information which the Commissioner of Police told him must be treated seriously. If he ignored it, he did so at his peril and at the peril of Europeans, Asians and Africans. If he delayed too long, the delay might lead to great loss of life and suffering. If he had delayed too long and that had resulted, he would have been responsible, and rightly held responsible, for the deaths which occurred.
In my submission to the House, the Governor made, as the Commission found, a right decision. But where there is prompt action which averts danger, there are always some who say that, but for the declaration of the emergency, there would have been no violence. They say, "You acted unnecessarily, and 335that is shown by the fact that no European lost his life". The Commission endorsed the Governor's action. That is its most important conclusion. The Opposition ask us to accept the whole of the Report. That we cannot do. We simply cannot accept, for instance, the Commission's view that the man with a spear was really not going to attack the District Commissioner and its implied criticism of the inspector who shot. I have, in the course of my speech, explained why we cannot and do not accept all the Report.
In conclusion, I wish only to add that it is our hope and, I am sure, the hope of all of us, that, now that this policy of violence has been frustrated, conditions in Nyasaland will soon so far improve that it will be possible to release those now detained without risk to law and order and security. How long it will be before that can happen, I cannot say. It depends, of course, on conditions in Nyasaland. Law and order must be maintained, and on the maintenance of law and order depends the prospect of continued constitutional and economic progress for the people of Nyasaland.

§4.27 p.m.

§Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: accepts the Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry (Command Paper No. 814) Nyasaland today lies under a state of emergency. The Congress is disbanded and outlawed. It is forbidden to become a member of it. It is forbidden to import certain publications into the territory. Its principal political leaders are under arrest. There is, in the words of the Commission, "a deep and bitter" gulf between the Government and the people. What contribution does the Attorney-General think that he has made to this situation?

§Mr. John Eden (Bournemouth, West)

What contribution has the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) made?

§Mr. Callaghan

I relish the opportunity of answering the Attorney-General immediately. There are many people in Nyasaland who will not look favourably 336upon the lawyer's speech which we have just heard. It is commonly said that, of course, all the Europeans support the Governor and the Government in this. That is not true. There are many people, many Europeans, and there would be more if it were not for the subtle pressure—I use the Commission's words—which the Administration has used against them, who would like to declare themselves against the Government's policy.
Fortunately, there are some interests at work, business interests in Nyasaland, which are so big that they do not have to yield to subtle intimidation or pressure. They can speak their minds. They are European interests. If the Attorney-General would like to hear the first verdict on his speech and upon the stand that the Government are taking, I will give it to him now. It is in the form of a cable received from the general manager of the Blantyre Company, in Nyasaland, Mr. P. Howard, sent to Sir Jock Campbell. I have his permission to quote it: Very important to all future developments that African confidence in Her Majesty's Government be re-established and strengthened. To this end essential that Government honestly and openly accept full implication Devlin Report and take appropriate action. This would provide foundation for new approach from which reasonable solutions could be found Gravely concerned if Report is sidestepped or rejected. That is the view of someone against whom subtle pressure has no effect.
As I listened to the Attorney-General's speech it was quite clear to me that we are all wrong—the Devlin Commission, Congress, of course, and myself—and that the only people who are right in this matter are the Government. The only mistake that the Government have made throughout the whole of this long and tortuous history is to appoint the Devlin Commission. The Commission saw 455 individuals and 1,300 people in groups, read hundreds of memoranda and travelled thousands of miles, and spent weeks upon it. This was the Government's Commission, selected by them, the terms of reference decided by them. [Interruption.] I do not know whether they were all Tories, but I know that the Colonial Secretary, when he set it up, invited us to give it our full confidence.
This was a unanimous Report, "but", says the Attorney-General, "we do not 337have to accept the findings and conclusions of any Commission that is set up. We are always entitled to reject what it says". That is not what the Commission was trying to do. Paragraph 4 makes clear its task and the boundaries which it set itself. It says: But the task with which you entrusted us was to report and not to make recommendations. We have aimed at setting out all the relevant facts as objectively as we can, in order that those whose responsibility it is to approve or disapprove may be provided with a firm basis of fact for their deliberations. That is what the Commission set out to do.
What the Attorney-General and the Government are doing is not rejecting conclusions, but rejecting the "firm basis of fact" which the Commission endeavoured to provide. As I said, this was a unanimous Report, but what the Government have done with it is to winnow through it, sieving out, dredging out, everything that would support their case and averting their eyes from anything which might be in the slightest degree embarrassing to them.
We do not believe that such an approach to the Devlin Commission's Report will fulfil our aim of restoring peace and tranquillity in Nyasaland, and for that reason I am moving the Opposition Amendment. In our view, the Government have failed to take the opportunity that the Devlin Report provided of reconsidering their policy and methods in order to make a fresh start. The Government remind me of the witness who was giving evidence at an inquiry at Little Rock. He was being subjected to severe cross-examination, and he said; "Facts? Don't confuse me with facts. I have already made up my mind". That is the approach of the Government to this problem.
No one can read this Report as it stands without reaching the conclusion that here are facts which are so well documented that any Government which were not set upon a policy and unable to escape from the groove in which they had got themselves, must reconsider their position and conclusions. The Government's attitude on this Report is in striking contrast to their attitude on the report of the Bank Rate Tribunal. The Home Secretary has left the Chamber; it was he who moved that the Report of 338that Tribunal be accepted. He said on that occasion: It must be recorded that the Tribunal, having defined its terms of reference in the widest sense, has given us findings which, on all points, have been absolutely definite and unanimous. There can be no doubt about this. In the course of this two-day debate we shall no doubt see tremendous diversionary effort of one sort or another, for the limpid stream of justice must now pass through the turbulent rapids of politics in Parliament."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1958; Vol. 581, c. 816.] On that occasion both sides of the House accepted the findings of the Tribunal. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes. I can assure Government supporters that I looked up the terms of our Amendment before I made that statement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read it out."] The House is entitled to hear from the Government why the Motion on the Order Paper today accepts only those parts of the Report which the Government find palatable, and ignores the rest. I want to deal with some of the rest as well as with the points which the Attorney-General has made.
The Government invite us to declare that the state of emergency was fully justified, but not to accept the Commission's findings in which references were made to massacre and a murder plot. We have rejected the evidence, such as it is says the Report. Those are its disdainful words. The Government ask us to endorse the Commission's conclusion that a policy of violence was adopted. We do so, but the Government fail to acknowledge that part of the Report which makes it clear that the policy of violence resulted from the mood of frustration felt by Congress because there was no constitutional way of making its views effective.
The Government ask us to acknowledge that prompt and effective action by the Governor prevented the development of a more serious situation, but there is no reference in the Motion to the fact that unnecessary and, therefore, illegal force was used", or to the fact that houses were burnt simply because they belonged to persons who were thought to be Congress sympathisers". 339or to the facts that agricultural tools and implements were confiscated, that tough, punitive measures were used by the Army against the population and that an aggressive and bullying attitude was part of the treatment to subdue troublesome areas. How can the Government ask us to adopt one part of the Report and not the other? Is that a basis on which to make a fresh start?
The Government invite us to look forward to the restoration of normal conditions in Nyasaland", but pay no heed to the statement of the Commission that there is deep and bitter division of opinion separating the Government from the people.… Witness after witness appeared before us for the sole purpose of stating that the cause of all the troubles we were investigating was Federation". There is no reference to that. There is no attempt to reconsider whether, in fact, that finding of the Commission is justified or not. That is what we should have heard from the Government this afternoon, if they wanted to wipe the slate clean and start again.
The Government ask the House to hope for continued constitutional and economic progress but, again, they make no acknowledgment of the fact that it is the Government and they alone who have delayed for years in bringing forward constitutional reforms that might have averted much of the mood of frustration which Congress felt. The Government, finally, ask us, in their Motion, for respect for law and order", yet they propose to keep in detention a man of whom the Commission finds that the attempt to involve him in massacre and assassination is generally thought by those who have seen or heard him to be ridiculous, and fail either to release or bring to trial hundreds of others who, at the moment, are languishing in detention camps mainly because they have a fierce and passionate desire to be left alone and to keep out of federation.
On this side of the House we accept the main conclusions and findings of the Devlin Commission's Report. It is from that that we start. I want to ask 340the Government this question: can the Africans be expected in future to trust commissions of investigation appointed by the Government to ascertain the facts, to bring their conclusions to the House of Commons if, when they have done so, the Government of the day merely select those parts that they like—findings of fact—and find every reason for throwing away the portions that they dislike?
I now come to the Government's White Paper. This is dealt with very critically indeed by the Devlin Commission. Let us look at some of the things that the Government said in reference to Dr. Banda's speeches, on which the Attorney-General said, I thought with a certain amount of delicacy, that he did not propose to linger. Paragraph 12 of the White Paper published last March reads: … Dr. Banda made plain his intention of forcing upon the British Government immediately and uncompromisingly the Congress aims… What is the finding of the Commission? It says: Dr Banda certainly said that he was going to press for self-government and secession. He said nothing about 'forcing'; on the contrary, he said that he expected to obtain it by negotiation and by peaceful means. In paragraph 12 the White Paper states that Dr. Banda promised, at the same time … the removal of Government servants and others loyal to the Government… Paragraph 64 of the Commission's Report says that this statement is based upon a misrepresentation or misunderstanding of what he said". Paragraph 14 of the White Paper reads: Dr. Banda made it equally clear … in his talks with Government officials that he was not prepared to compromise". The Devlin Report states: This last statement is not true".

§Hon. Members: What about the Governor's White Paper?

§Mr. Callaghan

I will come to that. Hon. Members need not worry. The White Paper states: As early as August Dr. Banda was publicly threatening members of the police who attended his meetings with victimisation". The Devlin Commission says: On any view it is not a fair representation of Dr. Banda's references to the police as a 341whole to say that he threatened them with victimisation Paragraph 16 of the White Paper refers to a quotation from a letter reading: You have heard about the riots. I have set Blantyre and Zomba on fire, I hope soon to set the whole of Nyasaland on fire". The Devlin Report says that this passage is not correctly quoted. The Governor's explanation is this. He says: "We are sorry, but at the time we prepared the White Paper we had mislaid his letter, so we had to rely upon the informer's letter for the quotation". The correct quotation is given in the Devlin Report. It reads: You have heard of the so-called riots. Well, things are hot here. I have the whole of Blantyre and Zomba on fire. Very soon, I hope to have the whole of Nyasaland on fire. The Devlin Report draws attention to the fact that this was a figurative statement, not an actual statement. [HON. MEMBERS "Oh."] Hon. Members opposite have not had the advantage of talking to him, nor the chance of hearing what this man had to say. The Devlin Commission did. The Governor has not since, either. I have already given the Governor's reply, that he had to rely upon an informer's letter.

§The Attorney-General rose—

§Mr. Callaghan

I assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I will not be like the Colonial Secretary. I shall give way.

§The Attorney-General

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He was asked to read the Governor's reply, which means the Governor's reply in his despatch. If the hon. Gentleman will turn to paragraph 22, he will see that the Governor says: I am surprised that the Commission 'attach no significance at all to this letter'. While it may be that the expression 'on fire' is repeatedly used by Dr. Banda, the use by him of these words in their context in this letter, with particular reference to what had already occurred at Blantyre and Zomba, shows that it was Dr. Banda's hope that similar incidents, disturbances or riots, whatever they should be called, would occur throughout the whole of Nyasaland. That was the reply which the hon. Gentleman dodged.

§Mr. Callaghan

I shall come to the question of violence and riots later. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If I may, I shall make my own speech.
342The point with which I am dealing at the moment is this. Here are five quotations culled from four successive paragraphs in a White Paper which the Government produced to convince the House and the country of the infamy of Dr. Banda which the Commission, having seen him, challenges and refutes and says that his views are either misrepresented or that the quotations are not true. That is the point that I am making at the moment.
The argument was frequently used, especially by the Colonial Secretary and by the Under-Secretary of State in the debate of 3rd March, to which I shall return later, and later by the Governor, in his despatch, that Dr. Banda did not want a compromise. The Commission does not agree with this conclusion, and it gives its reasons. I should like to add a further piece of evidence from a letter written to me by Dr. Banda on 9th January. It was marked "Very, very confidential" and I have not, therefore, felt justified in quoting it until this moment. Now I feel that I can do so.
This is what he says—and I ask the House to judge this before hon. Members grimace, as some hon. Members below the Gangway are all too ready to do about this man. This is the letter which he wrote to me about his approach before the state of emergency was declared. He details the political situation and says that he anticipates the forthcoming constitutional talks. The letter reads: You know, of course, what our terms are. They are for a majority both in the Legislative Council and the Executive Council. I have an idea as to what lines both His Excellency and Mr. Dixon"— that is, the European leader— are likely to take. Therefore, the minimum I am prepared to accept personally and to recommend to my people are the proposals contained in the Labour Party's statement of last March or April, which called for a majority in the Legislative Council and parity in the Executive Council, with this difference: the parity must mean not between Africans and unofficial Europeans, but between Europeans and Africans regardless whether these Europeans are officials or not. I thought I should write and give you in advance in strictest confidence what my line would be. The meeting is to take place on the 20th of this month.Does that sound like the letter of a man who was not prepared to compromise? He is putting privately and 343in confidence a position below that publicly taken by the Congress Party in its negotiations. Before negotiations start, and as the Devlin Report rightly comments, is it not frequently the case that one takes up one position before negotiations start and then compromises on something less? Is not that the whole basis of negotiation?
Dr. Banda concludes his letter—and I ask hon. Members to listen to these words, written on 9th January: This is the political situation here now. But we are not at the parting of the ways yet. As long as I count with my people I shall do my best to let common sense win. I am against violence, whatever the papers may say. But I am an extremist in the sense that I will not betray the interests of my people just for the sake of being called a moderate or being popular with the Europeans. This is the man whom the Government, according to the information we have from the Press, propose to keep locked up. They will do as they have done in other cases. They will lock up every moderating influence. They will remove them from any possibility of influencing their people, and in the end they will deal with them.
I now pass to the position of the Federal Government, about which I was challenged by the Attorney-General. The right hon. and learned Gentleman expressed the view that the Federal Government had exerted undue pressure on the territorial Governments. The Devlin Commission deals with this. It describes the situation and the precautionary measures taken by the Governor between 18th and 20th February. It states that by 24th February the Governor had not made up his mind whether to declare a state of emergency or not. The Report describes how, by 24th February, there had been a large number of further incidents in Nyasa-land, but the Governor, despite these further incidents, still had not come to any final decision. It describes how Sir Roy Welensky's intervention came on 25th February, six days before the declaration of the state of emergency in Nyasaland, but, I think, on the same day as the declaration of a state of emergency in Southern Rhodesia.
Sir Roy Welensky asked the Governor to give serious consideration to deferring Lord Perth's visit. The Governor considered that suggestion, and on the same 344day telegraphed to Lord Perth suggesting that he should postpone his visit. The Report says that by this time, in the Governor's mind, the choice lay between carrying on with Lord Perth's visit, as a means of lowering the temperature, and declaring a state of emergency. While the Governor was still hesitating between these two, Sir Roy Welensky stepped in as the decisive factor. He made up the Governor's mind, but it was on that day, after his intervention, that the Governor decided to cable Lord Perth. [Interruption.] The hon. Member might wait to hear the whole of what I have to say.
I might well have over-estimated the part that Sir Roy Welensky played, looking back at the events which the Devlin Commission found, but that he did intervene is undoubtedly true. He made up the Governor's mind, or, at any rate, he was the final factor that made up the Governor's mind while he was hesitating between two courses, though, of course, it was the Governor's decision, and not that of Sir Roy Welensky. I am very happy to acknowledge that, and to allow the Government and the Colonial Secretary to share all the credit between them.
Now I come to the murder plot. The Devlin Commission examined the evidence concerning this plot, and in one simple sentence, in paragraph 174, reached its conclusion: For all these reasons we have rejected the evidence, such as it is, for the murder plot. What gave rise to the use of this term? The Report makes clear that the Governor did not use it when making his broadcast at seven o'clock in the morning of the declaration of a state of emergency. He made no reference to it at all. Yet, as the Commission says, a major plot would be the best justification for the declaration of a state of emergency.
There is no record of the term being used in Nyasaland until 7th March, when a Government propaganda leaflet was distributed, which said: The Government has done this because these leaders have made a plot to destroy property and to murder many people both Africans and Europeans. On 9th March, the Governor directed that no information should be disclosed of this master plan, but on 11th March, two 345days later, and here I quote the Commission: He directed that action should be taken urgently to build up the full story of the Congress plan. Why? Because he wanted to justify what had been said, not in Nyasaland, but elsewhere. The allegations did not arise there. They arose here, at that Box. At 3.30 on the afternoon when the Colonial Secretary came to the Despatch Box to make his statement, this is what he said, and I am quoting from column 216 of the OFFICIAL REPORT: … the situation continued to be so dangerous and there was such clear indication of the intention of the Congress to stir up further disturbances, involving widespread violence and murder of European, Asian, and moderate African leaders, that the Governor was compelled this morning to declare a state of emergency. Then he endeavoured to pin the allegation of murder firmly on the shoulders of Dr. Banda. In his next sentence, he said: Leading members of the Congress, including Dr. Banda, have been detained— That is where the allegation first came in.
That is where it was made, and that is where it was started.
In my first question to the Colonial Secretary, following that statement, I said this: Is not … the real position in Nyasaland…that a few panic-stricken people are now precipitating trouble, and that all the poison gas of propaganda against the Africans, all the smears, all the denigrations, will now be used to justify an act that has no responsibility behind it and will merely foment further trouble in this territory?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1959; Vol. 601, c. 216–7.] We have no gap to bridge on this side. It is right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite who have to make their peace with the Commission, and make their peace with public opinion in this country on this issue. I spoke on instinct and on impulse, but I have no cause to regret what I said about the poison gas, the smears and the denigration of those not concerned with this matter—no reason at all—but the Colonial Secretary was making a considered statement.
In the evening, he made a further statement, referred to by the Attorney-General, when he spoke of "a massacre plot"—a massacre plot! Apparently, if the right hon. Gentleman says it once, we are not to take it seriously. When 346the Under-Secretary referred to Mau Mau, he said: We have had it all before. Remember Mau Mau."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March. 1959; Vol. 601, c. 337.] We are not to take that seriously, either. That is, possibly, the value which one member of the Government puts upon the judgment of another member of the Government, but the newspapers took this seriously. This was the subject of the headlines in the newspapers the next day, but that was not the major trouble.
In my view, the major blunder—crime, almost—was not misleading the House of Commons but that the Colonial Secretary and the Under-Secretary, in my view—and I think it is fair to say in the Devlin Commission's view—jeopardised the lives of those Europeans living in isolated homesteads, scattered, widespread, unable to be protected, and, what is more, jeopardised the lives and homes of those Africans who were arrested the following morning, because the police who made the arrests may well have believed that there was a murder plot. This is what the Devlin Commission says: If so, that fact might offer an explanation, if not an excuse, for some of the incidents which we shall record below. I was not sure whether the Attorney-General thought that I was challenging the justification for the state of emergency. If so, I would refer him to the opening words I used at seven o'clock that evening: Since our exchanges earlier this afternoon, and the declaration of a state of emergency in Nyasaland, it has become abundantly clear that the powers which the Governor of Nyasaland asked for are necessary. In my very first sentence, I said that it was becoming abundantly clear that the powers asked for were necessary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read the next sentence."] Yes, of course, I will read the next sentence. I will read the whole speech if hon. Gentlemen opposite wish. I still think, looking back on it, it was a pretty good one. Since the declaration of the state of emergency, but not before, rioting has broken out, Is not that true? tear gas has been used"— Is that untrue? [Interruption.] Tear gas had been used before the state of 347emergency was declared? I yield to the Under-Secretary on that point. It may well be—

§Several Hon. Members rose—

§Mr. Callaghan

One at a time.
It may well be that tear gas was used before and after, but hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot get away from the first sentence, in which I said: Since our exchanges earlier this afternoon, and the declaration of a state of emergency in Nyasaland, it has become abundantly clear that the powers which the Governor of Nyasaland asked for are necessary."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1959; Vol. 601, c. 279.]

§Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

I thank the hon. Member for giving way to me. He has asked a question. The answer is this. He is talking about what happened in this House on 3rd March. Surely he is aware that violent disturbances began at least ten or fourteen days earlier?

§Mr. Callaghan

I was aware of that.
The Devlin Commission goes on to say that the publicity given to the murder plot has distracted attention from the real strength of the Government's case. Hon. Gentlemen opposite might like to listen to this, because they might agree with it—that this distracted attention from the real strength of the Government's case. I agree with that too.
I want now to turn—I think we have reached this point—to the use of violence. I apologise for keeping the House for a long time, but this is a most serious matter. There is no doubt of the Devlin Commission's finding that the use of violence was discussed at the meeting in the Bush on 25th January. According to the Commission's Report, there seems to have been no clear line drawn between discussion and decision. That is a happening from which British Governments are not always exempt. … there was to be an all-out campaign to defy the Government, violence not excluded. That is what the Commission finds.
But the Commission draws a distinction between the violence that Mr. Chisiza and Mr. Chipembere sponsored and the violence with which they were credited. It was to be done in response to Government measures so that it could 348be represented as an answer to provocation. In other words, it was to be a reaction rather than an initiative. Why did their thoughts turn to violence? Surely this is a question to which the Attorney-General could have directed himself this afternoon instead of proving so much of his case on the use of violence. Why did they turn to violence? It was not because they were bad men—at least the Commission did not think so. The Commission did not think that all the leaders of Congress had more than their normal share of personal ambition; no more than, say, the Prime Minister when he was struggling with the Leader of the House at the time of the disappearance of Sir Anthony Eden. They are first and foremost African nationalists says the Commission. It does not agree with the Government view, and the Colonial Secretary consistently acted on this view which the Commission decries, that these aspirations are the thought of only a small minority of political Africans, mainly self-seekers.
Why, then, did their thoughts turn to violence? The Report is quite clear. By the middle of 1958 Congress leaders were suffering from a feeling of frustration. They believed, and so does the Commission, that they had virtually unanimous support from the people of Nyasaland. The Government says, it cannot and will not go back on Federation; it treats the question as one that is no longer open. The section of the Report which deals with the emergency conference makes quite clear that the growing mood of frustration deepened—I do beg hon. Members opposite to listen to this—because the fateful 1960 Conference was approaching and they would not be represented at this conference by people of their own choosing. That was why their mood of frustration deepened. And the responsibility for that lies here. It cannot be argued or shrugged off.
Then comes the significant sentence of the Commission's Report: … there is no way in which constitutionally it"— that is, Congress— can make its views effective. And so the extremists determined to persuade the rest of Congress to turn to 349violence and the Government helped them in their self-appointed task.
There was pressure from district commissioners to prevent village meetings from being held if there was any prospect at all of views being expressed in support of Congress. Does the Government dispute that? Chiefs were subjected to financial pressure to dissuade them from supporting agitation against federation. This is not in the Commission's Report, but one district commissioner sent out a memorandum to local chiefs, a copy of which reached me and which I sent to the Colonial Secretary eighteen months ago. It told them that they should not get mixed up in political intrigues, which was another way of describing Congress, particularly against the Government from whom they derive their livings for to do so can invite very severe penalties. One by one measures were taken which screwed down the safety valve. There was no reform of the constitution. There was subtle pressure on the chiefs and on Europeans who did not seem inclined to conform on the matter of federation. Is it remarkable that people who feel as deeply and passionately as the Nyasas do in their desire to be left alone should in these circumstances consider turning to violence? We must look at the causes as well as the results of this. The Commission states: They could make themselves felt only by some form of resistance, and the question was shaping itself—should resistance be active or passive? The prospect of collision sooner or later was almost certain. That was the state to which the Colonial Secretary's administration had reduced that territory. As the Commission said, there was a deep and bitter division of opinion separating Government and people.
What is the responsibility of Government when such a frightening gap opens up? Any Government will in these circumstances resist an attempt to turn to violence. They must do. They must either act or abdicate. This is what the Commission says. That may be the right of the Government, but rights bring duties with them; we are all well enough grounded in that. If one has a right to tell people that they must not turn to violence, one has the duty to assemble the circumstances in which reasonable, decent, ordinary men will not feel the 350necessity or the temptation to respond to appeals to turn to violence.
But the Government were rigid about federation. They were clumsy in handling a proud and sensitive people. Is it surprising that we reached a position in which the extremists were able to persuade the rest of them that violence should be adopted? For these reasons, the Government and the Colonial Secretary cannot escape condemnation for what took place on 3rd March in that Territory.
I hesitate to remind the House about this, but we in the Opposition took this view year after year. We tried to point out what was happening, but we were told, as we were again told last week, "You are creating it". I must say that on few occasions did we get an adequate reply. There were so many occasions when a sneer sufficed instead of an answer. The point was made and reasonably put and we felt that it represented the known views of hundreds of thousands of people.
I turn now to the position of the Government in this matter. The Government bear a major responsibility for creating this situation. There has been a good deal of newspaper talk about the future of the Colonial Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman set our doubts at rest in an interview which he gave to the Daily Mail. Mr. Terry tells us that when he saw the Colonial Secretary he was smiling, he was at ease, he had no great regrets. He was laughing at the coming storm and he appeared totally unmoved. But there was a paragraph in quotation marks in the middle of the interview which I assume is reliable: I understand"— says Mr. Terry— that he was sufficiently taken aback by the Report to offer his resignation to the Prime Minister. But Mr. Macmillan dismissed the idea as ridiculous and pointless and unjustified. That, of course, need not have prevented the right hon. Gentleman from resigning.
As I see it, the only conclusion one can come to is that he offered his resignation, not because he believes that he bears any real responsibility for the state of affairs which I have described, but because he thought he might be an embarrassment to the Government if he stayed with them and that, with an approaching General 351Election, perhaps it would be better if he was out of the way. The Prime Minister has dismissed the idea. He is going to carry the Colonial Secretary on the Governor's back because a major resignation and reshuffle, perhaps three months before an election, would be too much, and that involves the Governor. Because whether the Governor has reached the end of his useful period of life in that territory or not, he cannot go if the Colonial Secretary stays. So it amounts to this, that Nyasaland gets no chance of new men, Nyasaland gets no chance of new methods. Nyasaland gets no opportunity to have its policy reconsidered. These are to be sacrificed by the Prime Minister. He is ready to sacrifice them to considerations of public honour. He is prepared to sacrifice the future of the people of Nyasaland for the sake of winning the General Election. The more outraged public opinion becomes, the more they cling together.
To sum up, the Government have failed to act in accordance with the principle laid down 100 years ago by William Harrison in his Inaugural Address to the American Congress in 1841: The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.The people of Nyasaland more than half a century ago entrusted to us responsibility for their government until they had prepared themselves to take over their own affairs. What our Government have ignored is that they did not take that step of entrusting us with that power in order that we might impose upon them an alien form of government against their will.
I regret very much that we have had to go over in this debate so many of the recommendations of the Devlin Commission Report. This should not have been the start of this debate. We should not have needed to have done this. If the Government had accepted the findings of the Devlin Commission Report, all of us could have made a fresh start. What should we have been discusssing?

§The questions which the House of Commons ought to have been discussing today if the Government had been willing to accept the findings of fact of the Devlin Commission are these. First, how best are we to make that superhuman effort which is necessary to bridge the deep 352gulf existing between the British Government and the people of Nyasaland? But there is no recognition so far that there is a deep gulf. Secondly, we could have had a calm reappraisal of the policy of federation, for federation is shown beyond argument to be the cause of this deep and bitter division. The Government should even now find out on what basis the people of Nyasaland can be reconciled to this idea or, as that seems unlikely, what alternative can be found. Thirdly, we could and should have been discussing today how best to make the transition from the paternalistic approach of a well-meaning Government to a situation in which a small but growing minority of Africans is as well equipped as the average European to take prudent decisions on policy. Finally, we should have been asking ourselves what is the best policy to pursue in a country in which the European population is fundamentally on the defensive and in which their safety defends on striking first.

§Are not those the questions which ought to make the House of Commons feel anxious at a time like this? These questions will have to be examined by a new Government, because it is clear that they will not be examined by this Government. We can hope for nothing from this Government in the matter of a re-examination of these questions so long as these men remain there. It will be no good swopping the Colonial Secretary for someone else if the policy remains the same. But some weeks remain to this Government. If they care to try to repair some of the deep damage they have caused and the gulf which has grown up between our two peoples in Nyasaland and this country, I make three proposals to them.

§First, release the men at present under detention or bring them to trial. Secondly, give a simple straightforward pledge to the people of Nyasaland that they will have the opportunity to secede from the Federation or to find, as I hope that they will, some more palatable connection with the other territories. Thirdly, begin at once constitutional talks with the chiefs, with the Europeans and with the men in prison so that Africans can assume more and more responsibility for their own Government in a territory which is overwhelmingly African. Do this in time for them to be able to control their own destinies 353when the 1960 federal review comes round.

§5.15 p.m.

§Mr. R. H. Turton (Thirsk and Malton)

I know that many hon. Members wish to speak. I want, therefore, to compress my remarks into a very short compass. I want, first, to deal with a point raised by neither my right hon. and learned Friend nor the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). It is my usual complaint that the Press clearly have not read a Report before they comment upon it, but on Sunday, 19th July, it was very clear that the Press had read the Devlin Report. It was not published until late on 23rd July, four days later.
I want to ask my right hon. Friend why that was, how the leak took place, whether it took place in this country or in Africa, or in transit on the plane, and, if he does not know the answers, what steps he is taking to ascertain those facts. This is a matter of very considerable public importance. I cannot think of any occasion in the history of Parliament when a commission of inquiry or a Royal Commission has had this advance Press comment. This is not a matter on which we shall be joining issue later. I cannot think that any hon. Member will tolerate this. It is extremely embarrassing for my right hon. Friend and his colleagues, who cannot answer the complaints, and even more embarrassing for those officers who are serving this country overseas who are getting adverse Press comment without even knowing the charge that is laid. I beg my right hon. Friend when he replies to give the House all the knowledge that he has about this.
I turn now to the Devlin Report. I found myself at times not quite understanding the viewpoints of my right hon. and learned Friend and, more especially, of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East. I regard this as a very able report of an inquiry conducted under extremely difficult circumstances, because two of the four members of the Commission had no knowledge at all of Africa or African conditions before they left this country. One of the remaining two had had knowledge of North Africa, as I well know.

§Mr. Callaghan

East Africa.

354

§Mr. Turton

I am speaking of Mr. E. T. Williams, who is the Warden of Rhodes House and was a distinguished officer under Field Marshal Montgomery. He had great knowledge of Africans. That means that only one member of the Commission had knowledge of Africa, and no member of the Commission had knowledge of Central Africa.

§Mr. Callaghan

Mr. Wyn-Harris had been a district officer in Kenya for twenty years.

§Mr. Turton

None had had knowledge of Nyasaland. I am speaking principally of the two having no knowledge of Africa, which made their position extremely hard when judging issues.
Secondly, as was laid down by the procedure, they had no opportunity of cross-examining witnesses. I thought that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East was perfectly right in directing us to paragraph 4 of the Report. It is rather a pity that the hon. Member did not go on to paragraph 5, where the Commission quite frankly states: … we were not sitting as a court of law. We were holding an inquiry and not conducting a series of trials. Later in that same paragraph it says: We have not written this Report in the form of findings for or against any individual; we have written it in narrative form as a statement of the facts for your use based on what we believe to be the balance of probabilities and not upon proof beyond reasonable doubt. Reading the Report, I feel that the Commission has put the probabilities before us in a form that I cannot accept. I cannot accept its conclusions, for instance, in regard to the very clear example given by my right hon. Friend when he talked about the African brandishing and pointing a spear against a district commissioner at Rumpi. The Commission said it felt that the inspector ought to have shouted rather than shot. That is the sort of occasion when I find a balance of improbabilities in the conclusion that the Report has made. But they are not findings.
This Report is not condemning or acquitting anybody. It has done very well, I think, and it is extremely able. In narrative form it has set down the occurrences that happened in a riotous atmosphere in Africa. The Commission was, of course, considering these things355when the riots had subsided, thanks to the state of emergency having been declared, and when men and women were no longer in peril of their lives.
As I see it, there is a great deal of disagreement between the two sides of the House on the matter of what was actually planned or plotted in the meeting of 25th January and what caused the state of emergency on 3rd March. Here, again, the Commission makes quite clear to me how this difference of opinion took place between it and the Governor. The Commission says in paragraph 161 how exactly it treated the evidence. It had four types of evidence before it—the evidence of informers, the evidence of detainees, some of whom later recanted and withdrew their evidence, documentary evidence and the evidence of events up to 3rd March.
It is quite clear that Sir Robert Armitage, when ordering the state of emergency and when in consultation with my right hon. Friend, could quite clearly not have been aware of the two series of evidence, the documentary evidence and the evidence of events subsequent to 3rd March. The Commission has said that it attaches very little value to the evidence of informers and has also rejected the evidence of detainees who have later withdrawn their evidence.
In my judgment, the Commission was led to that decision because, with the exception of one member of it, it had very little knowledge of Africa and of the intimidation that goes on in such circumstances. Really, I think that the Commission has misjudged what is the evidence of informers. It is very difficult for a judge who normally practises in courts in this country to accept the evidence of informers, who are considered to be reliable in Africa.
As I see it, the weakness of the Commission's appreciation of the evidence put before it lies in paragraph 161, and therefore, in my view it certainly weakens the Commission's conclusions on that point. But when we turn to documentary evidence which we have got and which the Governor had not got at that time, it is surprising in that no one expects men who are planning or plotting a riot normally to put their plans and plots into writing. Yet here we have the notes of the meeting of 25th January saying that 356directly Dr. Banda was caught the people would start war after two days and that they would hit Europeans or cut throats. Again, we have in the letter of Mr. Chipembere the following statement: The agenda was secret and I am afraid I must avoid committing it in writing just now. In short, I can only inform you that for the first time, Congress adopted 'action' as the official policy… Thinking on these events that happened in Nyasaland, I am forced to consider the events that happened ten years ago in Kenya. I wonder what would have happened in 1950 if the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), who was then at the Colonial Office, had declared a state of emergency and had taken similar action during the time of his Government to what the Governor of Nyasaland took on 3rd March and then appointed a commission of inquiry. I remember very well in October, 1952, the then Colonial Secretary, who is now Lord Chandos, stating in the House: Early this year Mau Mau attacks began in the Nyeri District and then spread to the Kiambu and Fort Hall Districts in the Central Province. He then detailed the measures he was taking and said:These measures proved insufficient because African witnesses were afraid to come forward and give evidence in face of the brutal methods and vicious reprisals of the Mau Mau against them. Africans who refused to take a Mau Mau oath have had ropes tied round their necks and have been strung up from rafters until they were unconscious. Those who have informed the police have later been found murdered. Charges against over 100 persons for administering or participating in the administration of Mau Mau oaths had to be withdrawn, because the witnesses had disappeared or been intimidated into changing their story."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th October, 1952; Vol. 505, c. 388–9.] In the period 1951–52 there was the same pattern of intimidation and of the withdrawal of evidence as we had quite clearly in Nyasaland at the time the Devlin Commission was examining the witnesses after the riots. Had we taken that action in 1950 or 1951 a great many lives would have been saved. We might well have been able to claim that no European had been killed, as the Opposition were remarking rather scoffingly earlier this afternoon, and a great deal of misery would have been avoided.
My chief reason for rising in the debate is to make this appeal to both sides of the House. I feel very strongly 357that as Members of Parliament, as hon. and right hon. Members, we must conduct ourselves in this debate so that the path of those who are administering our colonial policy in Nyasaland is made easier and not harder.

§Mr. W. Griffiths (Manchester, Exchange)

What about the Africans?

§Mr. Turton

I do not know whether the hon. Member is suggesting that by making it harder for our colonial administrators, who in every Commonwealth and Colonial country that I have visited have been beloved by those whom they serve, we can make it easier for the Africans.

§Mr. Griffiths

I have no desire to make things difficult for our colonial administrators. I only like to hear an occasional word in the House in behalf of the Africans.

§Mr. Turton

I cannot think that the hon. Gentleman or any hon. Member opposite can fail to appreciate how difficult conditions have been for those officers who are now serving in Nyasaland, and for those in the police force, who have been subjected to this very detailed inquiry in the Devlin Report. I do not think the Opposition realise how often in their attacks on the Government in power, which they believe to be their right as an Opposition, they are in fact making the lot of the colonial administrator, the man on the spot, very much harder.

§Mr. James Johnson (Rugby) rose—

§Mr. Turton

I cannot give way now. I will do so later if the hon. Gentleman wishes. As was made quite clear in paragraph 257 of the Devlin Report, having had this detailed examination of every shot fired during the whole course of the campaign, As we have said, we saw everyone responsible for the shooting … we have not found anyone who was 'trigger happy'. They then say, … we are satisfied that each man did what he did because he honestly felt that he could not discharge his duty in any other way. On one occasion one sergeant and four men faced a crowd of 1,000 advancing against them. There was a time when men serving in Colonial Territories and Protected territories in the Commonwealth could feel that they had the confidence 358of the House of Commons. I appeal to the House not to say anything that reflects upon those men. I have always taken the view that colonial policy and foreign policy should be above party politics. I realise perfectly well that others may take a different view, but I think it is a great pity that these attacks on colonial policy have developed into long marathons at this stage. I do not believe they do the party opposite any good at all.
I believe that the vast majority of those who will vote for the party opposite at any future election will deplore many of the things which have been said, not least by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, who has now left the Chamber. In his attack on my right hon. Friend he suggested that he should resign, but I believe that with the departure of my right hon. Friend from that office which he has held with such distinction—indeed, I believe he has been the best Colonial Secretary since Joseph Chamberlain—a light would be extinguished from the Commonwealth which would be very hard for anyone to light again.

§5.35 p.m.

§Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) has asked that we should do nothing to make more difficult the lives of those who administer the Protectorate of Nyasaland. I would suggest that what makes their lives difficult is the fact that they are being asked to carry out a policy which has no hope whatever of success, and that the basis of their difficulties lies precisely and simply in that fact.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) early in his speech read a telegram to which I hope every hon. Member opposite who will speak in this debate will pay great attention, because that telegram was sent from the representative of a large industrial firm, not in any way connected with politics. I happen to know that the African employees in that firm, almost without exception, apart from those doing the most menial jobs, have been arrested and are now in detention, but the firm itself has such confidence in them that it wrote to every one of them to say that if he was not charged and convicted in a court of law he 359could be perfectly assured that his job would be kept for him by his employers.
Those are the people who work day after day with these men, and not people such as we have in this House who may be called theorists or party politicians. They are the employers of these people, who see them every day and who surely can judge their quality, character and integrity. It is only right that the House should know these facts before giving judgment on this matter.
We had from the Attorney-General the kind of speech which we expect from him. It was the worst kind of lawyer's speech. This debate is worthy of something much better, because surely we are all concerned not with laying the Blame here or there, but primarily with what is to be the solution of the problems which are so imaginatively described in the Devlin Commission's Report. I myself have been concerned and interested in Nyasaland for many years and I found that the description and the analysis of the political situation at the beginning of the Report and in the concluding sections carried complete conviction.
The various incidents described, important as they are, in perspective are of less weight than this exceedingly important question of where we go in Nyasaland if we are to have a constructive and peaceful solution. I believe that the Colonial Secretary is reaping where he sowed. He is now reaping the results of the policy which has been pursued under his administration in Nyasaland, as we on this side of the House have said on one occasion after another, misguidedly and mistakenly.
I will not weary the House by going over too much of the past history, which one can read with extreme lucidity in the Report. I would simply remind the House that in June, 1955, the Colonial Secretary, I believe, took far too timid and weak a step forward in the direction of constitutional advance, by allowing only five African members, and those indirectly elected, to be associated with the process of government.
The consequence of that, as Mr. Justice Devlin and his colleagues point out, is that there was not adequate opportunity offered to those who are politically conscious in Nyasaland to make 360their wishes and aspirations felt effectively. They had quite inadequate representation and it was concentrated on far too few people and depended, therefore, far too much on the temperament of a handful of persons who were the only ones with direct access to the seat of government.
At the time I approached the Secretary of State about this matter and said that I thought that he was mistaken. But far worse, to my mind, than the timidity shown on that occasion was the incident in April, 1957, when Sir Roy Welensky came to this country. I do not believe that we should have had the present troubles in Nyasaland if, at that time, the Government had spoken courageously, strongly and frankly to Sir Roy Welensky. In the Report it is stated that what finally determined Dr. Banda, who was then in practice as a doctor in Ghana, to return to Nyasaland was the impression given that Her Majesty's Government had at that point of time virtually capitulated to Sir Roy Welensky.
I do not think that one can blame Dr. Banda for having that impression, because following these discussions with Sir Roy Welensky it was announced that the 1960 conference, then still three years away, would be held to consider a programme for the attainment of Dominion status by the Federation as a full member of the Commonwealth. Three years before the conference was to be held the impression was given to the Africans in Nyasaland that the pass had already been sold and that Sir Roy Welensky had secured assurances from Her Majesty's Government that, in Dr. Banda's words, he would get amalgamation by the back door.
It is only since then, in the last year or eighteen months, that there have been significant moves of policy on the part either of Sir Roy Welensky or of Her Majesty's Government. This is the tragedy of our colonial administration in one territory after another: it is only when there were apprehensions of violent action and organised pressure that we had the slight change which has occurred in the policy of Her Majesty's Government and of the Federation. In the last few weeks we have had various assurances concerning the future of Nyasaland, not by any means full or 361adequate assurances but assurances which, had they been given in April, 1957, instead of the statement made then, might have produced a very different course of events in Nyasaland.
As the Devlin Commission rightly points out, the problem is one of complete lack of confidence and lack of communication between the people in Nyasaland and their Government. As the Commission says, they are speaking and arguing on two different planes which never meet. It is, therefore, the business of the House to consider what steps can be taken to enable the people concerned to speak the same language and to understand each other and to work together towards the same end.
This morning a leading article in The Times set out a number of considerations—not one of which, needless to say, was mentioned by the Attorney-General—as to the points which must be decided and implemented if we are to have anything other than either a police State or civil war in the Protectorate. The Times said that the constitutional changes announced fall very far short not only of what Congress has asked for, but also of what other persons in the territory have considered reasonable. They fell far short of what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, more than a year ago, stated that we believed would be the proper advance to be made constitutionally in Nyasaland. The franchise is another matter which will have to be considered. The Times points out that the reasons for the hesitation on the part of the Government have no doubt been because in the other territories of the Federation a qualitative system has been adopted which has very little validity in a territory such as Nyasaland.
More important than these details, significant though they are, is the vital question of what are the guarantees which are to be given to the people of Nyasaland as to their ultimate future. Are they to be given a timetable of progress? In many circumstances a timetable is not advisable, but in the state of affairs which has been reached in Nyasaland, even The Times, which is usually extremely cautious in these matters, says that it will be better to take the risk of giving some kind of timetable towards independence than to continue in the present state of despondency, mistrust 362and complete lack of confidence in Her Majesty's Government.
Very firm guarantees of future progress must be given, and I believe that one of those guarantees must be that the people of Nyasaland shall have the right to secede from the Federation if they so wish. It need not necessarily be an immediate right. It would be more statesmanlike to put it to the people of Nyasaland that when the time comes they will have that right to secede but that it would be in their own best interest to have some experience of internal self-government before the moment comes when they exercise that right. Nevertheless, the right should be guaranteed to them. I am firmly convinced that unless we give the guarantee that, ultimately, they will be allowed to decide for themselves whether they will stay in the Federation or not, we shall not have the co-operation of the people of Nyasaland, and to delude ourselves by thinking otherwise is folly.
Granted that such guarantees are given, what is to be the political development in Nyasaland? One of the most serious sections of the Devlin Commission's Report, to my mind, is the paragraph in which the Commission describes the Government's action towards the complete breaking up of the one effective indigenous political organisation, the African National Congress. We are smashing the one organisation which the people of Nyasaland have managed to form for themselves. We have seen the effect on people, only the very smallest minority of whom had, I believe, even considered violent action, of having their organisation broken up, their leaders detained and people sentenced to imprisonment for periods of six months to two years for the mere possession of a card of membership of an organisation which at the time they were members was perfectly legal. We here much talk from hon. Members opposite about retrospective legislation. This, indeed, is retrospective legislation.
The people of Nyasaland have also seen imprisonment for a period up to five years for someone who is accused of no more than being an active member of Congress in the sense that he collected subscriptions. They have seen force being used not merely in the districts where there had been violence, but, as the 363Devlin Commission sharply points out, in other areas where members of Congress had not taken violent action, where they were still peaceably inclined but where, suddenly, they had this bitter experience of arrests, searching and confiscation. Nyasaland had never had this kind of experience before.
For many years past there have been areas in Africa where there has been trouble of one kind or another, but what has distinguished Nyasaland among all the territories of Africa until the last few years has been precisely that it has been a peaceful country; that it has not been rent by civil disobedience, dissentions or actions against the Government. Nyasaland was not taken by conquest—there was no question of the kind of war that we had in Southern Rhodesia, for example.
Those who have any knowledge whatever of territories in Africa under British rule have always said that until the last five or six years Nyasaland was a country in which the people trusted the Administration, and in which one did not have the kind of difficulties that one has had from time to time in other territories. Do we really intend to throw away the good will of these people? I believe that even now we could rescue the situation if we had a positive approach to it.
I have known Dr. Banda fairly well personally for some years. I would agree very closely with the estimate made of him by the Devlin Commission. It was not an entirely favourable estimate. None of us is perfect, and anybody placed in Dr. Banda's position on his return to Nyasaland would obviously be faced with a very difficult situation. But that he is essentially a peaceful and reasonable man. I have no doubt.
I believe that it is possible to cooperate with him, given the conditions—including, in particular, the guarantee that I mentioned earlier—to work with him, and to negotiate with him. There was no feeling of bitter enmity between himself and the Governor—quite the contrary. And I say to the House that in spite of all the criticisms of the Governor's policy and actions—which one would naturally expect from Africans who have been associated with Congress—the Africans have told me 364that, as a person, they respect and like Sir Robert Armitage, and it is only right that that should be said. They have told me that on purely personal grounds he was, and still is, well liked. One has, therefore, a basis on which one could proceed.
I hope very much that the Colonial Secretary will reply in a tone befitting a Colonial Secretary who is not trying to make party capital out of this debate, but is really concerned for the future of this territory. The Government's attitude has made it very difficult for us on this side to take a constructive line. The manner in which they have dealt with this subject is entirely beneath the dignity of this House of Commons.
The Government themselves chose this type of Commission—it was not at the request of the Opposition. It was their decision to have this type of Commission, and they appointed the members—persons of standing, of very great ability and of a variety of experience. Anybody who has read the Report must find it a remarkably competent and imaginative document. Yet, when the Government have the Report, they ask the House to accept only those parts that are convenient to themselves.
To my mind, that is a thoroughly despicable way of dealing with a situation that is extremely difficult, and that requires great statesmanship, great forbearance and imagination if Nyasaland is to be rescued from a state of frustration and misery. I therefore hope that during the remainder of our debate we shall not try to make the sort of cheap points that were made by the Attorney-General, but that we shall follow the lead of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East and look to the future and consider what conditions we can suggest for the constitutional and political development of Nyasaland. We owe it to the people of Nyasaland, who have a poor country but a very proud tradition, to see that we in this House do not betray their interests or their future.

§5.55 p.m.

§Mr. Douglas L. S. Nairn (Central Ayrshire)

I am very pleased indeed to follow the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) as I feel considerable sympathy with a great deal that she has said. As my right hon. 365Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) has said, we want to see how much common ground we can find between the two sides of the House. I am quite sure that there is a great deal of common ground, although it often gets hidden—particularly, I must say, in speeches like that made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan).
He said that from this side he always got a sneer instead of an answer, but it seemed to me that his speech in answer to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General was one long sneer, with no attempt at all to answer the Government case. He did, however, at the end of his speech, make one remark with which I have a great deal of sympathy, and in spite of falling out with the hon. Gentleman on everything else that he said I will come back to that later.
The hon. Gentleman quoted from a confidential letter that he had received from Dr. Banda. I cannot agree with either the hon. Gentleman's or the Commission's assessment of Dr. Banda, much as I would like to. I listened to Dr. Banda before he left this country, and it was the force of his personality rather than his charm that struck me. A confidential letter having been quoted, I would say that I got the definite impression listening to Dr. Banda that even before he left this country he reckoned that he would have to resort to violence to get what he wanted.
If we had been sitting on the benches opposite and the Opposition had been on this side, perhaps we would have got the sort of letter that the hon. Gentleman said he had received from Dr. Banda, and the hon. Gentleman would have been locking up Dr. Banda just as hon. Members opposite found they had to do when they were in power. One cannot accept at it face value everything one receives from people who are trying to get something out of one, particularly if one is sitting on the Opposition benches.
I think that Dr. Banda is a gentleman who, rather like a film star, is quite capable of turning on the charm when in front of the cameras, or when he wants something, but who can be equally ruthless and relentless when not getting his own way. I hope very much that in the 366course of time—and I trust that it will not be very long—his charm will come to the top, and that he will realise that ruthlessness and a failure entirely to condemn violence is not the right way to get what he wants.
Whatever may be said from time to time, both sides of the House want to see full co-operation and harmony reestablished between all Europeans and all Africans whose homes happen to be in that part of the world. I think that hon. Members opposite know as well as I that that is the goal for which my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary has always worked, and we know that it is also the goal for which the Governor, the district commissioners, the police and all the forces that are or were under the command of the Governor—and whose actions are now in question in the Report—have always worked.
I have said before when speaking on Central Africa that I voted against federation in 1952 because I was not satisfied that it was the right vehicle for creating mutual confidence and respect. I agree that there is no doubt that federation has played a big part in creating the present disturbances. There could be no doubt about that. It was with those thoughts in mind that I read carefully through the Report of the Commission of Inquiry. I am afraid this is a little bit of repetition, but my first conclusion after reading it was that the Governor was absolutely justified, on the information he had and on the circumstances in Nyasaland, in taking the action he did.
My second conclusion is that the facts brought out in the Report do not justify many of the criticisms made in the Report. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East when he opened the debate said that we accepted the bits in the Report which we liked and did not accept the bits we did not like. I accept nearly all the facts that the Report brings out. but what I cannot accept is the conclusions that the members of the Commission came to on those facts. I do not feel that the Governor took any unreasonable action at all.
The Commission made two main criticisms. The first was that it was not possible for it to confirm the existence of an actual murder plot. The second was that in some instances unnecessary 367force was used both in quelling disturbances and in arresting people who were suspected of inciting, shall I say, disturbances with violence. I find it quite impossible to accept either of those criticisms as valid on the facts as brought out in the Report, particularly in the circumstances as they existed in Nyasa-land.
In a place like Central Africa we simply cannot draw a hard and fast line between what is a plot or a conspiracy and what is not and say which it is. Does there have to be a military order laying down who is to kill whom before we have a plot or conspiracy, or is it enough to say that it has been agreed to allow indiscriminate and unorganised killing? What happened in this case was that there was an agreement for indiscriminate killing and the Commission was entirely satisfied that this violence had been agreed on. The fact that there was no operation order setting out how it was to be done seems in this case to be entirely irrelevant.
As for the actions of individuals in making arrests or other things, I say only this. I should like to congratulate them on the coolness and courage they showed and their presence of mind all through these operations. There is not one vestige of evidence anywhere that anything was done out of panic or by any of them losing their heads. The Commission said that they all acted in the way they did because they believed there was no other way of carrying out their duties.
One other thing came out in the Report which I believe, if understood properly from the beginning, would never have divided the House as acutely as it has been divided. I know hon. Members opposite are highly suspicious of me as a Southern Rhodesian citizen, and the thing which created suspicion in this House, from the beginning, was an absolutely firm conviction that what the Governor of Nyasaland did was not done on his own, but at the instigation of the Federal Government, the Southern Rhodesian Europeans and Sir Roy Welensky, who is a Northern Rhodesian. This Report clearly demonstrates that this action was taken by the Governor on his own initiative in the interests of Nyasaland. I hope that at last that 368suspicion will be completely and finally removed.
It would be wrong in a debate of this sort to end without some reference to the future. For everyone in Africa, if not here, the future is vastly more important than what has happened in the recent past. We must have absolute, complete confidence re-established and developed between one race and another. Here I agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East. Last time I was in Southern Rhodesia I asked my friends—I admit that they are only a small cross-section—"Do you, or do you not, believe that in the end the success and permanency of federation must depend on consent?" They all said, "Of course it must".
The other day, in order to emphasise something which people have not already realised, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister again emphasised that the Government intend fully to implement all that is in the Preamble to the Constitution. I should like to see the Federal Government recognising that and saying they have no quarrel with that statement but support it entirely. I should like them to go one step further and say that the Federal Government realise and appreciate that in the long run federation can depend only on consent. The hon. Lady very fairly said that the Federation as it is now may well be the best means, the best umbrella, under which these people can develop. We do not know how long it may take, but once they have got their own established Government, then is the time for them to decide whether they are going to give their consent or not. Of course, if it is going to be by mutual consent it must cut both ways and all three partners should have the same opportunity at that particular time. I believe that if that were once said publicly in the Federation then there would be a good basis on which we could re-establish understanding and mutual trust and create a real hope than when the time came the Federation would not break up but would become vastly stronger.
I speak in this debate with some little advantage, having lived in the area for seven years. I know that gives one no extra wisdom, but, having lived there and now being able to look at the problem from outside, I believe that gives a 369reasonable background against which to form a sensible judgment of what might happen in the future.

§6.9 p.m.

§Mr. James Johnson (Rugby)

I hope that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Nairn) will allow me to tell him that he has made an admirable speech. He is both a Southern Rhodesian who has lived in the Federation and a Tory. He has made a good speech because it was not a typically Southern Rhodesian nor a typically Tory speech. He has told us of his anxieties and fears about federation even in the 1950s and now seven, eight or nine years later we are seeing some of the difficulties which flow from the settlement made at that time.
In this Chamber we constantly hear a cri de coeur from the benches opposite for a bipartisan policy and how much that would help. I am perfectly sincere in believing that that would help the administration in Lusaka or elsewhere, or Tanganyika or Nyasaland, and would help the Europeans who are settled there.
There are Europeans in the Federation who have allegiances to both sides of this House or to none. No monopoly of white settlers or of any other Europeans belongs to the Tory Party. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to have joint agreement in this House when we get the sort of Motion that appears on the Order Paper today. Here was a magnificent chance of accepting the findings of the Devlin Commission. Together, we could have accepted them as being given to us by four honourable men specially picked for the job. Instead, however, the Government have to put down a niggling Motion whereby they pick here and discard there what they favour or dislike in the Commission's findings.
What is the reason for that? The Colonial Secretary is shocked by many of the statements made and the facts outlined by the Devlin Commission. Secondly, many Europeans in Nyasaland are worried about the effect of the Commission's findings upon their own people inside the territory. The Sunday Times had a somewhat harsh gibe about the peoples in Zomba being "between Devlin and the deep black sea". That 370is a most unfair comment. It was a fair and honest finding by the Commission.
I agree with nearly everything in the Commission's Report. I quite agree that the Governor had either to take action upon the position in the territory or to abdicate. I have been in the protectorate since the emergency, and have spoken and listened to people there. In my opinion, the Governor had to take action or to abdicate. I agree with paragraph 149 of the Report, which says much the same thing. I make no special pleading on my side of the House about the facts and I do not intend even to mention Sir Roy Welensky as a villain in disguise in this particular act.
The second thing about the Commission's findings which I echo wholeheartedly is the overwhelming opposition of the Africans to federation. This lies in the background of the whole situation. It is no good hon. Members opposite making spurious agitation about the rôle and the past performance of Labour Members of Parliament in those territories or, indeed, of present day hon. Members on these benches. Nationalism exists, as does opposition to federation. Had there been no Socialist Party, whether in Denmark, Sweden or this country, all this would have happened as it has happened now. These African people wish to look after their own affairs. That movement has to come sooner or later. The Conservative Party here must be blind to that, because it applies to all Africans, whether Zanzibari, Somali or anyone else. It is a natural, inevitable feature of the dynamic development of the continent.
Thirdly, I agree with the Devlin Commission that there was no massacre plan in the sense in which hon. Members opposite talk of a "plot" in the territory. On 3rd March, in that beautiful land which has often been called an African Switzerland, the security forces went out. They swarmed all over the place. Africans were arrested, on the whole quietly, but where there was any opposition guns were used and something like fifty Africans were killed. I went there a few weeks afterwards, in April. I found the Government and the Governor dispirited and clueless. They were in a vacuum. The Governor was ill at ease. All African leaders who were outside the detention camps were vehement 371against any association with Southern Rhodesia.
The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire was correct about their views regarding those Europeans who live south of the Zambesi. One can describe the African opposition as pathological, but it exists. It is as much a physical factor as Mount Kenya, Mount Zomba or any other mountain in the continent. This political vacuum in Nyasaland still exists. I asked all members of the Government out there, "How can you govern without the consent of the governed? It is quite impossible that these conditions can continue. You cannot sit upon bayonets." None of the members of the Government had an answer to that perfectly simple question. Like Micawber, they were sitting and waiting for something to turn up. So were the Government here. They then appointed the Devlin Commission. Today the Government Motion by picking and using the facts provided by those four gentlemen and by selecting the bits they like and discarding those they do not like is an insult to the members of that Commission.
I am reminded of a famous cricket match in Yorkshire. A well-known Leeds batsman went down to play at the local village. He went into bat. The local fast bowler came down to the wicket, the ball beat against the pads of this famous visiting Yorkshire batsman and the bowler said, "How's that, Dad?" The umpire said, "He's out, son." That is the psychology of the Government here. They want the umpire and the odds always on their side.
No doubt, there was an increase in lawlessness, as the Report states in paragraph 99, and a policy of sabotage was pursued, instances occurring in Karonga, Fort Hill, Livingstonia and elsewhere. I do not believe that Hastings Banda, who is the undisputed leader of his party, was a willing or, indeed, a knowing accessory to the plot, plan or campaign. I believe that Chipembere had much more knowledge of what was happening. Indeed, Chipembere's speech at Zomba on 20th January was no help whatever, in the way in which 400 people went down to the Boma after hearing it. He was reproved by Hastings Banda.
I am willing to concede that in Africa there is intimidation, but there has been372intimidation in the United Kingdom, particularly of farm workers by their employers. It is not unknown for people to apply pressure upon their neighbours or employees here or, in this case, upon fellow Africans. It must not be forgotten, however, that when we talk about intimidation and violent action we are speaking about men who are thwarted and sour because of the policy of the party opposite. It stands out a mile that people like Chipembere and Hastings Banda, as well as some who are not behind bars, are thwarted and sour men. They are unbalanced because they did not know what their future is to be. They still do not know. It is their country, but the Colonial Secretary has been fearfully dilatory and has not given them any definite future of constitutional advance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) said that way back in 1955 the Colonial Secretary had a glorious chance of giving these peoples an opening towards the end of the tunnel. He could easily have had parity between Africans and Europeans among the elected members in Legco, but he did not do that. Then, to the dismay of all the Africans, he gave the Africans five seats as opposed to six non-Africans in Legco. That was a big mistake, as we told the right hon. Gentleman at the time. It was a big psychological blunder, and we are now paying for it. What difference would one more seat have made in Legco with the Secretary of State's officials in the majority sitting on the benches with the Governor in case of any difficulty through one-quarter of the Assembly—Africans—causing trouble? This was one of the many factors which has disturbed these people and made them so bitter.
Now, we are to have constitutional advance, but again the Africans have been in two minds because of the action of the party opposite. The Governor, Sir Robert Armitage, talked in June of last year of advance early in 1959. But the Secretary of State himself spoke to the Africans when they came over here and said he hoped to have proposals—when? Was it late August or early September? That was the time that was indicated to them. Here we had the Government speaking with two voices. Even then—and I must say this about Hastings Banda, not against him—Hastings 373Banda as late as the end of January was saying to his own people, "You must be patient." He was willing to go on negotiating with Sir Robert Armitage, the Governor.
We now have a new statement about the next stage for the advance of the 2½ million Africans in this Protectorate. What does it amount to? They are to be given more members in the Legislative Council. They are to be given two more in the Executive Council but they are not to be Ministers. Why cannot we find one African in 2½ million who is able to do a Ministerial job? Why not? It would be a magnificent gesture, as it has been in neighbouring territories, to indicate to those people that we mean what we talk about. Not to do it shows a lack of imagination, and it is lack of imagination which one finds in a colony of this kind. Can one wonder that they are soured, as sometimes they appear to be?
Thirdly, there is the question of this alleged plot. We had sinister overtones way back on 3rd March when the Under-Secretary of State talked about the "massacre" and "plot", etc. He wanted to indicate to us that this was almost a Mau Mau meeting in the bush, as in Kenya. Has he been to Blantyre? Has he seen the place where the meeting took place? Anyone can go past it. It is almost an open glade, just off the highway as one leaves the town of Blantyre. There was nothing at all like a cooking up of conspiratorial and sinister work in the depths of the bush.
This abominable campaign about a "massacre" began in this House. Do Dot let us in any way delude ourselves. There is a lack of synchronisation between the speeches in this House and the Governor's statement in Zomba. He said nothing in Zomba about this sort of plot until 11th March. We were talking about it in this House on 3rd March.
We heard earlier about Mr. John Howard of Blantyre who sent that cable to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). I attended a number of cocktail parties and talked to people like Mr. John Howard and other businessmen in Nyasaland. I found at those informal meetings heavy sarcasm but very light amusement by Europeans about the alleged massacre plot. They were 374exceedingly sceptical about this long before the Devlin Commission. Why? Because much of the evidence which the police have is based upon what is told by the police informers. It is not so many months since the time when Lord Malvern flew to London and in another place told us what prevaricators—I put it politely—Africans can be, and, in his view, always are. I saw the European population laugh at this evidence. These Africans are paid informers, paid by the police to tell the police the kind of things the police wish to hear. This was the evidence they were dependent upon. There was, as I say, heavy sarcasm and light amusement at the parties in Blantyre and Limbe a few weeks ago. Here in this House we have had presented the Governor's case, which was based upon this sort of thing.
The behaviour of the forces has been mentioned. I think that the behaviour of the forces has caused intense concern among many people. The Devlin Commission gives a number of examples. I have not time to quote them all, but there was the incident involving Chikafa. They burst in upon this gentleman who is aged about 40, a God-fearing man—a Christian—well known in the local church; they burst in upon him at night, beat him upon the head, bundled him up and whipped him out of the way. That was not untypical of incidents which have happened in this territory.
There have been incidents in Southern Rhodesia, but no one was killed there and everything was done with the minimum of physical force even though people were also picked up; and I would ask the Secretary of State to compare those incidents with some of the incidents in Nyasaland mentioned by the Devlin Commission.
I come to two other matters, the Governor and his officials and the chiefs. It is said by the Devlin Commission that conflict over federation has led to a deep and bitter division of opinion separating the Government from the people. That means that in Zomba they must win the confidence of Africans which they have not got now. How are they going about it? Sir Robert Armitage in his speech from the Throne on 6th July said that he would not allow Hastings Banda or any other leader to return to Nyasaland in a time of danger; and, in 375his view, this was a time of danger to law and order.
Here again we get this image given to the Africans of Europeans who are unimpeachable and infallible. At least, that is the image they wish to give, but I can assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that often to Africans they merely give the image of stilted despots—may be benevolent, but stilted—when they talk in this way. That is not the way to go about it, nor is the attitude of our Ministers, European Ministers, in the Chamber in Zomba.
I have here—the Colonial Secretary must get a copy of it—a copy of HANSARD of Nyasaland, and it shows the Form II behaviour in the debates in the Chamber. I do not like to say this, but it appals me. I turn to page 57 of the proceedings of the first meeting of the Seventy-fourth Session of the Legislative Council on 7th July, 1959, and I find there an African named Chijozi speaking, and he is interrupted nine times in one page. Seven interruptions are the word "Nonsense" uttered by the Chief Secretary of this Protectorate. That is not the best way to give Africans the picture of Westminster democracy or the working of a tolerant, dignified two-party system. It is not good. I hope no one will laugh at this sort of thing, because we should set the best example possible.
We talk of taking to the Africans our superior culture. We should always give the best possible example we can inside or outside the Chamber. We do not want this superior and patronising manner shown towards African men who have been elected by their own people and are there, obviously, to put the case for their own people. That is not the way to win good will or the way to bring together people of different colours in this mixed society. That is not the behaviour of the standard bearers of Western democracy; not by any means.
The last point is a very difficult one and one I have talked of before to the Secretary of State, about the chiefs and their place in politics. There is a clash in Africa. We have seen it in Ghana, of course; there it is all over. First it is between the new young politicos coming up and the older, traditional, tribalistic chiefs. It is very difficult to find adjustment. We have seen what has 376happened in Ghana where the Africans themselves are in power and have settled in their own house the relationship of the older and the new powers.
But what is happening in our Central African territories? All too often we use the chiefs—this is not in this Chamber an objectionable word—as "stooges", and use them to carry out our wishes in disciplining the people. This is a most objectionable habit. I could give numbers of examples of where this is happening in Africa. In Northern Rhodesia the African Congress leaders, Kenneth Kaunda and Harry Nkumbula, have been banned in their provinces by the local chiefs acting on the desires of the Chief Secretary or Provincial Commissioners.
It is happening in Nyasaland now, and happens in many places. I should like to quote something which was written, following a Second Devonshire Course at Oxford, by Mr. I. Woodroffe of Tanganyika as reported in the Journal of African Administration about this difficult problem of moving out of an African tribal society. In the past and today we as the European overlords, as it were, use and manipulate the old chiefs to get what we want from the Africans.
Mr. Woodroffe, writing of the old days of Lugard and Cameron in Tanganyika, referred to the continuance today of … the equivocal position of the chief, unable to represent honestly either government to the people or the people to the government and, secondly, the growing practice of using the native authority's legislative power as a means of shifting the odium of restrictive and compulsive measures from central government. This is the important point and we are doing it in Nyasaland. I am thinking, for example, of Chief Chikowe in Zomba Province. We are using chiefs of that kind to do the job, instead of working with the only genuine indigenous national party, the Nyasaland African Congress. This is not a good thing at all and is merely piling up future trouble.
What of the future? We are to have an interim constitution for Nyasaland. Belated, but nevertheless welcome, changes have been made, but will the Colonial Secretary have as nominees people like Mr. Wellington Chirwa and others outside detention, who are as adamant against close association with 377Southern Rhodesia as are Dr. Hastings Banda and others now in prison? All African leaders are quite clear on this issue. Therefore, the present arrangement is merely a shock absorber. Where will the right hon. Gentleman go next beyond this stage in his constitutional advances? What is to be the future of Dr. Banda? Is he to come out of prison in the next six months, or perhaps twelve months? What will be the future of this man who, by common consent, is the only democratic leader that the Nyasas possess?
We are merely postponing the day of judgment. I beg the Colonial Secretary to think of this and give us something definite soon which will be a target towards which the Africans themselves can aim. The planning of an African constitution is like designing a modern jet aircraft engine. A new constitution is established, but while the first few months of the Legislative Council are being worked out one is thinking of the next stage and the one after that; just as designers have to think of the next jet engine to be used in 1961, 1963 and 1964.
We must look ahead. European leaders like Sir Roy Welensky, Mr. Dixon and Michael Blackwood all say that Nyasaland is to be an African State, but our timing is not theirs. Blackwood talks of 1970, which is quite absurd. I ask the Colonial Secretary to treat this matter as one of urgency and to give the Africans something to look forward to in the future. If he does not, it will have been a waste of taxpayers' money to send out able men like Mr. Justice Devlin to Africa, and the findings of his Commission will be as naught.

§6.33 p.m.

§Brigadier Sir John Smyth (Norwood)

The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) speaks with great knowledge of the area which we are considering. Therefore, his views must carry a great deal of weight and interest even though we may not all agree with him. I intervene briefly in the debate because I happen to have a good deal of experience of civil disturbances, unfortunately from the receiving end and not from the calm atmosphere of the House. I have also experience of the working of the Hunter Commission, which was very similar to the Devlin Commission.
378Today, we are discussing the Devlin Commission's Report and I want to bring the debate back to that Report. The hon. Member for Rugby has been giving us some interesting points of view on the general political philosophy in Nyasaland, but we are debating whether or not we shall accept the Devlin Report in toto, as the party opposite wants, or whether we shall accept the greater part of it.
The first point that strikes anyone reading the Report—and it certainly struck me—is how different the Report itself is from Press reports of it and from some of the earlier speeches made by hon. Members opposite. In fact, the Report supports the Government without any doubt on the major issue, and it makes quite clear that both the Colonial Secretary and the Governor acted with only one end in view throughout, which was to ensure the safety of the people of Nyasaland, black and white, and the maintenance of order and responsible government.

§Mr. John Hynd (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Nonsense.

§Sir J. Smyth

Had they not taken the steps which they did, the situation in Nyasaland today would have been very much worse than it is. Forty years is quite a large slice in the lifetime of one person but a very small period in the history of our Commonwealth.
I want to refer back to the Punjab riots in India in 1919 and the Hunter Commission which followed. I do not want to say much about the riots except that I believe that, had they been handled as promptly as the disturbances in Nyasaland were handled by the Colonial Secretary and the Governor, they would not have assumed anything like the dangerous proportions they did and the casualties would not have been anything like as great.
Those disturbances were followed by the setting up of the Hunter Commission. I had certain experience of the workings of that Commission, which was very similar to the Devlin Commission. Lord Hunter was a Scottish judge, as opposed to Mr. Justice Devlin, who is an English judge, otherwise the composition and the procedure of the two Commissions were fairly similar. The Hunter Commission sat in Lahore, 379where I was stationed as a brigade-major and I was ordered to give evidence before it, but by the time the Commission arrived there I was on a frontier campaign. I did not give evidence, but I saw enough of the proceedings to form an opinion on how the Commission worked.
It was quite obvious that any commission like that in a country like India or Africa is up against a tremendously difficult job in sorting out the mass of evidence that comes before it, a great deal of it, of course, given in a foreign tongue. The Hunter Commission heard the evidence in open court and was given power to summon witnesses, which, I think, was an advantage, because it could pin-point the various people whom it wanted to question and could ensure that they came before it and gave their evidence. It was suggested at the time that the majority of the witnesses, quite naturally, were "agin the Government." Witnesses who supported the Government did not trouble to come before the Commission. They left it to the Government to fight their own case and I think that that would be the position with any commission of this sort.
It was extraordinarily difficult for the Hunter Commission to come to correct conclusions on every fact. It came to a certain number of correct conclusions, but to those who knew the people and the locality some of its other conclusions were quite obviously not correct, through no fault of the Commission's but simply because of the inexperience of the people who gave the evidence. I think that the Devlin Commission was much better managed. First, the Commission was appointed much more promptly by the Colonial Secretary, who was anxious that nothing should be hidden, that everything should come out into the open, and, secondly, I think that it came to sounder conclusions on the major points.
I would stress again the great difficulties which the Devlin Commission was up against. The members of the Commission were only five weeks in Nyasaland, during which they travelled extensively. They heard 455 individual witnesses and 1,300 witnesses in groups. They had to study 585 memoranda and a mass of other literature. Unlike the Hunter380Commission, they heard all their evidence in private. I do not know whether that was better or not. Certainly, the people who were accused had no right of cross-examination, nor were they allowed to hear the whole of the evidence. This was simply because a tremendous lot of work had to be done within a short time.
The Report acknowledges this and states that the Commission heard a great deal of criticism of the Government. This bears out what I have said already, that in such commissions the majority of the witnesses are against the Government since, if they are for the Government, they leave it to the Government to make their own case. The Report states emphatically, and, I think, fairly, that in view of the conditions I have outlined it would be a great injustice if anyone, whether European or African, were to stand condemned as a result of any finding in the Report. I think that we should dwell on those words.
The Hunter Commission, on the other hand, demanded sacrifices. It demanded resignations and it demanded that heads should fall. I have never found anyone with experience of India at that time, and of the Punjab disturbances and of the Hunter Commission, who did not come to the conclusion that the Commission, and all the sacrifices it demanded, did more harm and put progress towards the self-government of India much farther back than the actual disturbances.
As has been said, the Devlin Commismission Report supports the Government on the main points. It states that in the situation which existed on 3rd March, the Government had either to act or to abdicate and had to resort to emergency powers. It also states definitely that the grave situation which arose was the result of the policy of violence adopted by the Nyasaland African Congress.
The Commission disagrees with the Governor on the point of the plot or massacre. I shall not dwell on that, because it has been brought out clearly on both sides of the House, but the Report states that there was talk of beating and killing Europeans. That, as I well know, in such a situation is very inflammable stuff indeed; and a lot of inflammatory speeches were made. I 381believe that the Governor's action in the circumstances was absolutely correct and that he would have been guilty of criminal folly, in the face of what had happened and the information that was given to him if he had not taken that action and there had been very much more serious rioting.
Now I want to say a word in support of the people who were engaged, whether as district commissioners on the civil side or as armed police or as the military, in a very difficult job. The most difficult and unpleasant job any soldier can be ordered to perform are the duties in aid of the civil Power. We all avoid them like the plague if we can, but sometimes we cannot do so. This is a tremendous test in many ways. There is always the fear at the back of everyone's mind of what will happen if the troops or the armed police are allowed to come to close quarters with the mob. There is the question of whether one should fire at all, when one should open fire and, if so, who should be fired at and how many rounds should be fired. In my experience, in every case where no action has been taken and an inflamed mob has been allowed to come into close contact with the troops, great confusion has always resulted and there have been many casualties. One must remember that these things take place in conditions of hysteria and fear.
I will give the House an example from my own experience. In 1930, in Peshawar City, there was a riot in the Kabuli Gate, and the Deputy Commissioner refused to give the order to fire, even to fire one shot. The troops and the mob came into close contact and 70 people were killed. My Deputy Commissioner and I, when I had to take over Peshawar City shortly afterwards, were determined not to allow this to happen again. We felt that it would be better to fire one or two early shots at the people who were doing damage rather than to allow such a situation to be repeated.
Another riot occurred from a most extraordinary circumstance. It was the kind of thing that happens on such occasions and for which the troops are apt to be blamed. There was at the Kabuli Gate a small British guard. Everything was tense, as it is on those occasions, and while I was inspecting the guard the corporal, whose fingers were all thumbs,382was struggling with the bolt of his rifle which had stuck. When I lifted the curtain he slammed home the bolt and quite forgetting he had then got a round in the chamber he pulled the trigger.
There was an appalling bang. I did not know where the bullet went. No one really believed afterwards what actually happened, because if the soldier had tried for a hundred years to do what he did do, he could not have done it. Outside was an Indian cart with an Indian woman and two children in the back. The bullet went through the door, hit the first child and went through the woman. By that time the bullet had formed into a lump of lead and it blew the other child's head clean off. From that occurrence, which I knew no one else would believe was a pure accident, a violent riot broke out.
I hope that we shall extend our sympathy to the troops and the police in Nyasaland who were confronted with the same kind of situation, since whatever they did it would probably be the wrong thing. From the security of this Chamber we should not condemn lightly any action which they might take in good faith, so I want to associate myself with what the Governor said at the end of his Report, namely, that he wanted to pay a tribute to the way in which all ranks had carried out their duties.

§Mr. W. Griffiths

I realise that the hon. and gallant Member for Norwood (Sir J. Smyth) has had a very distinguished career as a professional soldier, but is he really saying that when there is a Commission, of this kind and the House is considering its Report, we should not occasionally find it necessary, on the evidence, to criticise subordinates?

§Sir J. Smyth

I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that it is not possible always to get absolutely right in the minds of a judge and a Commission the true facts of these little riots, these little situations, which have occurred in conditions of great fear and hysteria, and that it is rather harsh sometimes for the subordinates to be condemned on those grounds.

§Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West)

To be fair, the Devlin Commission is quite emphatic on the subject of the troops. It said that no one was trigger-happy. It 383would be unfair to suggest that the Governor himself had paid that tribute without admitting that the Devlin Commission took the point which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has stated.

§Sir J. Smyth

If I did not mention it, I will do so. I believe that the Devlin Commission did an extremely good job. I do not agree with every conclusion that it reached. Nevertheless, I think that it did an extremely good job.

§Mr. William Yates (The Wrekin)

With regard to the composition of the Commission, was not Mr. E. T. Williams a professional soldier of good standing?

§Sir J. Smyth

He was a professional war soldier. [Laughter.] He was a very distinguished war soldier in North Africa, but he has, I think, reverted to his civil rôle and is at the moment a professor at one of the universities. Therefore, I should call him a temporary professional soldier.
I hope that there will be a change of heart on the part of the Congress leaders and that it will be made absolutely clear between them and the Governor that any amount of criticism of the Government is in order, but that violence is not. I hope that the Colonial Secretary and the Governor will give confidence to those in Government service in Nyasa-land that we shall support them provided that they have acted correctly. Otherwise, we shall get no volunteers for Government jobs in Nyasaland or any other Protectorates.
We are extremely lucky that we have a Colonial Secretary and a Government who have the deepest sympathy with African opinion in its struggle towards self-determination and independence but are, at the same time, absolutely firm that no progress can be made in an atmosphere of violence and civil disturbance.

§6.54 p.m.

§Mr. John Stonehouse (Wednesbury)

I hope that the hon. and gallant Member for Norwood (Sir J. Smyth) will forgive me if I do not follow him in his speech, which was very largely devoted to his experiences in India. I know something about Africa, however, and that many peaceful people often gather 384together when they are in a state of confusion without desiring in any way to cause unrest, without inviting disturbance and without wishing in any way to participate in a riot. I know that many African people are peaceful in their intentions, but when their leaders are arrested without any cause being given it is understandable that those Africans will go to the district commissioners or the bomas to see the officials and inquire what has happened to their leaders That point had been brought out only too clearly in the Devlin Commission's Report.
One thing that has struck me during the debate has been the appalling complacency of hon. Members opposite who have spoken. We started off with a very suave, self-satisfied speech from the Attorney-General, a disgraceful speech which did not rise to the occasion in any way. It was a lawyer's brief, as it was so rightly called by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan).
As I listened to the debate I remembered the one that we had in the early hours of this morning on Hola. I wonder whether there is an hon. Member for Wolverhampton on the other side of the House who will speak in this debate. Is there not a single hon. Member opposite who is prepared to judge the Report objectively and realistically, instead of hon. Members getting up one after the other to make their little party political pieces? Is there not a sincere and honest Member on the other side of the House who is prepared to come forward and judge the Report objectively and trust the members of the Commission, honourable, eminent men who were appointed by the Colonial Secretary himself?
One interesting speech has been made from the other side of the House, that by the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). However, he had not read the Devlin Report as thoroughly as he perhaps should have done before he spoke. Reading from page 128 of the Devlin Commission's Report, he gave the impression that the Commission had reported that the security forces concerned had not in any way been trigger-happy, but, as a sentence which I will quote demonstrates, the Commission was there referring to385incidents which took place before 3rd March. The Report says: In the incidents that we have so far recorded we have not found anyone who was 'trigger-happy'. A great part of the speech of the Attorney-General was devoted to referring to some incidents which took place before the state of emergency was announced. Perhaps the House will forgive me if I draw attention to an incident which took place after the state of emergency was announced. Paragraph 274, on page 136 of the Report, refers to an incident at Chiwaliwali. It says: On 19th March an extensive operation was going on in the Central Province to surround three villages in the Kota-Kota district, of which Chiwaliwali was one. The plan was that the troops should take up their positions at dawn on the hills on all four sides of the villages and then move down into the villages searching the bush on the way, and, it was hoped, driving into the villages anyone who had gone into hiding outside of them. Just after 5 a.m., while it was still half light, a warrant officer in command of a R.R.R. platoon got his men to the top of the hill, where they were to spread out. Although in a territorial battalion, the warrant officer was a regular soldier and had had previous experience in Malaya. As he got to the crest, he saw four figures crouching down, moving up the hill towards him. When they got close to him, closer than 20 yards, he called on them to stop. They turned and ran back towards the villages. He called out a warning a second time and then fired. He had a Sterling gun which was supposed to be on repetition, but which was actually firing automatically. Altogether he fired three bursts of three shots each. After the first burst he was aware it was not firing on repetition as it should have been. In the half light he assumed that the figures were men, but, in fact, one was a woman with a baby on her back. The woman was killed, but the baby was unharmed. We do not think that this shooting was done wilfully; but we are clear that it was not necessary.

An Hon. Member

Read the last sentence.

Mr. Storehouse

The last sentence is: The party had been turned back so that they were running in the direction towards which it was intended to drive them, back into the villages which were being surrounded. Obviously, that platoon was not carrying out its instructions. It was trigger-happy. If the state of emergency had not been announced in the way that it was, in this House by the Colonial Secretary, that woman could be alive today to take care of her baby. As it is, she and 50 other Africans are dead. It is impossible for us to judge whether there 386would have been more killings and exactly what the circumstances were. But we say that the Government consistently misunderstood, misrepresented, and wholly messed up the situation in Nyasaland. They brought the state of emergency and the deaths upon themselves.
In this debate we may well mark the words in this morning's editorial comment in the News Chronicle. It says that the issue goes beyond the result of a General Election—which we are all expecting in October—and continues: It is not confined to Central Africa, but involves the whole Commonwealth and the position of Britain in the world. The kernel of the Commission's report is not the innocence of Dr. Banda, the nonexistence of the 'massacre plot' or the brutalities which accompanied the mass arrests of Africans. It is that a British Protectorate has become a 'police State' because the British Government has refused to accept the passionate opposition of the Nyasa people to the idea of Federation. It may be that this opposition is based partly on ignorance. It may be that the advocates of Federation have a better case than their speeches suggest. What is a fact is that opposition to Federation in Nyasaland is 'deeply rooted and almost universally held'. The British Government has said that 'it cannot and will not go back upon Federation; it treats the question as one that is no longer open' states the Devlin Commission. On the one issue which matters in Nyasaland the Government is totally divided from the governed. Nyasaland may be temporarily compelled to stay, gagged and bound, in the Federation. But the trend of events will break the Government's policy even if conscience is ground into dust and promises treated as mere tactical devices. The News Chronicle continues with a most damning indictment of the Government.
The Government stand condemned for their deliberate and calculated attempts to impose federation on the unwilling Nyasa people. This is apparent from the Report by four impartial witnesses, men of outstanding merit who were appointed by the Colonial Secretary. These men have now confirmed that almost unanimously the Nyasaland people are opposed to federation with the Rhodesias. It is because the Colonial Secretary and the Government have ignored the pleas of the Nyasa people that, in desperation, they turned to Dr. Banda and asked him to return to Nyasaland to lead them in their campaign.
387If the pleas of the Nyasa people had been heard in 1953, 1954 or even in 1956 and 1957 it is possible that Dr. Banda would never have returned to Nyasaland. The Commission confirms that Dr. Banda did not want to foment opposition to federation. He was willing to give it a chance and he went to Ghana to settle down and follow a practice there. But such was the insistence of the Nyasaland people that he eventually agreed to return to take over the leadership of Congress.
The Commission confirms the widespread opposition to federation. It also confirms that the Nyasaland Government took steps to inform the Secretary of State of the extent of the opposition to federation. Did the Colonial Secretary consider the information which he received from his own Governor, information which is now confirmed in the Devlin Commission Report that the people of Nyasaland were strongly opposed to federation?
Notwithstanding this opposition to federation, the Government have proceeded in their callous plans to disregard the wishes of the Nyasa people and steamroller that country into federation with the Rhodesias. Such enforced federation is almost without precedent. The secret agreements made with Sir Roy Welensky in 1957 confirmed the suspicions of Dr. Banda and the Nyasas. Promises were made about the date of the constitutional conference and perhaps other arrangements were made which have not yet been revealed to this House. The Government were willing to make these concessions to Sir Roy Welensky, but they were not willing to make any announcements about the Nyasaland constitution, which were anxiously awaited by the Nyasa people.
When the story of the Government's handling of the Nyasa constitutional arrangement is examined, we will find that it is a story of delay, procrastination and still more delay. The Government knew of the temper of the Nyasa people. They knew how desperately anxious the Nyasas were to have a properly representative legislative council before the constitutional conference took place in 1960. The Nyasa people knew that without their legislative council it would be possible for the British Government to sell them into federation 388against their will. That is why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East said, the Nyasa people were so insistent that before the 1960 constitutional conference took place they should have a properly representative legislative council.
On 6th March, 1958, the Colonial Secretary said that an announcement on constitutional reform would probably be made in the late summer. On 13th June he saw the delegation from Nyasaland which was led by Dr. Banda. The right hon. Gentleman told the delegation that he understood their anxieties about constitutional reforms and that he was expecting recommendations from the Governor of Nyasaland. In fact, although the Colonial Secretary said that he understood the anxieties of the Nyasa people, he took no account of them, because when the Governor of Nyasaland returned from leave on 15th August he said that he had no announcement to make on the constitutional changes at present. The delays and procrastination continued until, on 21st November, Dr. Banda made it clear that he was anxiously awaiting the proposals for constitutional reform.
It is against this background of enforced entry into federation of the Nyasa people, the continued denial to them of democratic representation, the promises made to Sir Roy Welensky about the future of federation behind the backs of the Nyasa people and behind the backs of hon. Members in this House, the fraud of the Federal Constitution which the Government pushed through against Liberal and Labour opposition, the tearing up of the African Affairs Board and the safeguards which it was supposed to represent, that we must judge the development of the Congress campaign against federation and the Government itself.
Who are we to judge? Which one of us put in that position would not have considered making the most vigorous protest possible against the repressive measures adopted by the Nyasaland Government. The restrictions on meetings were yet another annoyance to the Congress organisers, as were the restrictions on the Nyasaland chiefs who wished to support the Congress because Congress was expressing the desires and wishes of the Nyasa people, as is confirmed in the Devlin Report.
389We on this side of the House believe that the Colonial Secretary is largely responsible for this background of events which has led the Nyasa people right over the brink of frustration. By his policies and his actions the Colonial Secretary has been inviting disaster. He has been slamming doors in the faces of the Nyasa people and he must not be surprised when they, in their turn, try to knock those doors down.
Faced with the criticism in the Devlin Report, is the Colonial Secretary still prepared to defend his actions? Apparently he is. I should like to ask the House to consider the action of the Colonial Secretary a little more closely. The House will remember that the Colonial Secretary returned from a visit to the Aden Protectorate and Cyprus on 1st March. On 2nd March, he was helping to guide through the House the Colonial Development and Welfare Bill.
He therefore had a very short time to examine the intelligence report of 13th February which was waiting for him at Church House when he arrived back from his visit to Aden, but on 3rd March, without adequate consideration of that intelligence report, on his own responsibility—as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East said—he announced the murder plot in the House. He announced it in a statement, when he said: … there was such clear indication of the intention of Congress to stir up further disturbances, involving widespread violence and the murder of European, Asian and moderate African leaders. He also referred to it in his speech, when he said that information made it clear that plans had been made by Congress to carry out widespread violence and murder of Europeans, Asians and moderate African leaders; that, in fact, a massacre was being planned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1959; Vol. 601, c. 216–290.] Why did he refer to a murder plot and a massacre? In this connection, I want to put three points before the House for its consideration. It was not necessary for him to do this to justify the announcement of the emergency. In other territories and in other circumstances states of emergency have been announced without murder plots being produced. Secondly, he knew that the Governor of Nyasaland was not going to refer to a murder plot in the broadcast 390taking place that morning Thirdly, he knew that the Governor of Nyasaland had already advised him—and this is the most important point—that the Government of Nyasaland thought that the murder plot was a possibility rather than a probability. This is pointed out in the Devlin Commission's Report and was rather obviously excluded by the Attorney-General when he was reading extracts from that Report.
I would ask the House to consider paragraph 177 of the Report. It says: The Government view"— that is, the Nyasaland Government— as expressed to us, was that the murder plot was a possibility rather than a probability … Why did the Colonial Secretary, on 3rd March, announce the murder plot as a definite fact when he had been advised by the Governor of Nyasaland that it was only a possibility and not a probability? These facts were well known to the Colonial Secretary. At that time he had the intelligence report of 13th February to go by.

§Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South)

Why does the hon. Member say that the Colonial Secretary was so advised?

§Mr. Stonehouse

He must have been so advised, otherwise there was negligence on the part of the Governor of Nyasaland in not so advising him, and negligence on the part of the Colonial Secretary in making his announcement in the House on 3rd March without making any further inquiries of the Government of Nyasaland. He could have got in touch by radio-telephone to check the facts. Surely the Government of Nyasaland would have told the Colonial Secretary that they considered the murder plot to be only a possibility and not a probability.
The intelligence report of 13th February is based upon information provided by one main informer, who is supposed to have obtained information from a branch chairman of Congress. As the Commission says, this sort of information is subject to a double danger, first, that the story is exaggerated by the original informant, and, secondly, that it is exaggerated by the informer himself.
These points should have been well known to the Colonial Secretary. Why 391did not he bear them in mind before he made his announcement in the House? He decided to rush in where angels fear to tread and to announce from the Dispatch Box a massacre plot. He had two quite legitimate courses of action open to him, yet he chose to take neither. He could have ignored the plot altogether in his public statement, checking it behind the scenes. Alternatively, he could have been quite frank with the House and told hon. Members what information he had available, explaining his difficulty in interpreting the intelligence report and asking the House to follow him in his difficulty in interpreting it.

§Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

Later in the debate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies laid before the House detailed particulars of disturbances which had resulted in deaths, stretching back thirteen or fourteen days before 3rd March—before the emergency was declared. Such facts were laid before the House, and, in the opinion of the Devlin Commission, they fully justified the declaration of the emergency.

§Mr. Stonehouse

Those deaths arose because the Government prevented Congress from holding illegal meetings, then arrested some leaders, and were then unwilling to give suitable assurances to the people. The result was that the people, being confused, gathered together in crowds to seek an explanation. Then, as the Devlin Commission describes, certain incidents took place. But that was no justification for declaring that there was a murder plot. I will come to what the Under-Secretary of State said in a few minutes.
The Colonial Secretary deliberately decided to announce in this House a massacre plot, and the only reason he had to do so was that he wanted a good political trump card to play. At that time he was under bitter attack from hon. Members on this side of the House. All sorts of things had been going on. The Colonial Secretary had been acting in collusion with Sir Roy Welensky, the Federal Prime Minister—against the advice of his own Governor of Northern Rhodesia—to have me forcibly removed from a Protectorate for which this country is responsible.

392

§Mr. Braine

Quite right.

§Mr. Stonehouse

The hon. Member may say "Quite right", but I can tell him that the Governor of Northern Rhodesia made the strongest representations to the Federal Prime Minister about the order to declare me a prohibited immigrant. At no time was the Governor of Northern Rhodesia, or the Governor of Nyasaland, consulted about the action to be taken by the Federal Prime Minister. When the Governor of Northern Rhodesia heard there were rumours about this action he made the strongest possible protests to the Federal Prime Minister. But the Colonial Secretary, speaking in this House, supported the Federal Prime Minister against the advice he must have had from his own Governor.
The Colonial Secretary was under attack, and he had to produce a political trump card. He chose the massacre plot. I say that the Colonial Secretary is a card sharper and a confidence trickster.

§Mr. Braine

On a point of order. We have suffered a great deal already from the hon. Member's strictures, but is it in order for him to use an expression of that kind against my right hon. Friend?

§Mr. Speaker

I could not make out what the hon. Member said. I could hear the sound he was making, but I could not distinguish the syllables.

§Mr. Stonehouse

What I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is that the trump card was not in the pack of cards which the Colonial Secretary could legitimately use when he made his speech that afternoon. But he chose to use it for political reasons—squalid, party political reasons.

§Mr. Braine

I thought that you said that you did not hear the expression used, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member accused by right hon. Friend of being a confidence trickster and a card sharper. I would have thought that in any assembly of this kind those were most offensive remarks, and that the hon. Member should have the decency to withdraw them.

§Mr. Speaker

It is very unusual for hon. Members to call each other card sharpers and tricksters. It is hard language, but it cannot be meant literally. No one has ever seen the393Colonial Secretary perform feats of prestidigitation with cards, and the remark must have been meant in a metaphorical sense. But it is not an expression the use of which raises an hon. Member in the eyes of his fellows.

§Mr. Stonehouse

I use a term like that because the actions of the Colonial Secretary are deservedly criticised in the Devlin Commission's Report—a Commission set up by the Colonial Secretary himself.
Not only did the Colonial Secretary make that statement in the House; he also got the Under-Secretary to add weight to the points he had made, later in the evening. I would ask the Under-Secretary what rôle he was cast to play that evening. Did he know the contents of the intelligence report of 13th February? Had he examined it, or was he merely cast in the rôle of his master's voice, or, perhaps, "Little Sir Echo"? Did he know the contents of the Report? The responsibility is on his shoulders as well as on those of the Colonial Secretary. He is just as responsible for misleading the House. It was not until 7th March that the Nyasaland Government referred to the murder plot.
When the Colonial Secretary had made his speech, and the Nyasaland Government had realised that they had already been committed to justifying the murder plot, all the researches and resources of the Special Branch were recruited to build up the evidence for this plot. The methods which the police used should be referred to in this debate. I want to refer to the case of Thomas Karua, who was one of the Congress officials responsible for taking care of tape recordings and films.
On the afternoon of 25th January he was busy taking a film of the so-called secret meeting. I cannot for the life of me understand why Congress should want to make a film of a meeting if it had wanted that meeting to be secret. Obviously, it had no wish to make this meeting purely a secret one. This man Karua was arrested, along with many others, and flown to Bulawayo. In a Press statement and also in a long statement to me, which I had recorded on tape, he said that he was approached by Mr. Hodder and by an inspector of the 394Special Branch and invited to make a statement about the massacre plot.
Mr. Karua was told in Bulawayo that Dr. Banda and the others would be kept in prison for seven or even ten years. As Karua had a pregnant wife and was a businessman who understood the advantages of having his freedom, they made a special appeal to him to cooperate with them in building up the massacre plot story. Karua went back to his cell and talked to some of his fellow detainees, and they advised him, because he had a passport from Tanganyika, where he had lived a year or so earlier, before he had gone to Blantyre, to accept the invitation to co-operate with them so that he could escape to Tanganyika—escape to the outside world—and tell his story fully and frankly.
Mr. Karua agreed to co-operate with the police. He told them everything that they wanted to know, although the police knew that because Karua had spent only a year in Nyasaland he could not understand the vernacular in that part of Nyasaland. In fact, he could not understand either of the two languages used at the meeting on 21st January, so he could not possibly have been in a position to understand what was going on on that date. The police knew that, but, nevertheless, they prepared a statement for Karua to sign and they encouraged him to put his name to these forged documents. In fact, he did so under pressure, because he knew that unless he agreed he would be kept in detention for a long period.
Not only did they do that, but they also set up a model court consisting of Mr. Finney, Mr. Roberts, the acting Solicitor-General, and Mr. Lomax, of the Security Branch, so that Karua could practise giving his false evidence to this court and so that he could perform properly when he arrived before the Devlin Commission. In fact, Karua was seen by the Devlin Commission on 12th May and the Commission asked to see him again. He was again seen on the 21st May, and it was then that particularly Mr. Williams realised that Karua was not telling the truth. He indicated to Karua that he understood, as he said—we come back to the card game again—Karua was playing with cards. Karua was not in a position at that time to tell the truth because in the room with him was Mr. Roberts, the 395Acting Solicitor-General, who was listening to what Karua was saying. So Kama, being kept under duress by the police, was unable to tell his full story.
Eventually he got out and his fare was paid for him by the Nyasaland authorities as part of his reward for his co-operation. Eventually he got to Tanganyika and flew to Britain. He appeared again before the Devlin Commission in this country, and told the Commission the full and shocking story. There needs to be a very full investigation into the circumstances under which Karua gave his evidence and I am quite sure that he would be very willing to co-operate very fully with those conducting such an investigation. I wonder whether the Colonial Secretary or the Governor in Nyasaland or the Special Branch officers there are themselves suitable people to carry out that inquiry. If Karua's story is correct then they are, indeed, guilty of very serious practices.
The Nyasaland people are told that they should not worry about political advance and should think only in terms of economic advantages coming from federation. I am glad that the Under-Secretary is here because he is well aware of the aspects of economic development with the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which are also known to the Nyasa people. Many of the Nyasas go to work in Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia. They go to work in the Northern Rhodesian copper mines, for instance, but they know that much of the economic advantage from the development of the resources in the Federation flows not to Africans but to investors, in fact, to capitalist companies investing from the outside.
Indeed, in the case of the British South Africa Company, which is interested in the royalties of the Northern Rhodesia copper mines, the Under-Secretary must know well that the Northern Rhodesian copper mines give more in royalties to the British South Africa Company than they do in payments, wages, food allowances, and so on, to the total African working forces on the copper belt. About £8,800,000 goes to the British South Africa Company and only £7 million to the 38,000 Africans who work in the mines in the Copper Belt. These facts are well known to the Nyasas and that is why they look askance to396the case for economic advance so often put forward from the benches opposite. That is one of the reasons that they are so determined to get political advance as well as economic advance, so often promised to them, but which actually does not mean much in practice to the Nyasa worker or peasant.
In conclusion—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I apologise to the House for having spoken at such length, but hon. Members must appreciate that I have not spoken in a major debate at all this year, nor have I spoken since my return from Africa on the circumstances in which I was involved. I think that the House will agree that I have not spent an inordinate amount of time talking about my experiences, although I could have perhaps done so with some advantage to hon. Members opposite who are suffering from so many misapprehensions.
This problem rises above party considerations, but we have had a purely party political approach to this problem by the Government. The Government think more in terms of winning the next General Election than about the future of Nyasaland. This problem concerns the fundamental relationship of Europeans and Africans who should be helped to live together in friendship and equality. But by their actions the Government are all the time making it more difficult to reach that position in Central Africa. This issue is even more important than that, even more important than the future of Central Africa. The Government set up a Commission and now they refuse to accept the facts which are related in the Report of that Commission.
The Colonial Secretary has been found guilty by the jury which he himself set up, guilty of misleading this House. Yet the right hon. Gentleman refuses to withdraw. His decision to cling to office strikes at the roots of our constitutional practice and undermines the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility. The only honourable course for the Colonial Secretary to adopt is to resign.

§7.31 p.m.

§Mr. Douglas Dodds-Parker (Banbury)

Earlier this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I saw you nodding agreement when the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) was saying that in this House we should 397set an example in good manners to those people overseas who are attempting to adopt some of the forms of government which we practise in this country. I shall attempt to follow that course. Though hard-hitting in his speech the hon. Member for Rugby did keep within the limits of good Parliamentary manners. What he said and what was said by the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) included the presentation of constructive arguments such as we used to hear from the predecessor of the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse). The former Member of Parliament for Wednesbury, Mr. S. N. Evans, occupied a special place in the affections of hon. Members of this House. He spoke with authority, although many hon. Members disagreed with him from time to time. I am conscious of the loss which we suffered when he ceased to be a Member of Parliament.
I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Wednesbury say at the conclusion of his speech that this issue should be set above party politics. I am prepared to leave it to history to judge whether hon. Members opposite or hon. Members on this side of the House have done more to keep the issue of Central African Federation, and the future of so many people of all races who live there, out of the discussions on domestic political issues in this country. Certainly in anything which I say I shall endeavour to do so.
I do not think it much good to job back too far. The hon. Member for Wednesbury went back to 1953 and 1954 when Central African Federation Measures were going through this House. I wish to refer to the happenings of 1951, which the Prime Minister mentioned last week, when this issue first came before the House as a practical proposition. I think it was in 1950, during the second Attlee Administration, when the first conference of officials was called which put forward a unanimous recommendation that federation should be proceeded with. That was followed later by the Victoria Falls Conference when the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) was the chief Government spokesman and leader.
We do not know what happened after that Conference, but it has always been said, and I have never heard it denied, 398that after the Conference no lead was given to the district officers to go to their people and tell them that federation was a good thing. Despite the fact that the first Conference had agreed unanimously that it was a good thing, after the second Conference the then Government did not give the lead which might have made a difference to the whole of this problem from 1951 onwards.
I wish to take this opportunity to say that I believe that if the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) had remained as Colonial Secretary he had the knowledge and the courage to have given such a lead which might have altered the history of Central Africa. I was one who was in the House in those days and I wish to pay a tribute to the work which the right hon. Gentleman did when he was Colonial Secretary. He came to that office with knowledge and experience of the personalities and problems, and the quality of his work has been equalled and, I believe surpassed, only by my right hon. Friend who at present occupies that office. If the right hon. Member for Wakefield had been Colonial Secretary in 1950 and 1951 I believe, as I have said, that the course of history in Africa might have been changed. But that was not to be, and since 1951 we have had to face these difficulties.

§Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)

Is it not the case that the then Government decided that the people of Central Africa should make the decision themselves and that the district officers were given instructions to explain the scheme? Because we did not want to impose it on the Africans it was said that they should be free to make their own decision.

§Mr. Dodds-Parker

That is exactly the line which I criticise. In the more remote areas of Central Africa individual Africans have been used to being told by the district officer whether a thing is good or bad.

§Mr. Brockway

That is the fundamental difference.

§Mr. Dodds-Parker

I think that a lead should have been given by the district officers, but they received no instructions from the Government of the day in this country, and the difficulties which have followed stem from that fact.
399Despite the failure of the previous Government to that of 1951 it was decided to go ahead with federation. In this House we had, I think, eight debates in the period from 1951 to 1953 and the Central African Federation was established. I do not think that even today there would be a serious denial of the material advantages which flowed from federation, especially in Nyasaland, but there have been two great fears which have dominated the Africans since that time. The first one has been fear regarding land. That has been evidenced throughout the world, certainly in Africa. Land and the rights of people to land is one of the predominant problems. I think that fear led to the disturbances in Southern Nyasaland in 1954, but the public relations work being done by the Government there in putting across the fact that land is within the territorial jurisdiction is overcoming that fear.
The other great fear has been stressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is the fear of racial discrimination. This also could be removed and a lot has been done to dispel it, but not sufficient. I think we may claim that because of federation advances have been made through federal agencies, such as the University, which have brought greater advantages over the federal area than would have been the case had federation not been a fact. In Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia there is still a great deal to be done to conquer this fear, which I believe to be greater even than the fears of the past regarding land.
I have had the opportunity of studying these problems for some years and I have read the Devlin Commission's Report. I believe that they have been exploited by certain extremists in the colonies who took Dr. Banda as their leader. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General dealt in some detail with the Devlin Commission's Report and the part played by Dr. Banda. I do not wish to add anything to what was said by my right hon. and learned Friend beyond these two points. Dr. Banda was the leader of his party when he did not speak the vernacular. I do not know how hon. Members of this House would fare, particularly 400the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), if we had to make our speeches with the aid of an interpreter. It was difficult for Dr. Banda to check how far his speeches were exaggerated, and obviously it was difficult for him to check his followers in any discussions there may have been.
I do not think Dr. Banda would deny that, as leader of his party, he must clearly be responsible for the failure to control his followers. I do not think that he would disclaim responsibility for the meeting on 25th January. It is fair to say of the Commission's Report that we can accept facts which have been usefully put forward and established and yet disagree with some of the inferences and conclusions drawn by the authors of the Report from those facts. It does not take a lawyer to produce different conclusions from the same set of facts. That happens in many instances in this world.
The difference between the Commission and my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary, with all respect to the Commission, is that my right hon. Friend is responsible for the good government of these territories. Therefore, we cannot afford to take the risk which some hon. Members apparently think that the Commission, by inference, suggested that he might have taken. The incident of the district commissioner with somebody waving a spear behind his back has already been gone into in sufficient detail. On Dr. Banda's part in all this and the description of a police State—which, taken out of its context, can be used unfairly—there are different conclusions which I, for one, would draw from the facts which the Commission has so usefully put forward.
I do not think that sufficient benefit of the doubt has been given in the Report to the people who are undertaking in Nyasaland the tremendous task of administering that country. Sometimes, the language of the Report seems somewhat patronising in regard to their "paternalism". We tend in this House to think of all these African territories as being the same. It is some years since I was in Nyasaland, but it is only since 1945, or even more recently, that modern communications have opened up that country and have brought to the central and northern areas some degree of stability, and something like that of 401the more civilised areas I do not think we can say that the paternalism of the administration there is out of date. District officers must, for some time ahead, assume great responsibility in advising their people in those parts of Nyasaland.
The Report gives very little idea of the sense of responsibility for scattered communities, particularly in the central and northern areas, which the Governors have held. We in this House are particularly conscious of Mau Mau and we have had a number of debates on it. We are more conscious than is the general public outside. Even more so are those in high positions in these territories overseas conscious of these things, and they occasionally see the threat of danger and difficulty. In this case, an adequate information service succeeded in nipping in the bud what might otherwise have become a very dangerous situation.
The best summary of the situation was that which appeared in the Sunday Times this week and which said: … one cannot but be struck by their interest in the legal defensibility of official conduct rather than its necessity in the circumstances as they appeared to the officers on the spot. That is my view of the Devlin Report as a whole. The Report says that the Governor and the Government had no alternative but to "act or to abdicate". I am glad that the Government acted in time. By pointing out the faults and the consequent difficulties the Report does not give the matter in full perspective.
The Governor, in his dispatch, Cmd. 815, says, in paragraph 41, on page 13: The facts are that in the original operation, up to and including 5th March, 263 arrests were made. In seven of these medical examination showed that the force used had inflicted injuries. The Commission discuss six of these cases.… I did not get the impression on reading the Devlin Report, and the criticism the Commission made in these cases, that they were only six cases out of 263. That is an instance in which the Report shows a lack of perspective. I do not believe there are many hon. Members who would have acted differently from the way in which the Governor acted, faced with the problems which confronted him and with his knowledge that the situation could easily get out of hand in such widely scattered communities. The Nyasaland 402Government faced the alternative of acting or abdicating, and they acted with the necessary speed and secrecy, and within resources which were obviously not as great as they would have liked.
We all regret on both sides of the House that in some instances there was misjudgment and illegal use of force, but in the circumstances which faced the Government of Nyasaland we should congratulate them on how little went wrong rather than criticise them for their shortcomings. Any Commission reporting as the Devlin Commission does in Parts I, II and III cannot disagree that the Nyasaland Government averted a serious threat to the lives and freedom of many people. Though it does not say so specifically, the Commission gives the impression of disagreeing with that.
I am glad that on three points it confirms what my right hon. Friend said or implied on 3rd March. Those points are that in the first case, and in general terms, no one was "trigger-happy". The second is that there was no plot by white opponents of African nationalism to justify the detention and removal of the leaders of the Africans; thirdly, that there was no pressure by Sir Roy Welensky to get the Government of Nyasaland to take the action which was taken.
I hope that one day the part played by Sir Roy Welensky in the very difficult transitional period in Central Africa will be fully appreciated on both sides of this House. I have had the privilege of knowing him for some twelve years and I have great admiration and respect for what he has contributed in that time.
The Governor's reply should have been printed with the Devlin Report, but probably there is some technical reason, apart from the printers' strike, why that was not done. It would have put the Report into better perspective. I do not know whether it is yet too late to do something about that now. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite may laugh, but we have to look at this matter fairly. This is a very serious issue for the people who are trying to grapple with these problems. I suggest that it would have put the situation into better perspective if an answer to the charges made in the Devlin Report had been embodied in the same document.
403I have not, unfortunately, the document with me, but I hope that one of my hon. Friends may be able to quote in detail the remarks made by the chairman of the Nyasaland Railways about what happened there When intimidation was withdrawn, after action had been taken, and after thirty-six hours, when sixty out of the 7,000 employees had been detained. There was a tremendous uprising in morale which had been steadily falling among the 7,000 railways employees.
I come to my last point. We are all interested in the future and in what we are to do next. We must hope and pray that the emergency will be called off sooner than later and that things will quieten down in Central Africa. I do not think anyone will seriously deny that that decision can only be taken by those who live on the spot and who know what the consequences will be.
Secondly, the constitutional advances were adumbrated and detailed to a certain extent by my right hon. Friend on 22nd July when he stated: It is, therefore, our intention within the next few weeks to increase by nomination the number of African seats on the Legislative Council…. We also propose at the same time to appoint to the Executive Council two African members taken from the Legislative Council. These will be interim arrangements."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd July, 1959; Vol. 609, c. 1403.] I hope those advances will be properly explained to the people in Nyasaland and that they will accept this as a very genuine advance towards the goal at which I believe we are all aiming.
It is interesting to see that Dr. Banda says there will be a necessity for European civil servants for as long ahead as virtually he cares to look. It is interesting, looking round the world, to see what a demand there is for personnel, civil servants—technicians as they are called these days—teachers and so on from this country. It is beyond the capacity of this country at the moment to provide all that is required in these territories, but unless there is a certain political stability in these countries and a strong framework of civil servants there will not be that stability which we want to see. We must try to get these people to work better together so that European and, in future, Asian civil servants may remain404to help build up that wonderful and delightful country of Nyasaland.
Finally, I do not believe it is beyond the genius of this country, of both sides of the House, of both Houses and of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, with our friends in the Commonwealth themselves with federal experience of these problems—Canada, Australia, India, Nigeria and Northern Ireland are instances which spring to my mind which might usefully be brought to bear with their experience—to work out an acceptable solution for an African State within the Federation.
I make a final appeal to hon. Members opposite. If they really believe, as I think they believed in 1951, that federation is in the interest of all those who live in Central Africa, I appeal to them to stress that, while, of course, still maintaining the right to disagree with the steps the Government of the day may take. Secondly, I ask them to co-operate in the constructive proposals which we believe will come from the Commission to be established. There are a number of right hon. Members opposite—I had better not mention names at this point—who I believe could most usefully contribute towards working out these problems. I believe it would be a very useful contribution needed greatly in the years immediately ahead. It would also give them something to enliven the many years in which, I am afraid, they will remain on the benches opposite.

§7.54 p.m.

§Miss Margaret Herbison (Lanarkshire, North)

I think that when most people in this country, and perhaps in other countries, saw the Motion which the Government put on the Order Paper for this debate, they were very shocked. I am certain that when they hear the report of the speech made by the Attorney-General today they will be much more shocked.
The Government appointed a Commission and, when that Commission was appointed, the Colonial Secretary was questioned about it and said he was certain that the Commission would take every appropriate step to arrive at the truth and accuracy of the facts put before it. I am sure that was accepted in this country. When the Report was made by the Devlin Commission it was read with the greatest interest. In Edinburgh, never at any time was there such 405a run on the Stationery Office to get copies of a Report. That was because it is of particular interest to Scottish people.
Now we have the Government presented with an opportunity of accepting the Report and deciding where we go from here, but letting that opportunity slip from them completely. The Government today could have done something worthwhile to bring about an easement in the tension in Nyasaland. They could have done something worth while today to make it possible in future to bring peace in that country, but unless the Colonial Secretary when he winds up the debate this evening makes a very different speech from the speech of the Attorney-General, it seems to me that in Nyasaland we shall not have peace.
We on this side of the House accept the Commission's Report in its entirety. We accept the point which was stressed by the Attorney-General—at one time he said it was the most important conclusion and at another he described it as the main finding—namely, the need for declaring an emergency. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who opened the debate on this side of the House, made that perfectly clear. The Attorney-General said that by doing this we avoided a major catastrophe, but I say to him that the end was not achieved in declaring the emergency.
The Under-Secretary of State will be aware that a petition was presented to the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister for Commonwealth Relations. It was presented by a body of Scottish people. That body, the Scottish Council for African Affairs, has many eminent Scottish people on it and from them we have had very important statements. One statement made by Dr. Kenneth Little, Reader in Social Anthropology at Edinburgh University, should be a real warning to the Minister. It said that if the Government do not accept this Report and do not decide to make improvements from now on it might lead to a holocaust in Nyasaland. That is the feeling of many people.
In an Adjournment debate at Whitsuntide, I made a speech in which I carefully weighed every word because I wanted to say nothing which might worsen relations in Nyasaland. I was willing to wait until the Report was published, but 406the attitude of the Government today so far has made it perfectly clear that they are accepting the parts of the Report that suit them and the parts of the Report that are critical of them or of the Governments in the Federation they are pushing completely aside. What do the Government think the effect of that attitude will be on Africans in Nyasaland?
In speaking of Dr. Banda, the Attorney-General referred to the Commission being impressed by his charm. He said that it had this impression from him as a witness and from other sources, but he did not know what those other sources were. Dr. Banda was, and still is, a member and an elder of the Guthrie Memorial Church in Edinburgh. Only last weekend, the present minister of that church said that although he was not the minister when Dr. Banda was there he had learned from his congregation that the impression that this man had left was of a man of great intellect and a man of peace. Here is a man whom the Government are doing their best to denigrate.
I have here a copy of the Nyasaland Information Bulletin of 6th May, and I want to quote from some parts of it. It was dealing with the events that led up to the declaration of the state of emergency. Here is one statement: To restore order the Government had to bring in troops and extra police and had to spend money on them that would normally have been used to improve our standard of living. I think those words speak for themselves as to what their intention was. The second statement, which indeed shocked me, was this:Some people were hurt in the riots—a few even died. Fifty-one people lost their lives. I should not call that a few. In another part, when telling the Africans and others in Nyasaland about those who had been put into prison, this document stated: Whether they are charged with criminal offences or not the Congress leaders are going to stay in prison for a long time, until they constitute no threat to the peaceful lives of the inhabitants of this country. The last extract is a statement asking people to inform, and this is what it was advising them to do: Tell your District Commissioner or your nearest Government Officer the name of any Congress member who you know has not yet been arrested.407Yet, right up almost to the declaration of the state of emergency, it was legal to be a member of Congress. This was the one free political organisation for these people. The document goes on to say: You can either report personally to a Government Officer, or, if you prefer to remain anonymous, send an unsigned letter to your District Commissioner or Police Officer giving the name and address of any Congress member still at large. (There is no need to put a stamp on the letter.) This was the kind of bulletin that was going throughout Nyasaland.

§Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

A police State.

§Miss Herbison

No one is at all surprised that the Commission in its Report should say that it was a police State. Nyasaland is—no doubt only temporarily—a police state, where it is not safe for anyone to express approval of the policies of the Congress Party, to which before 3rd March, 1959, the vast majority of politically-minded Africans belonged, and where it is unwise to express any but the most restrained criticism of Government policyWe did not hear a word about that from the Attorney-General today, and yet unless we discuss these matters, unless we deal with them, and unless we show these people in Africa that we do believe in political freedom for them, there is no hope at all of peace in that country.
It seems to me that ever since the emergency the Colonial Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State, by their statements and innuendoes, have tried to bring discredit on the part which the Church of Scotland has played in Nyasaland. I have read every word of this Report carefully, and I say that the whole Report is a complete vindication of its attitude and actions.

§Mr. Ronald Bell rose—

§Miss Herbison

I do not want to take too long. I am sorry, but I cannot give way, as there are still many hon. Members who wish to speak.
If we turn to the pages of this Report, we can see the early part which the Church of Scotland played in Nyasaland. In paragraph 15 we find these words It is very largely to the credit of the early missionaries that peace was brought so rapidly to the Colony and slave trading was ended. 408These were the efforts which culminated in bringing the territory under the protection of the Crown. Right from its earliest days, the Church of Scotland, in conjunction with the African Church and in unity with the three Presbyterian Churches, has played a very important part in the life of the people of Nyasaland.
If we turn to another part of the Report, on page 23, in paragraph 44, we find this: The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian preaches and practises complete equality between the races and many Africans are therefore high in its councils. It does not eschew politics and many of its ministers are also active members of Congress. On this issue, it feels that it is with the people and against the Government. The Church believes that it raises a matter of principle touching the dignity of man and therefore refuses to regard the economic argument as conclusive";

Hon. Members

Read on.

§Miss Herbison

Certainly, I will read on. I was going to deal with it later. It goes on: it is not as sympathetic as it might be with the difficulties which its outspokenness can cause to the Government. The Church of Scotland does not complain of that.

§Mr. Ross

It is not a servile State Church.

§Miss Herbison

The Church of Scotland is a democratic Church. Education in Scotland, which in its early days was so much better than in England, was due to this broad democratic basis of the Church of Scotland, of which I and many of my hon. Friends are very proud. I was going to deal with this matter, because the Church of Scotland is not ashamed of its outspokenness. When one reads this Report, one realises how important it was that there was at least one body of white people and coloured people in Nyasaland who were ready to stand up for the rights of Africans and other people.
I was shocked to read that sentence, but I will now read the following one from the Report: The Government on the other hand feels that it is the duty of all right thinking men to do their best to remove the African fears of Federation. We talk about the economic benefits of federation, and I think that great 409economic benefit can come from federation. I would have hoped that federation could have become a reality by the will of all the peoples in the country, but in 1953, when the Bill went through this House, there were grave warnings from the people in Africa. When we were talking about Nyasaland, we were told that almost to a man the Africans were against it, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) and myself at that time presented a petition on this question from the Church of Scotland.
From this side of the House, we warned the Government at that time not to push federation until perhaps more education on the question could have taken place. Since then, the fears of the Africans in Nyasaland have not been allayed. They have not been allayed by the actions and statements of the Federal Government and Sir Roy Welensky, nor have they been allayed by the actions of our own Colonial Secretary.
When we had the changes in the Constitution in 1955, we on this side warned that they did not go far enough. In 1956, the African Congress was very successful in the elections. The Colonial Secretary seemed to have been warned by the Federal Government of the attitude of these members of Congress, and in paragraph 25 of the Report we find these words addressed to the Colonial Secretary: The Congress party was immensely heartened by its great success in the elections. In Nyasaland people began to think that it might mean the end of Federation and you thought it desirable to make a statement in the House of Commons, which was given special publicity in Nyasaland"— no doubt it was made so that it could be given special publicity in Nyasaland: that Federation had come to stay and that statements to the effect that Nyasaland's participation in it was not on a permanent basis were irresponsible and uninformed. If that is still the attitude of the Government, then, no matter what may be the economic benefits that come from Federation, it will not be accepted by the people of Nyasaland. Before I leave this point, I make this plea to the Government. When the 1960 Conference takes place, let the African people be told that one of the items on the agenda is the discussion of secession. If we were to give them the right to discuss 410secession we might do something to allay their fears. But if we continue to say to them that never, at any time, will they have a right to secede, then never at any time will we have peace in that land.
The Attorney-General today dealt with what happened from just a few days before 3rd March. He did not deal at all with the rest of the Report that speaks of what led up to the happenings of 3rd March. Yet, if the Government neglect that part of the Report that shows the deeply-rooted fears in the minds of the people of Nyasaland, then, again, they will be doing great damage to our good name and will not be giving the protection to those people that they ought to be giving.
There are many more things that I wanted to say, but I will content myself with making one further statement. If possible, we want to give constructive help in this debate. So far, I have made one constructive suggestion—that of the right to discuss secession. Another is that the Government ought to be strong and should say that the detainees should either be released or brought to trial. If the Government were to say that, it would do away with much of the damage done by the statement in the Nyasaland Bulletin that said, quite brutally, that these people would stay for a long, long time in detention, whether guilty of crimes or not. There is no doubt about it, it was a prejudging of the Report. That is my second constructive suggestion.
The Leader of the House was present at the debate in the Assembly of the Church of Scotland when this question of Federation and Nyasaland was being discussed. It was a wonderful debate, and I am glad that the Leader of the House heard it. I only wish that the hon. Member sitting on the Government Front Bench who seems a little amused to hear me describe it as a wonderful debate could himself have been present. He would have seen that it was a serious debate.
The deliverance was moved by the hon. Doctor George MacLeod but seconded also by a man who had spent almost the whole of his life in the Colonial Service; a man who knew the difficulties, and who did not underestimate the difficulties that there are in these colonial matters—as I do not 411underestimate them—but was so certain when he made that speech that the Government was wrong in what they were doing in the matter of Federation and Nyasaland. I want to give a statement of Dr. George MacLeod to the Government. I hope that they will accept what he says.
When the Report was published he said: The outstanding issue—remains the future peace of Nyasaland. That is my concern and the concern of all of us on this side—[HON. MEMBERS: "And here."]—but there was no sign of such concern in the speech of the Attorney-General. There was no discussion of what had led to the difficulties and no looking to the future to see how to overcome them.
Dr. MacLeod goes on: Hundreds of thousands of Africans have remained in quiet suspense awaiting this report and it will be a profound pity if they get the impression that it has simply been rejected by the Government. Let the House note those words—"…have remained in quiet suspense.…" They are serious words.
He goes on: Now is the time for a generous gesture by the Government in the light of that part of the report that is critical and the release of all detainees whose only crime was membership in a party that was legal up to the time of their arrest. Nationalism is a world movement and not just an ugly factor in Nyasaland. If it is suppressed it is bound to breed racialism. There is plenty of hope in Nyasaland if the Government move generously and quickly. In such a move I am sure they would have the sincere co-operation of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterians. I leave those words with the Government. I have made certain suggestions. My final suggestion is that the Government should move speedily in giving to Nyasaland a Constitution that would be a great improvement en the present one.

§8.19 p.m.

§Mr. Peter Rawlinson (Epsom)

The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) always speaks with such grace and obvious sincerity that it seems discourteous to disagree with her, but now that the shadow—if I may say it with respect—of John Knox has been introduced into the debate I will leave all that I had to say in reply to her.
412I think that it is true to say, in criticism of this side, that the remembrance of things past lurks too prominently in the minds of those who sit on these benches, but my criticism of the hon. Lady's speech, and of the Opposition generally, is that they ignore history. Whether or not we approve it, our forefathers gathered together—acquired by sense of adventure, if hon. Members like it, or by commercial greed, if they like it—an Empire, that unfashionable word that we nowadays so rarely use. They acquired an Empire which we and they have since served, for instance, by sending out to the Indian Civil Service the very best graduates we could find in this country and sending out as district commissioners the pick of many of the people in this country.
Looking at the record created by those men and women, and conceding that there have been errors and excesses, it is, nevertheless, generally accepted, as I am sure that it must be, that it is a great record of integrity and honesty, which has been the birthright of all of us here. We are the inheritors.

§Mr. Aneurin Bevan (Ebbw Vale) rose—

§Mr. Rawlinson

The right hon. Gentleman will have time later to put the case for the Opposition. I shall not give way now.
We are the inheritors. My right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), and all hon. Members are the inheritors. We have inherited the responsibility which has come down to us from those persons who acquired this Empire. [HON. MEMBERS: "Acquired?"] "Acquired" is the word I used. If hon. Gentlemen will remember, I stated the means by which they may have acquired. They may have acquired by the pursuit of commercial greed, or it may have been by adventure, or it may have been an escape from this country.
Abdication of the position at present would be utter cowardice. There is a great temptation to be a little Englander and to cast aside the responsibilities which have been handed down to us. One sees a tremendous difference between the Opposition and the Government about responsibility. Hon. Gentlemen opposite presumably have the idea that413we will ultimately hand over the responsibility in all these countries to, we hope, established institutions and mature people. We should remember that less than 130 years ago there was no representative House of Commons.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater) will not, I hope, think me ungracious, but forty years ago she would not have had a vote and would not be able to sit in the House of Commons. It is only very recently that we have received and obtained what is now suggested to be universal franchise. Nevertheless, it is still limited in this country. Skilled apprentices of 18 may not vote. Active service soldiers aged 19 may not vote. A wife and mother aged 20 may not vote. Presumably they cannot vote, though they may be skilled and educated, because it is said by hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies in the House of Commons that they have not yet reached the age of 21 and, therefore, have not the maturity to make up their own minds. That is the system in this country. If a person lacks maturity, expressed in this country by a lack of years, if he has not reached the stage when he can make a sensible judgment, he is not permitted to have the vote.
I only hope that we can learn something from the past and that, with the emergence of Africa, Africa will learn a lesson from Europe. Are we to go back to the small warring tribes? Do we want on the great Continent of Africa small nations split up into various pieces and kinds? Our responsibility is to prevent that. [Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite apparently want that, but they seem to me to be continually going back to what happened in the past. Time is needed to see that Africa should develop in a way that Europe has not developed. Federation holds out a hope, if it is a true partnership, and if it is an ideal sincerely believed in, which I trust and believe that the people of Africa will take. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) keeps up a continuous commentary, no matter who is speaking. Perhaps he will be the next to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
The troubles in Nyasaland arose because of the misundertsanding of what federation should be. So it comes about that we are debating the Report of the Devlin Commission. It is a Report 414which some hon. Members think that we are not entitled to criticise, although I can remember other Reports when hon. Gentlemen opposite took pieces out of them and duly criticised them. The Report has certain passages in it which are extremely difficult to accept. However, it is important to note the complaint made by the Commission about the absence of any cross-examination of witnesses and the inability of having counsel present to cross-examine. That has always been the essence of the elucidation of truth and the testing of evidence.
If I was defending a man who had a spear raised at someone's back, can any hon. Member believe that, as defending counsel, I could submit, "Actually, there is no evidence that he was going to dig it into that man's back"? Would I for a moment be entitled to say that in a court of law in this country? An African lunged at a man with a rifle and grabbed at the rifle. It was said that there was no evidence that he wanted to take the rifle away and that he was acting only out of fear. The Commission said of the African who was swinging an axe in the Cholo-Luchenza Road that it did not think that he intended to attack. If a lawyer was defending a criminal in a court in this country would any of those matters be acceptable evidence?
Therefore, there are matters in this Report about which one is entitled to say that that is the evidence, but the inferences drawn from the evidence are unacceptable. We find them unacceptable because the truth appears to be that there has been what was described as a legalistic approach to these matters, which one finds difficult to accept. There is comment about the freer use of the baton in Africa than in the United Kingdom. There is criticism of the lack of exact guidance with regard to troops and the Nkata Bay incident, where the District Commissioner, who will have read this account, appears to have acted with remarkable courage, though he may have made every strategic mistake. It seems to be a very ungenerous criticism of him.
I cannot accept, either, what the Commission says about Dr. Banda. The establishment of the political Messiah is not an unknown technique—the saintly, if vain, leader; the demagogue, not himself advocating violence, but surrounding himself with extremists and appreciating 415that violence must be inevitable. If Dr. Banda is an intelligent man, which I understand him to be, it is naive to believe that he did not know what was happening around him.
I am quite unable to see the distinction between beating and killing Europeans, on the one hand, and cold-blooded assassination, on the other. I do not know what would be the difference to the corpse. I should have thought that where there has been evidence of intention to beat and kill, that would be sufficient to say that there was a murder plot. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who was killed?"] I am surprised at this continual cry by hon. Members opposite, who seem distressed that nobody was killed. There is the evidence of what was said at the meeting on 27th January, that they would hit Europeans or cut throats, and when they were told to fight without fear. Was it to be war without casualties and cutting throats without bloodshed? It is not just the evidence but the inferences which arise with which I am concerned.
I know that there have been errors of judgment in Africa. There has obviously been the use of some excessive force. But the duty and responsibility still remains with this country, and the attitude of hon. Members opposite does great damage to this country and to the Colonial Empire.

§8.31 p.m.

§Mr. G. M. Thomson (Dundee, East)

It is a somewhat odd comment for a barrister and learned Member of this House to complain that the Devlin Commission is a legalistic commission. This, surely, was the exact purpose of the Government in sending out the Commission, namely, to send out a judicial body.
I have listened carefully to all the speeches which have been made from the benches opposite tonight. In many ways, they were speeches arguing not with the Opposition here but with the members of the Devlin Commission. I can only say to hon. Members opposite, from the Attorney-General onwards, that I think public opinion in this country, faced with an argument between a judicial body of the eminence of the Devlin Commission and the kind of argument which we have heard from the 416politicians on the benches opposite, will be bound to give much greater weight to the objective report in this remarkable document produced by Mr. Justice Devlin and his colleagues.
So far as I can understand it, the main reason which the Government supporters give for not accepting the Devlin Report, and in particular the suggestions that there was excessive force used and that there was no evidence to support the suggestion of a murder plot, is that there was a widespread plan for murder and violence. The Devlin Commission's findings exist for us to read. It has been widely commented that the killings and the injuries which occurred were carried out entirely at the hands of the forces of law and order and not at the hands of the rioters, with the exception of six Africans and Europeans injured. In addition, there is a very revealing sentence in the Report stating that Firearms were used unsuccessfully by Africans upon two occasions. That was the extent of the organised violence and murder which hon. Members opposite think was a murder plot.

§Mr. Nairn

Surely the recognised weapons of the Africans are not firearms but pangas and axes.

§Mr. Thomson

I shall be coming to that point. In fact, the arms that were used by the Africans in cases of disturbance were pathetic objects like agricultural implements, sticks and stones. Scottish missionaries out there, many of them living in very remote areas, are able effectively to dispose of the allegation that there was a widespread murder plot by pointing out that they were living alone surrounded by Africans and that if there had been any organised campaign of violence there were bound to be Europeans and other Africans killed. The fact that this did not occur is itself sufficient evidence.
The Government argue that it does not matter whether there was a murder plot, since murder by any other name is just as serious. I invite the House to turn to the tragic story of Nkata Bay as told by the Commission in poignant prose with all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. I would be the last one to utter any criticism of the district commissioner, who was placed in a difficult position 417there, but almost half of the total casualties in the disturbances took place at Nkata Bay, and in paragraph 229 of the Devlin Commission's Report we find these words: But the safeguarding of the prisoners was not the D.C.'s real anxiety. From first to last his chief fear was for the European women and children. This is the only clear case we have come across of a belief in the murder plot having a significant effect on the course of events.

§Mr. Braine

The hon. Member is misleading the House.

§Mr. Thomson

In paragraph 239 the Commission goes on to say: It may perhaps be said on the one side that if he'"— that is, the district commissioner— had not entertained unreasonable fears about the intentions of the crowd, there need have been no death roll at all. Nobody can ever tell what is the real truth of this matter, but those who were in control of the policy in Nyasaland and allowed district commissioners to believe in this sort of organised murder plot—

§Mr. Braine rose—

Hon. Members

Sit down.

§Mr. Thomson

—for the assassination of European women and children certainly have a very heavy responsibility to bear.

§Mr. Braine

On a point of order. The hon. Gentleman is repeating statements—[HON. MEMBERS: "Not a point of order."]—which are deliberately misleading the House, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

§Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche)

That is not a point of order.

§Mr. Thomson

I have very little time left otherwise I would gladly give way to the hon. Member opposite. I have been quoting directly from the Commission's Report and hon. Members can look up the references.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) said in her very moving speech—

§Mr. Braine

The hon. Member ought to speak up. What is he afraid of?

§Mr. Thomson

—one of the most satisfying features of the Report is the way it vindicates the views which have been expressed both by the Church of 418Scotland in this country and by Scottish missionaries who have played such a notable rôle out in Nyasaland. Some of those missionaries have conveyed to hon. Members on this side of the House, and, no doubt, to hon. Members on the other side of the House, reports during the period of the emergency of excessive force being used by the forces of law and order, and as a result there have been aspersions cast on the missionaries out in Nyasaland.
I quote what was said in the Devlin Commission's Report at page 98 where an account is given of arrests in the Mzimba district. It says that those arrested included a party of four, all of whom had come quietly on being arrested. They were handcuffed, trussed and gagged and then put into landrovers … They were carried a total distance of 120 miles. The Report says: One of the four was a Presbyterian minister.… The minister, who was also an active and outspoken member of Congress, was the Reverend Henry Makwakwa who had been arrested at his manse. He had been a chaplain in the K.A.R. for two years and he was described by the camp commandant at Kanjedza, who knew him, as 'a very good front line padre'. I can hardly think of any action which is more likely to make the constructive work of reconciliation in Nyasaland more difficult than this kind of handcuffing and trussing and gagging of an African Presbyterian minister who had this kind of record. This fully vindicates the reports which have come from Scottish missionaries who have been doing such a fine job out there—reports which Ministers have from time to time, at Question Time and so on, in this House attempted to discredit.

§Mr. Braine rose—

Hon. Members

Sit down.

§Mr. Thomson

I want to turn from a consideration of these things to the real issue that faces the House in this debate and that is the issue of what will take place in the future. I believe that the real tragedy of the debate is that the Government have let go a priceless and perhaps never to be repeated opportunity of bringing about peace in Nyasaland. It seems to me that the Devlin Commission went out of its way with deliberate emphasis to try to make possible a new start by exonerating Dr. Banda of any 419complicity in violence and emphasising his continuing good will towards the Government.
The Commission says: We think that Dr. Banda would never have approved the policy of murder and that he would have intervened decisively if he had thought that it was so much as being discussed. We think that he was quite honest in saying that he did not approve of violence in principle. It also says: The Governor himself made an excellent impression on Dr. Banda when he met him and one which has not been effaced. Dr. Banda declined to believe that the Governor was himself the author of the White Paper and wished us to assure the Governor that even now he has nothing against him. What folly it is, in the light of the opportunity offered by these words in the Commission's Report, for the Colonial Secretary and the Government to brush aside this possibility of peace by expressing a determination in advance of the Report to keep Dr. Banda in gaol and by repeating the allegations made in the White Paper of Dr. Banda's complicity in violence.
I can understand that hon. Members on both sides of the House find themselves uncertain about the particular weight to lay on each particular evidence produced by the Report, but I should have thought that everybody, on both sides of the House, would have been looking for every opportunity to try to bring about a reconciliation in Nyasa-land. I believe that these paragraphs in the Report were deliberately put in in the hope that the Government would seize upon them to allow a new start to be made.
There have been many speeches from the other side of the House saying that we ought to have much more common ground in these problems and that there ought to be a bipartisan approach. Hon. Members opposite must face the fact that there is material for a bipartisan approach in the context of the Devlin Commission's Report and in the kind of deliverance which has been quoted today by my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. There is material for a bipartisan approach by both sides of the House to these complicated and difficult problems in Nyasaland and it is the Government, 420and the back benchers opposite backing the Government, who reject out of hand this possibility of achieving peace and reconciliation there.
My hon. Friends and I from Scottish constituencies have tried to press on the Government during the long weeks of the emergency that in the Church of Scotland and the great missionary tradition out in Nyasaland they had an invaluable instrument for bringing about reconciliation between African and European communities in that part of the world. In the congregations of the Presbyterian Church out there, there is perhaps the finest example of multiracial partnership at work. I should have thought that the Government would have seized this opportunity offered by the Devlin Report, offered by the kind of non-partisan approach put forward by the Church of Scotland, to try to make a new start in Nyasaland. They have apparently decided not to do so. It seems to me that it is now too late to hope for a new start in Nyasaland without first getting a new Government.

§8.45 p.m.

§Mr. Aneurin Bevan (Ebbw Vale)

It was, perhaps, inevitable in a debate of this kind that so many speeches should have been overlaid by so very many quotations. There are many documents and statements involved. There is the White Paper from the Governor, there was a debate on 3rd March in this House, there is the Report itself, there are the Governor's comments on the Report and there are the comments of the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the comments.
I shall not make many quotations, because quite enough have been made, and we are all rather familiar now with what the Report says. I think that everybody will agree that it is an excellently written Report and an exciting narrative. Indeed, the members of the Commission appear to have kept scrupulously to their original intention of only making comments in the course of the narrative itself and, as they say, not attempting a summary because that might have been a distortion of the facts.
After the Attorney-General sat down this afternoon I was strongly tempted to table a manuscript Amendment in place of the Opposition Amendment, moving a Motion of censure on the Government 421for having appointed an incompetent tribunal. All the speeches from the other side of the House have been directed, in the main, to showing how unreliable was the Commission. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General himself spent a great deal of time in sneering at the chairman of the Commission. I thought that he ought to have left that to a member of some other profession, because when a lawyer sneers at the competence or the behaviour of another lawyer it makes a layman shudder to think that his destiny should be intrusted to such unreliable people. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman's comments today are evidence of his own judicial objectivity, I hope that I shall never have to come before him when he is a judge.
Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have on this occasion done themselves even less justice than usual. In fact, it has been a most depressing occasion. I have never known any debate in this House where the argument was so obviously on this side as against that side, so obviously so. I know that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies wishes to speak for three-quarters of an hour. What he will say all that time I do not know. I shudder to think that I shall have to sit here for three-quarters of an hour listening to another series of verbal adventures from the right hon. Gentleman. I shall confine myself to only half-an-hour and I shall not need any more. I am sure that every hon. Member opposite will be relieved.
The issue before us is an exceedingly simple one. It is not complicated at all. A Commission of Inquiry was appointed, in which the Government at first had every confidence. There might have been some reason on this side of the House for lack of confidence because the four gentlemen concerned are obviously pillars of the Establishment. I do not know what their political affiliations are. I have heard it said that they are Conservatives. At any rate, not one of them is an obvious Socialist. One, the chairman himself, is a distinguished jurist. One of the others served twenty years in Kenya. Another was a soldier and the other was a distinguished member of local authorities.
One could not have a Commission more skilfully handpicked. Its job was 422fact-finding. Indeed, it was selected because it was believed that a body so composed would be accustomed to weighing evidence and to ascertaining the credibility of witnesses, and, because of the presence of the gentleman who had served twenty years in Kenya, against a novel background for the three other judges.
Therefore, one would have thought that it was not necessary for us to examine the Report to discover whether it was an objective document. The guarantee of its dispassionate nature was to be found in the character of the Commission in the first place. All that we needed to do was to read the Report, on the ground that we should have in it a statement of fact upon which we—as the Commission itself says—could formulate policy. Why has that not been done? Would it not have been much more dignified and honourable for hon. Members opposite for once to forget their party interests and remember the country? [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite may laugh, but they will be in very great difficulty when they go to the country in a few months' time.
This is a very serious matter. No one on this side of the House under-estimates for a moment the difficulties or the gravities of the administration entrusted to the Colonial Office in these territories. We all know that not yet, as far as I can recall, has a single modern Government succeeded in solving the constitutional problems raised by mixed communities, especially when one has Europeans from Europe settling down on the land in strange countries with what they consider to be backward populations—not a single one.
Nearer at home we have not quite an analogous example but, nevertheless, a near-enough one, because we had English settlers in Ireland, and the state of Ireland today is a monument to the incapacity of statesmen to solve problems of that sort. There is the tragic loss of life that goes on in Algeria. The extent to which France is being bled, and also Algeria, and the extent to which the whole of French politics has been poisoned by the Algerian conflict, and looks like continuing to be poisoned for a long time, is itself a warning to us that we should handle the problem of Nyasaland differently from the way the423French are trying to solve the Algerian problem.
These are very difficult questions, and no one on this side of the House pretends that they are easy to settle. What we do not want, therefore, is that we should embark on policies which are bound to fail in the end. That is why we are so anxious about the situation in Nyasa-land, Kenya, Tanganyika, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. We are not considering a trivial matter. We are really trying to decide how to solve a problem which, if it is not solved, will continue to bleed us for many generations. That is the issue, and it is far too sobering for us to treat it in a trivial mood.
Why is it that the Colonial Secretary finds it impossible to accept the Report? For the life of me I cannot understand why. It would be easy for him to say that on 3rd March he really believed what he was told, and that goes for the Under-Secretary of State, too. They had information, and they are, I believe, honourable men, and they believed that the information was true. It is correct that the information was received from informers who were paid to give it. It is also true that one of the principle informers is a turncoat. Nevertheless, at that time the Government thought they had sufficient evidence to justify their belief that a murder plot was about to be set on foot in Nyasaland.
The Governor could easily say that he believed in the validity of the witnesses that he heard, or the evidence that he received. The same evidence has been investigated by this Commission, the same people have been cross-examined and after the most meticulous cross-examination the Commission says that it cannot find any basis for the assumption that there was a murder plot. That is all.
The right hon. Gentleman could properly say, "I accept what the Commission said. I accept that it has had more leisure, more opportunity and a much more favourable locale to find out how true the accusations were."

§Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)

And see the witnesses.

§Mr. Bevan

Yes, and see the witnesses. The right hon. Gentleman could 424have concluded by saying, "The information that I had at that time has been invalidated." Why could he not do that? He would not have lost anything by doing so. In fact, his position would be stronger than it will be if he accepts the advice which his right hon. Friend is giving him. If it is the same advice that the Colonial Secretary has been receiving from his right hon. Friend all the time, it is pretty rotten.
Why could not the right hon. Gentleman have said that? It would have concurred with the facts and sustained the authority of the Commission, as indeed it ought to be sustained. It is only on the gravest possible ground that a Government should turn down their own judicial instrument. Grave damage will be done to the possibilities of judicial investigation if we have repetitions of what we have heard from the other side of the House today. Judges will not want to serve. I believe that already there are complaints among lawyers about the way that this Report has been treated. It therefore seems to me that only on the strongest possible ground ought the report and recommendations of a commission of inquiry to be attacked in the way that this Commission has been attacked this afternoon.
There is no reason why the right hon. Gentleman should not have accepted the Report of the Commission. If he had, his case would not have been gravely weakened. In paragraph 177 the Report states: The Government view,"— that is, the Nyasaland Government—the Prime Minister must remember that these microphones are very sensitive and I have the misfortune of understanding what he is saying— as expressed to us, was that the murder plot was a possibility rather than a probability, but something which had to be treated seriously and taken into account. The Report continues: We think that before there was any suggestion of a murder plot it had been contemplated that all branch officials of Congress should be arrested in the event of an emergency. The decision to suppress Congress we think, owed more to the belief that its continued activities were making government impossible than to the feeling that it was, or might be, a terrorist organisation. In so many words, the Commission says that Congress had obtained such a hold 425upon the affections and support of the people of Nyasaland that more and more authority was passing to it and less and less was remaining with the Government, and that if that situation went on deteriorating it would make the government of Nyasaland impossible.
That is a perfectly good reason for taking temporary emergency measures. It might also have followed that unless this was done the position would deteriorate even to the point where physical violence was offered to Europeans and Asians. That is a distinct possibility. The Government could have rested their case on that. They need not have rested their case upon a murder plot which does not exist and of which there is not the slightest tangible evidence.
We know that there was talk of violence, but there has been talk of violence in Africa for some time—

§Mr. S. Silverman

And not only in Africa.

Mr. Sevan

—not only in Africa.
There was a long pseudo-philosophical argument at Accra the other day as to what extent subject peoples were entitled to use violence. It is not a new thing. Of course, it is a frightening and intensely alarming thing when such an argument is conducted in inflammable areas like Nyasaland, where small groups of Europeans and Asians are surrounded by large numbers of Africans. It is serious and frightening, but it is not new. It has been happening for some time. It would have been perfectly proper for the Government to have said this evening, "We accept what the Commission's Report has told us, that there was no murder plot in any proper sense of the term, and we have, therefore, decided to accept the Commission's findings in that respect."
Furthermore—and this point has not been answered—if there was a plot in any proper sense of the term, how does it come about that, for days afterwards, isolated Europeans who had no axes or other armed protection were not attacked by the Africans? How does it come about that the overwhelming majority of those who were arrested surrendered without offering any resistance? How does it come about that no lists have been discovered? How does it come about that even after the Governor's 426assumption that there was a murder plot there was no addition to the list of persons to be arrested? The list had been drawn up before the allegations of the murder plot.

§Mr. Braine rose—

§Mr. Bevan

I promised the right hon. Gentleman that I would sit down at a quarter past nine. I am not going to give way. If I am compelled to give way it will be an invasion of the right hon. Gentleman's time.
Discussions of violence have been going on for some time, and not only in Nyasaland. Discussions about violence and threats of violence have come from the very persons to whom the Government propose to entrust the Nyasas. Lord Malvern, speaking in the Federal Assembly in September, 1956, said: We have complete control over our own Defence Forces. I only hope we shall not have to use them as the North American Colonies had to use theirs, because we are dealing with a stupid Government in the United Kingdom. That is the Government sitting opposite now. There is the new George III. Sir Roy Welensky, in 1957, said: We go forward to the Conference Table in 1960 firmly believing that the achievements of the Federation fully justify the granting of independence. Should we fail to convince Her Majesty's Government of the justice of that, this will be the time to take stock and decide what other action is necessary. I personally, would never be prepared to accept that the Rhodesians have less guts than the American Colonists had. That is Sir Roy Welensky; it is not Dr. Banda. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to mention anything that Dr. Banda has said which is more provocative than that. What Sir Roy has really said by inference to the right hon. Gentleman is that if he comes to London in 1960 and is not able to take home with him Dominion status for the Federation, he will take it by force. That is what he said, in effect. Indeed, why is he not in gaol? Why have not the Government seized him? Why have they not pounced upon him in the middle of the night and put him in gaol? Dr. Banda has not said anything as bad as that. Why have not they put him in gaol? It is—to use the right hon. Gentleman's own taunt to us—because they have not got the guts to do it.
It was only on 3rd March that the right hon. Gentleman said to my right hon. 427Friends that we were in favour of federation, but were too cowardly to impose it. Of course, it is true that there have been right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House who believe in the wisdom of federation, but they have never said in my hearing that they wish to impose it against the wishes of the Africans. After all, the Africans themselves are a very important ingredient in the Federation.
What this Report brings out more clearly than anything else is that the people who have put the European population and the Asians in Nyasaland in jeopardy are the Government, not Dr. Banda, not the Congress Party, but the fact that it has now been shown after the passage of years that the Government embarked upon a policy which brings not less but increasing resistance from the people of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. That is the situation. We are not dealing—I would beg hon. Members to realise this, because it is a very important element in the whole situation—with the fact, or the assumption, that, after the passage of years, the idea of federation is winning support among the Africans. There is less support now than when it started. That is the difficulty.
After seven or eight years, we have to adopt these emergency measures in Nyasaland because the idea is increasingly repulsive to the Africans, not more attractive, and for that some people in Southern Rhodesia have to accept the responsibility because very large numbers of Africans from Nyasaland travel to Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia and some into the Union and there they discover a social climate so disagreeable that they do not want to join it, in spite of economic advantages. Hon. Members ought not to rest too much weight on that frail vehicle, the economic advantages of belonging to the Federation. That is exactly the same argument that the Chinese are advancing in Tibet.
It should be obvious to everyone in this Chamber that in the modern world economic progress is absolutely impossible unless it is able to receive the co-operation of the people concerned. It is one of the facts of modern society, one of the facts which the Russians are discovering, one of the facts we all ought to have discovered by now, that to the428extent that people have to be educated to manage modern machinery, to the extent that they have to be taught the functions and the intricacies of modern blueprints and machinery, to that extent they become dignified individuals and refuse to accept political helotry.
That has been one of the assumptions on which our democracy is based. We have said here that if they are to be citizens in the round in order to manage the modern machinery they must be politically emancipated and not treated as second class. That is what we have said. That is what we are here for. That is why this great institution is here. That is the message we have been trying to teach the world for the last hundred years or so. I ask right hon. and hon. Members opposite to set aside their prejudices for one moment and to ask themselves the simple question which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) posed this afternoon in what I thought was a quite unanswerable speech.
What was that? He said that if we deny people constitutional articulation how can we deny them the right to use force? That is a simple argument. It is a classic argument. We have always said that democracy is the answer; that there is no necessity to resort to violence if there are constitutional means of redress. But this is just what we have denied the Africans. They have not got it and they can see it nowhere. On the contrary, they see themselves under a threat of being swallowed up by a society which, to them, is intolerably repulsive. How, therefore, are we to solve that problem?
I agree entirely with what was said earlier by one of my hon. Friends about Dr. Banda. Instead of maligning him the Government ought to be pleased to have him. After all, he is a man of education, refinement and culture. He has consistently, in public, opposed violence and talked about negotiations. He has commended himself personally to the four gentlemen on the Commission. Surely the Government ought to be delighted that in Dr. Banda they have a spokesman with whom they can deal. They ought not to be undermining his position with his people. They ought to be building it up.
429Now Dr. Banda is detained. In what circumstances is he to be released? I do not know whether he will be able to read my words, but I hope that he will not be too distressed by his situation because probably he will be sent to the Seychelles; from which, of course, he will be made an honoured guest in a London hotel and the negotiations about Nyasaland can continue in a much more amiable spirit. So he ought to look at Makarios before he becomes too distressed.
I wish to say to the Government in all sincerity that I have been in the House of Commons for many years now—I am becoming one of the oldest Members—and that this is the worst Parliament I have been in. Some Parliaments have been called "Long Parliaments", some have been known as "Rump Parliaments". This Parliament will be known in history as the squalid one. Actually, it reached its natural end in 1956. It has been kept going to try to revive the critical fortunes of the party opposite.
Hon. Members opposite have made mistake after mistake for which other people have had to suffer. There are Africans lying in their graves as a consequence of the conduct of this Government which did more damage to the reputation of this country in 1956 than any other Government have done for two or three centuries. If they pursue their present policies it will make it almost impossible for us to reconcile ourselves with African opinion. All we can say to the Africans in the meantime is, "For heaven's sake do not lose heart, because before very long the squalid crowd will be out."

§9.15 p.m.

§The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd)

I am very grateful to the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) for so scrupulously observing the request I made to him that I should have an unusually long time in which to reply. When I asked for that, I thought that this was to be the culmination of a rather bitter personal attack upon me. I have been reading for a long time that it would be impossible for the Secretary of State for the Colonies to remain in office after the publication of the Devlin Report. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, 430hear."] Now however, the grounds of the attack seem entirely to have changed.
The right hon. Member has come to the House and said, if only I were prepared to say that the particular interpretation put upon the "conspiracy of violence", referred to in the early part of the Report, was correct, all would be well and we could go on living and working happily together—[An HON. MEMBER: "He did not say that at all."]—in what the right hon. Gentleman was pleased to call, in one of his choicest phrases, this "squalid" Parliament.
I do not believe that this Parliament will go down to history as a "squalid" Parliament. [An HON. MEMBER: "Suez."] Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will now understand why I thought it desirable to ask for three-quarters of an hour. While not squalid in any particular field for which I was responsible with my colleagues, this Parliament and its immediate predecessor saw, in the colonial field, the creation of the Dominion of Ghana and the creation of the Independent Dominion of Malaya, both within the British Commonwealth of Nations. It saw also the steps leading to the creation, in October next year, of the independent Commonwealth Nation of Nigeria, with 40 million people devoted to the British Crown and the British connection within the Commonwealth of Nations. It saw also the steps being taken in the West Indies to lead them also to the same historic destiny. It saw in East Africa, if we can can keep our heads—and that applies to the Opposition as well as to the Government here—the chances of the creation of a non-racial society which will be an illustration of what partnership in practice can achieve.
If this is the right hon. Gentleman's conception of a "squalid" Parliament I await with interest to see what form Parliament might take if ever, which is most unlikely, the desiccated calculating machine on his right formed an Administration. If the right hon. Gentleman did not like to say so personally, after five years' experience of such an Administration he would no doubt arrange to do so through the columns of Tribune, and would probably call it "That dried-up Parliament".
The right hon. Member said at the start of his speech that he had had 431enough of quotations, but he proceeded to give very lengthy quotations—[Interruption.]—one from Lord Malvern and one from Sir Roy Welensky—two quotations not, of course, from the Report, nor, above all, from the Governor's Despatch, to which neither he nor the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) nor scarcely any other hon. Member opposite has referred in the whole of this debate. May I remind hon. Members opposite that if ever the colonial empire—[HON. MEMBERS: "Empire?"]—should be so unfortunate as to find a change of government in the United Kingdom, it will be on Governors like Sir Robert Armitage that hon. Members opposite, like us, will have to rely, and they will be glad and happy to rely on such people.
The right hon. Member said that the idea of federation is becoming increasingly repulsive to Africans. I think that is a very reckless phrase. If the right hon. Member or his colleagues had any worthwhile alternative to offer, it would no doubt be possible to dismiss federation, although, I hope, not in language of that kind. Those who have studied Central Africa the most know, as I recognise and said last week, and as we all know, the idea of federation has not as yet captured the hearts and minds of Africans, but it must surely be the task of constructive statesmanship, whether on the Government or Opposition side, to try to get rid of the difficulties which are preventing its success and to make of federation a living partnership. If we do not succeed in achieving that it will mean that the whole of Central and probably Southern Africa, will either go over to black racialism or apartheid. If that happened, not only would the position of Governments in the United Kingdom be singularly unhappy, but the world would be a poorer place.
I recognise that one of the main causes of difficulties in Nyasaland in the last few months has been fears about the concept of federation. I share the view of the Governor that it is not correct to say, as the Commission did, that the Government of Nyasaland regard federation as the choice of only a small minority of political Africans. The Governor never left me in any doubt as to the strong opposition in Nyasaland, and I know it as well from my own contacts. 432Both the Government of Nyasaland and Her Majesty's Government regard this opposition as ill-founded, but that is not to say that we do not recognise that it is of a widespread nature. We had a debate last week when I repeated certain assurances which we have always given to the people of the African territories. I followed my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in clarifying a situation about which there was some doubt. It is our profound hope that that debate and the assurances we gave will do something to dispel the fears in Nyasaland.
I hope that hon. and right hon. Members with influence in Central Africa will see that those pledges and that undertaking are widely known, for if it is true, as I believe it is, that there has been a belief that in 1960 there would be a change in the political status of the Northern Territories without their consent, the sooner that fear is exorcised the better. I hope that this assurance will be one of the bridges—the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) spoke of bridges—across which the old relationship of trust and understanding with Nyasaland can be restored. I must make it clear that there have never been any prohibitions on constitutional opposition to federation, and this is going on now busily in Nyasaland. The emergency has been caused by turning over to violence in the early part of the year, and that attitude also must be exorcised.
The Report we are considering today makes it abundantly clear that the Government of Nyasaland, in the situation that existed on the 3rd March, had to resort to emergency powers. It had either to act or to abdicate. The Report also makes it clear that this situation was the result of the adoption of a policy of violence by the Nyasaland African Congress. The Report also makes it clear that, in the view of the Commission, the decision to declare a state of emergency, to postpone Lord Perth's visit and to ask the Federal Prime Minister, the Governors of Northern Rhodesia and Tanganyika and the Government of Southern Rhodesia for military and police reinforcements, was the decision of the Governor of Nyasaland alone.
Many suggestions were made to the contrary in the debate of 3rd March. 433Charges were made against me of cowardice, of yielding to the Federal Government, of abdicating my responsibility as Secretary of State by a disgraceful surrender to the Federal Government. I recognise that by the terms of their Motion, the Opposition might be said to have withdrawn those charges, and I should not, therefore, have referred to them today, since I certainly do not want to add any unnecessary partisan difficulties, were it not for some curious observations made today by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East on the r61e of the Federal Prime Minister in influencing, it is suggested, the Governor of Nyasaland.
The hon. Gentleman started by making a rather inaccurate reference to the debate on the Bank Rate Tribunal Report. It is quite true that the Opposition Amendment did not dissent from the Tribunal's Report, but the Opposition thereafter divided against it on the main Motion, and the whole of the Socialist Party voted against it. I was not then conscious of any suggestion being made that by action of that kind it would be more difficult to get a judge to take the chair at a tribunal of that character. The hon. Gentleman moving the acceptance of this Report tried to get it both ways. The Report makes it absolutely clear that in the three actions of the Governor of Nyasaland he was acting on his own initiative alone. It was said today, or at least hinted at, that of course it was the Governor's formal decision, but that this—this was the innuendo with which he left the House—was a sort of rubber stamp decision, the real decision being the decision of the Prime Minister of the Federation.

§Mr. Callaghan

If I left any impression of it being a rubber stamp decision, I should like to make it clear that I had no such intention; but it seems to me that if the Colonial Secretary will read paragraph 160 of the Report, he cannot reach any other conclusion but that the intervention of Sir Roy was decisive on a Governor who was hesitating between two courses.

§Mr. Lennox-Boyd

That is wholly untrue. I have read the whole Report a number of times, and I hope the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale has done the same. I need no reminding of that 434paragraph, as I know perfectly well what it says. The impression which it conveys is that this decision was that of the Governor alone. In fact, that very paragraph says: … the only contribution which Sir Roy made was the expression of opinion which we have set out in the preceding paragraph. I think that it is the height of hypocrisy on the part of the Opposition to give the impression that they are accepting the Report and then, by innuendo, to leave the idea about that, in fact, they do not accept one of its very important conclusions.
It has been said that it is wrong for the Government to have tabled a Motion that does not accept all the opinions and conclusions at which the Commission arrived. The Commission regarded its task as a fact-finding job to be used as a basis for administrative and political decision. But it also drew inferences from the facts, and it has been said—although I realise the Commission's difficulty in this matter—that it did not find it easy to separate its opinions from the evidence it collected.
Such views or opinions or inferences are certainly not sacrosanct, and cannot be so regarded. It must be open to any Government—indeed, it is the duty of any Government—to say what they think of inferences, opinions or views of that kind. There is nothing whatever improper in commending to the House that broad endorsement of the Government of Nyasaland's policy which the Report contains and not commending inferences or opinions with which, after careful consideration, Her Majesty's Government do not agree.
At this stage I must say that the appointment of the Commission itself seems to me to be wholly inconsistent with the suggestion that Nyasaland … is—no doubt only temporarily—a police State. … Would a Government responsible for a police State have appointed a Commission of this kind, composed of people who could wander freely throughout the country, speak freely to whomsoever they liked, speak to men who are detained, or to their counsel, speak to men whose identity I do not know—and will never know?
I must remind the House that, with my full approval, neither I nor the 435Governor have been told whom the Commission saw. I have no idea when the members of the Commission saw members of Congress who they were seeing or what was said to them. It was with my full approval that this drill was arranged. Would a police State have agreed that no action could subsequently be taken because of anything that might have emerged from the Report of what had been said to the Commission? I cannot imagine a police State conducted on such lines.
It is also said in that Report that it … is unwise to express any but the most restrained criticism of government policy. It said also: The Government on the other hand became increasingly intolerant of any opposition on western and democratic lines because it considered it tantamount to the setting up of a rival authority. I would ask the House to remember that in that last quotation the Commission was referring to the situation in July, 1958. In December, 1958, the situation had deteriorated considerably. None the less, on 4th December, replying to a Motion moved by Mr. Chipembere in the Legislative Council to the effect that Congress should be given the right of freedom of operation and speech, the acting Chief Secretary said: The Government agreed that it was essential that someone or somebody should be able to express disagreement, even acute disagreement with the Government. Big Brother beyond the reach of public opinion is a thing not to be contemplated and would indeed be the personification of tyranny. That assertion of a constitutional right is, and remains, absolutely legal, but to attempt to assert contrary views by force of arms or by violence creates a wholly different situation.
I must apologise to hon. Members for my voice. I hope that all hon. Members can hear me. It would be easier if I had a little more silence for what is, after all, judging by the newspapers, a very important day in my life. I ask hon. Members to be a little quieter. [Interruption.] I thank the right hon. Gentleman very much for passing me a pastille.
I will now say a word about what has come to be called "the murder plot". I returned to London on Sunday, 1st March, from Aden and Cyprus. I had 436been kept in close touch with events in Nyasaland while I was away and I had agreed to the postponement of Lord Perth's visit for constitutional talks. On my arrival in London that afternoon I found, among other information, a Special Branch report on the situation in Nyasaland. It had been prepared from a number of sources, including seven people whose identity was unknown to each other. It referred to the bush meetings on 25th January and decisions stated to have been taken there involving violence and murder. When I received that report, the Governor had already been told of the views of the Commissioner of Police.
On that Sunday evening and throughout Monday I was very conscious of two things: first, the serious nature of the information which I had received, and, secondly, the fact that the disorders had already for days justified the declaration of a state of emergency and that it had not been declared. I was very concerned lest there should be murder of Europeans, Asians and loyal Africans, and also that, if this should happen, it could and would be suggested that the Governor and I, there being a clear case for declaring a state of emergency earlier, had failed in our duty to take action in time. This last fear, though a secondary one, was none the less a very important one.
The reason why the state of emergency had not been declared was that the Governor wished to get enough security forces into the country to provide some protection to scattered farms, believing as he did that with the detention of Dr. Banda, which the state of violence itself would make necessary, there was a very real risk of violence, including murder.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I made my statement to the House and spoke in the subsequent debate, as did also my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. Time will not allow me now to say again what I said then, but I was conscious of these two anxieties in all that I said, and in the evening I was particularly concerned to make it clear that the reason for the postponement of the state of emergency was the existence of this information which had been brought to me.
I ask the House to remember that from the report in early 1959 the extremists 437had made up their minds that they would get Congress to adopt a policy of violence. Paragraph 166 of the Report is very relevant to that matter. The Commission publishes a document at Appendix II in the Report. The Governor said that that document revealed that not merely was there talk but that decisions as to the course of action to be followed had been reached. I had not then, nor do I have now, the slightest doubt that some people went away from that meeting with the belief that decisions had been taken and that they included under certain circumstances the murder of Europeans. The Commission itself said that the greatly increased number of illegal meetings held after the conference suggests the execution of a deliberate policy. The Commission also says that during this period the branches were sending up suggestions for the black list.
I do not believe that anybody engaged in practical administration would have anything but sympathy for the Governor in his inability to distinguish between talks of beating and killing Europeans and talk of cold-blooded assassination or massacre. The test for the Governor was, as he says, whether there was a real threat to the lives of Europeans and Africans as a result of the adoption by Congress of a policy of violence. From the Report of the Commission it is quite clear that there was.
I do not believe that enough attention has been paid in this debate, or indeed enough credence placed on it in the Report, to the strength of intimidation in Africa today. All hon. Members who have worked and served there know this to be unhappily true, and I agree that it is not limited to Africa.
I had intended to give a number of references from the Report, but I do not think that time will allow. All hon. Members can read the Report, and there are many significant paragraphs relating to intimidation, including in particular the quotation from a letter from one Congress member to another, referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend earlier today. I ask the House to consider the Nyasaland Railway Company, a very large employer in Nyasaland. Hon. Members may know something of Nyasaland Railways and of their plans for African training and housing, and of the recognition of the need to help 438the emergent supervisory type of African. What does the chairman say in The Times of 24th July? He said: Altogether we employ some 7,000 Africans of whom approximately 3,000 are employed at Limbe where our central workshops are situated. When the emergency was declared all but about 200 of our African employees in Limbe stopped work. Out of the whole of our staff about 60 were detained under the Emergency Regulations, of whom 27 were employed in our workshops at Limbe. As soon as these few men had been removed, all our staff returned to work; and our officials have told me"— this is the chairman of the company speaking— that with the threat of intimidation lifted, the whole atmosphere regained 'the cheerfulness which had been strikingly absent during the preceding months of fear and uncertainty. I have been asked a number of questions about the detainees and about the future of Dr. Banda. I am afraid that time will not allow me to go into these important matters with the detail that I had hoped, but my right hon. and learned Friend has already touched on them and I hope that if time does allow I shall be able to return to these matters before ten o'clock.
There is one point which has not been touched on and which seems to me to be also of the first importance, and that is the criticism of the operations. Four main criticisms of action taken by the authorities and by the security forces appear in the closing paragraphs of the Report. I should like to take these briefly one by one, and examine how far they are justified in the context of the initial operation in the first few days of the emergency, and in the subsequent operations to deal with the centres of trouble and violence. The third criticism of the Commission that unnecessary force was used in making arrests is connected with the initial operation to detain Congress leaders, and I should like to deal with that straight away.
The Commission, while agreeing that the use of unnecessary and illegal force was never expressly authorised, says that individual officers were given too much latitude and that their illegalities often went unnoticed or unchecked. The Commission considered in its Report only six cases in which force was used while effecting arrests. This must be set against no fewer than 263 arrests made in the original operation up to 5th March 439and a further 900 unhappily necessarily made later. I cannot accept that the reports made by the officers concerned in these arrests made it clear that illegalities occurred. I would, if there were time, give an account of those reports, but it would take too long. I shall, however, be ready to do so on another occasion.
There are, however, two special points with which I must deal. The first is the use of handcuffs and gags which were referred to by an hon. Member opposite as restraints. Handcuffs are, as the Report points out, ordinarily used in Nyasaland in making arrests. The instruction given by the Operations Committee only referred to their use in Central and Southern Provinces when those arrested were being transported in aircraft. In the Northern Province, where wide areas were under Congress control and gangs were perpetrating arson and sabotage, those arrested were to be handcuffed when being transported from place to place. No instructions were given for the use of gags. As far as I know, gagging only occurred in the Mzimba area, and the facts revealed in paragraph 198 show on the face of it that it was excessively and unnecessarily used.
These facts only emerged as a result of the Commission's own long inquiries, and that was one of the reasons why we set up the Commission. The Government had no reports of gagging being used except in one arrest. He was picked up in that particular district. Without knowing the full facts no action could have been taken. Now that they are revealed, I and the Nyasaland Government are very sorry indeed and deeply regret what occurred. [Interruption.] I must remind the House that one of the purposes of appointing the Commission was to see if there were incidents of this kind and to have all the cards laid on the table so that proper remedial action could be taken. I remind the House that action cannot be taken against individuals, as a result of the undertaking given with my authority by the Attorney-General, with the full approval and at the request of Mr. Justice Devlin.
The second point I should like to mention is the other three criticisms in paragraph 285 of the Report which reflect on the conduct of the security forces and the authorities. The first is 440the unauthorised burning of certain houses by a District Commissioner. In his Despatch the Governor has made some comments on this. I would add to those comments only this, that instructions were given as soon as this incident was discovered that in no circumstances should punitive action of this kind be repeated, and I repeat here the regret which I expressed in regard to the previous incident.

§Mr. Bevan

No action?

§Mr. Lennox-Boyd

No action can be taken because of the agreement that what emerged from the inquiry and was reported in the Report of the Commission should not be made the subject of any criminal charges, and this was at the wish of the inquirers and with my full approval.
The next criticism made by the Commissioners related to the confiscation of implements. This is, of course, very regrettable, but it is an undeniable fact that implements of this kind though necessary for agriculture were also used for many purposes of sabotage and road blocks, and they were confiscated in the districts where incidents of that sort occurred.
Lastly, I come to the Commission's more serious allegation about the use of force by the security forces in villages in areas where Congress was receiving much sympathy and support and their gangs were most active. The Governor has already and rightly indignantly repudiated any suggestion that he expressly or impliedly authorised the use of any illegal force in those areas. He has pointed out that the Commission's criticism of what happened in the villages is general and is based on evidence not known to him. I must make it perfectly clear that where specific allegations and serious complaints of assault were made to the authorities they were thoroughly investigated and action was taken to deal with them when they were found to be justified; and indeed, the Nyasaland Operations Committee sent a directive to all provincial committees on 24th March in connection with complaints which they had received and were being investigated, insisting no possible excuse could be given, despite the difficulties in which the forces found themselves, for further similar complaints against the security forces.
441In short, while we all deeply regret any incident which the Commission's work may have uncovered, the conclusions do not lead to the inference that illegalities were expressly or impliedly authorised from the top, and, indeed, the facts which I have given to the House, though not as fully as I should have liked to do, bear that out.
It is also important to make this clear. The House may not have realised, and not much attention has been paid to it in the Press, that the Commission has investigated mainly action and the use of firearms by the security forces with consequent loss of life or the inflicting of grave injury. I do not in the least quarrel with this, but the Commission did not interpret its terms of reference so as to include the many occasions which can rightly be called disturbances in which firearms and other weapons were not used. Had the Commission given an account of these, its Report would have been much longer. The omission of successful dispersals of crowds and other operations from its examination might lead the unwary reader to imagine that the use of firearms and of excessive force was characteristic of operations carried out by the Nyasa-land security forces. This is not a fair conclusion from the Report when all the facts are taken into account.
On this we had a very moving speech from my hon. and gallart Friend the Member for Norwood (Sir J. Smyth), who has been at the other end of operations of this kind. We are entitled to take great satisfaction from the conclusion of the Commission that on one was trigger-happy and anyone who took firm action of any kind was confident that that was the only way to deal with the situation.
I should like, as I draw inevitably to a close, to say a few words in reply to questions which I have been asked about constitutional advance in Nyasaland. A great deal of play has been made in the debate of the delay in bringing into operation constitutional changes. I made an announcement a day or two ago as to our plans which I hope will be implemented in a few weeks' time, some time during August. In answer to questions over the last few months, I have made it clear that the existing Constitution, which came into being in 1956, would run till 1960 when the life of the present 442Legislature was coming to an end. It was my intention to bring the discussions on the new Constitution to a conclusion during Lord Perth's visit at the end of February. I had hoped that there would be full agreement well before May, 1960, as to what the changes thereafter were to be. It was my hope that the proposals which had to be worked out, as the Commission, recognised was desirable, would be acceptable to all concerned.
I have been very much concerned at the suggestions made by a number of hon. Members opposite, whose interest in and zeal for Nyasaland I know very well, that the fact that the new Constitution was not agreed to was a contributory factor to the state of tension and of violence. But I ask hon. Members who are asking us to accept the Report in full to look at paragraph 94 of the Report and also earlier paragarphs.
As early as September, 1957, it was clear, according to the Report, that what Congress wanted was an all-African Government before 1960. By May, 1958, it seemed clear to Congress that it was not likely to make much headway with its demands for an African majority and it is said that the leaders were then suffering from a sense of frustration. At a meeting in Government House with the Governor in January, 1958, Dr. Banda said that he was prepared to reconsider the exact number of African seats but he could not be shifted from his demand for an African majority.
I ask hon. Members to look at paragraph 94. In this the Commission examines the various allegations made of undue delay in launching a new Constitution in Nyasaland and also suggestions that I and the Governor had different impressions of what was intended. The Commission made little of these suggestions, and it brings out the point that both of us needed time to work out proposals acceptable to all concerned, which was, of course, the difficulty then. The Commission says: However this may be, we do not think that the delay was a factor of any great weight in the deliberations of Congress. Whatever may have been said in public, the Governor had made his position perfectly clear in private discussions…. The truth, we think, is that the Congress leaders, certainly the extremists, had practically given up hope that anything satisfactory to them would come out of any more constitutional talks; if they had believed 443that it would, we cannot think that just before the talks were coming to maturity, they would have abandoned the way of peaceful negotiation. I hope that hon. and right hon. Members in reading these words will acquit me of responsibility in the constitutional field, for it is an exceedingly difficult task to devise changes acceptable to all those concerned. The Commission realises the need to do so, and it does not attribute to the delay with the Constitution the sinister consequences which hon. and right hon. Members opposite draw.
Now in the future of Nyasaland I see, as I said in the debate last week, a steady movement towards internal self-government, bearing in mind the predominantly African population—the overwhelming majority of all the people being African—but a scheme so devised that, as in Northern Rhodesia but not the same scheme, those who stand for election to Parliament in Nyasaland, as in Northern Rhodesia, must pay some regard to the interests of other races. If we do not devise schemes of this kind, and they are extremely difficult to devise, then I believe that partnership in the constitutional field cannot become a reality. So in commending the proposals that I announced last week to the House, I will repeat once more that they are only interim proposals, and I am deeply anxious to see them changed into more permanent proposals when the situation allows.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) referred to the two members of the Executive who will be appointed from the Legislative Council. The hon. Gentleman thought it was a great pity the they were to have no association with Departments. It is certainly my hope that all the unofficial members of the Executive Council, African and European, will have such an association with Government Departments, and it is the Governor's intention to press on with that urgently as soon as he returns to Nyasaland. For I quite agree that without that special link with day to day work, membership of the

444

§Executive Council cannot provide the proper return that it should.

§Finally, may I say this. I have heard it said by the Opposition—

§Mr. Bevan rose—

§Mr. Lennox-Boyd

I am quite ready to say it. I had hoped to be able to develop at length an argument—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] It is nobody's fault, it is merely that there is such a tremendous amount of material I wanted to convey to the House. I am not blaming anyone. I had hoped to develop at greater length the arguments used by my right hon. and learned Friend this afternoon in regard to the close association of Dr. Banda with the extreme elements of Congress. It is, of course, possible to draw a picture of Dr. Banda as being a dupe of his own extremists. I do not believe that this is so, and I believe that a careful study of the Report will show that somebody who was, as the Commission says, the unquestioned leader of Congress could not possibly have been left in ignorance of what was, in fact, agreed at the meeting of 25th January when, as paragraph 166 disclosed, the extreme elements in Congress went over to a policy of violence.
Under those circumstances, there can be no possible suggestion of treating Dr. Banda differently from other detainees—[HON. MEMBERS: "Police State."]—and I am pleased to say that the Governor, who is responsible in these matters, will have my full support in ensuring that, while we are all anxious to bring the emergency to an end as soon as we can, there cannot be releases of detainees who are dangerous to the State until that danger has been withdrawn.
At the start of my speech I said the Government had either to act or to abdicate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Abdicate."] We have acted and we will not abdicate.

§Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—

§The House divided: Ayes 317, Noes 254.

JOHN CHILEMBWE 1915 UPRISING

2011-09-22T05:04:00.000-07:00


John Chilembwe and family

The following post deals with the possible causes of the John Chilembwe uprising in 1915. It was one of the first uprisings against British power in Nyasaland and has been extensively studied by scholars who have come up with their own versions of the causes. In this article Dr Ian Linden and wife Jane explore the possible causes using past studies and their own studies on the causes. I hope you will learn alot about this beloved son of Nyasaland.

John Chilembwe and the New Jerusalem

Author(s): Jane Linden and Ian LindenSource: The Journal of African History, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1971), pp. 629-651

Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable Jrournal of African History, xii, 4 (1971), pp. 629-651 629

Printed in Great Britain

War in Europe, war here against the Germans,a religious war, persecution almost. You might think that we were close to the end of the world.

Nzama Montfort Mission Diary, 30 January 1915.1

IN THE search for the progenitors of modern mass nationalism, inter tribal movements which culminated in armed resistance to colonial rule have been studied in some depth. The intertribal Nyasaland rising of 1915, which seriously threatened white rule in the southern region of the protectorate for a brief period of three days, is no exception. Although less than 900 Africans were actively involved, it bears with the much larger scale Maji-Maji war in Tanganyika an inordinate weight of hagiography and historical analysis. That its leader, John Chilembwe, would come to occupy pride of place in the pantheon of Malawi's nationalist heroes, and so become shrouded in mythology,2 was already predicted by Shepperson and Price in their now classic biography, Independent African.3

The desire to demonstrate a continuity in African aspirations, from the early resistance movements of the beginning of the twentieth century to later secular nationalism,4 has meant that the political goals of rebellions have been stressed. Religious elements, when they have been given emphasis, as in Ranger's treatment of the Ndebele and Shona risings5 and Gwassa's discussion of the religious ideology of Maji-Maji,6 have been fitted into a Weberian framework. Traditional religion has been treated as an integrative force bringing together disparate tribal groups, and Christianity, far from being an opiate, has been shown to have provided radical apocalyptic themes through which Africans articulated opposition to colonial rule. The authority of the Bible legitimized the use of force by both charismatic prophets and leaders of Christian sects. Nonetheless, the ideological content of Africans' religious beliefs has been given short shrift. In contrast to the detailed consideration of the theological niceties involved in the politico-religious movements of Europe, such as the English Puritan revolution,7 those of African Christians are labelled en bloc 'Christian revolutions'. The heuristic value of such broad categories is debatable. In Nyasaland, Protestantism was a religion of the Book. Biblical piety provided the reader with a Jewish concept of linear time and with images of oppression that stimulated the growth of political and historical consciousness. Catholic piety, eucharistic devotion, was centred in the synchronic duality of Christ's immanence and transcendence, in Sacred Host and Church. Its missionary manifestation was profoundly ahistorical. And, of course, within Protestantism itself the distinction between the institutional churches and Troeltsch's sect type proved as fundamental in colonial Malawi as in Europe.8 A full understanding of the political postures adopted by the different churches during the critical period 1958-64 in Malawi demands insights into the ideology of Calvinism and Catholicism.9

Another danger in a simplistic treatment of Christianity and its denominations is that the actual beliefs and religious behaviour of African Christians are either assumed or ignored. Yet the equation of the credal formulas and confessional statements of mission societies and churches with the beliefs of individual African Christians is mere wishful thinking.10 The leading officials of rain shrines in Malawi today do not disguise their allegiance to the major churches in the country. Furthermore, European missionaries visiting their African pastors were for ever complaining that they were preaching a private and idiosyncratic version of the scriptures. The relationship between Christian thought and African political consciousness will only be elucidated when the difficult task of analysing the interaction between social position in colonial society, religious beliefs and political behaviour is undertaken.

Accounts of the Nyasaland rising shed little light on this interaction. In Independent African, religious ideology is a theme secondary to the presentation of the radical political influences on Chilembwe, especially those of Booth and American blacks. Within Nyasaland the development of religious radicalism is referred to with Booth as fons, if not origo, and discussed as a succession of individuals. Chanjiri, the traditional Kunda prophetess, 'Daughter of God',1" gives way to Kamwana and Watchtower. The time between Kamwana's deportation and the rising is filled by Charles Domingo.12 It is impossible to assess the religious beliefs of their followersand the rest of the population. Whether they change in step with the individuals who broadcast them is not clear. The inference is that they do, since the hiatus between such chiliasts as Kamwana and Chilembwe's supposed southern Baptist orthodoxy is positively underlined.

One of the most colourful additions to the European legend of John Chilembwe is the persistent assertion that he was an adherent of the Watchtower movement ... but the demonstrable fact is that Chilembwe had no more connection with Watchtower than was imposed on him by the adherence of the few Africans who may have been influenced at some point by millenarian teaching.13 With limited data, it is easy to show connexions between movements, but it is methodologically impossible to prove the contrary. One piece of positive evidence destroys the argument. That Shepperson and Price are willing to take this risk, and unwilling to leave the influence of millenarianism an open question in an otherwise cautious discussion of motives, signifies that some pre-judgment has been made. Chilembwe, it can be inferred, is to be placed, not against a background of revolutionary chiliasm, but in the future perspective of proto-nationalism.

What thanks to Shepperson's Bultmann-like pre-occupation with demythologization is only a tendency, becomes in Rotberg's The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa, and his later Protest and Power in Black Africa,14 an unquestioned premise. The Nyasaland rising has become one man, an asthmatic, charismatic nationalist martyr with qualities of Padraig Pearse and John Brown. The view that Chilembwe may have been planning to 'set up an independent government in the Shire Highlands', and that 'unlike Kamwana and Domingo, he eschewed millennial teachings'15 has given way to a portrait of a leader who 'radiated (newly discovered?) sources of incandescent illumination'.16 It was, of course, Rotberg and not Chilembwe who newly discovered the 'incandescent illumination' as the only way to transform an apparently ineffectual pastor into the leader of several hundred Africans.

Tangri, with access to new material in the Zomba archives that was unavailable to Price, keeps well within orthodoxy: Though some of Chilembwe's following may have been swayed by Watchtower, there is no direct evidence to suggest that he himself was in any way influenced by such doctrines.17

When Kamwana's successes in Tongaland in I909 are remembered, and the strength of Watchtower in colonial Zambia and Malawi from 1919 onwards, 18 it seems reasonable to ask what became of millenarianism in the First World War- In fact the reports of the rebels' trials and their unpublished, confiscated correspondence, which were unavailable to Shepperson and Price, now make it clear that millennial expectations were held by many of the Africans involved in the rising.

Rotberg's analysis of the rising rests on George Simeon Mwase's second hand version in 'A Dialogue of Nyasaland, Record of Past Events, Environments, and the Present Outlook within the Protectorate',19 written in 1932. According to Mwase: John said this case stands the same as that of Mr. John Brown..... Let us then 'strike a blow and die' for our blood will surely mean something at last.20 Rotberg assures the sceptic that 'Mwase's circumstantial account can hardly have been manufactured'.21 But, since the rest of Mwase's account is interspersed with literary flourishes, and Mwase is known to have entered a literary competition in the 1930s,22 it is difficult to see why not. Mwase was the leader of a predominantly Chewa Native Association in the 1920s, and was strongly opposed to the influence of Christian mission teachers in the Central Region.23 He certainly received Garveyite literature from America.24 It would be consistent that the head of a secularly orientated association of tobacco growers, with his own literary interests and a knowledge

of black history, should create a Chilembwe in the image of John Brown. When Mwase is taken seriously as an interpreter, rather than a chronicler of the events of 1915, he becomes an important source for understanding 'The Present Outlook'-in 1932-but thoroughly unreliable as a 'Record of Past Events'. His account will therefore be given little weight here.

The conditions in colonial Malawi which produced the rush into Kamwana's Church in I909 had deteriorated further by I9I4. Although pressure from a Liberal government in England had resulted in labour recruitment being officially forbidden in I907, recruiting posts merely moved across the border to resume business as usual. There were an estimated 20,000 Nyasaland workers in Rhodesia alone in 190,25 and a conservative estimate put the total number of workers out of the country by I9I3 as 25,000.26 The pressure of tax collection, with its attendant burnt huts and massive migration of labour, induced social changes in village life. While the Ngoni lamented an increase in divorce,27 the matrilocal Chewa husbands brought their wives to the village of their matriclan so that their family could watch them in their absence.28

In the Shire Highlands, with a large African population increasing by the immigration of Alomwe labourers from Portuguese East Africa, a high density of European planters generated tensions over land and labour. Conditions on the Bruce estates, the focus of the southern side of the rising, were not appreciably worse than on many other plantations in the Highlands.29 A combination of famine and an increase in the hut tax in I9I2 further aggravated African feeling in the protectorate. The District Administration Ordinance of that year only came into force in I9I4-and then only in two districts-so it did nothing to shore up the fast disappearing authority of chiefs and headmen.

The period I909-14 was one of growing alienation from European rule. Recruitment into the western institutional churches slumped30 as solutions to social ills were sought in traditional remedies,31 or in millennial dreams preached in the proliferating semi-independent churches. For the 'new men', the African pastors, businessmen or government employees, excluded from traditional offices, unable to obtain capital for business, and with no place in white society that did not carry with it daily humiliations, it was a period of profound social malaise. Cohn's description of the membership of chiliastic movements in the Middle Ages can be applied, with obvious reservations, to the 'new men' of Nyasaland: These people lacked the material and emotional support afforded by traditional social groups . .. they were not effectively organised in village communities or in guilds; for them there existed no regular, institutionalised methods of voicing grievances or pressing their claims.32

The social changes that occurred at all levels of Nyasaland society before the First World War were a sufficient cause for the growth of revolutionary chiliasm. It remains to be shown to what extent millenarian expectations were widespread before the rising, and what role they played in stimulating armed revolt. Or, in more general terms, what role did religious ideology play in the rising?

The first of several rumours of impending trouble came from the north of the administrative capital, Zomba, in the beginning of I9I4. It was only communicated to the government by the Roman Catholic Bishop, Louis Auneau, after the outbreak of the rising.

Some time ago I heard from our fathers of Namkunda Mission ... that there was some agitation amongst Mahommedan people; they were all saying that the Arabs will come and we will kill all Europeans and natives who will refuse to accept our creed.33

The Yao had suffered heavily from Johnston's punitive raids and the end of the slave trade. More adapted to trading under the loose control of the Sultan of Zanzibar than to the enforced economic stagnation of the Pax Britannica, they were perhaps the most disaffected group in the protectorate. An Islamic renaissance reported by missionaries in I9I2 34 was the first symptom of what might have become a tribal revolt.35 More news of seditious talk came from the Ntcheu district as Catholic catechists returned in June I914 from their harvesting.36 A month later, Paulos Mwenye, a Catholic catechist teaching within a mile of Chilembwe's Providence Industrial Mission, reported that he had been warned by a P.I.M. member, Mawson, that: you are a scholar of a European mission but be ready this year, I914, as the Europeans are going to try to destroy us, we must agree, all of us Natives, to be ready.37

This information was passed on to the assistant district commissioner for the sub-district of Chiradzulu, Mitchell, who confronted Paulos-'a very sanctimonious and typically mission youth and a thorough rascal from the look of him'-with Mawson. The result was hardly in doubt; Mawson denied everything and the resident believed him. However, Moggridge, the DC in Blantyre, received a report of the incident and put the P.I.M. under close surveillance. From October I914 onwards, all letters in and out of Chilembwe's mission were censored at the Chiradzulu Boma.8

The government's attitude towards Chilembwe was one of caution tempered by the suspicion that the Catholic warnings were a product of inter-mission rivalry.39 Auneau was French and ultramontane, and had recently outwitted the Blantyre Town Council in the purchase of land in the township for a mission.40 Moggridge did not know the district well, respected the Scots after a spell near Livingstonia, and felt that Hetherwick, the head of the Church of Scotland Mission, was 'probably far better informed on subjects of this sort than anyone else in the District'.41 Church of Scotland teachers were sent round the Chiradzulu district at the beginning of December I9I4 to make a thorough investigation. Six weeks before the outbreak of the rising, Moggridge was able to report that after 'three weeks hostile and fairly close scrutiny, there is little to be feared from this man' 42

Intensive surveillance failed to uncover any preparations for a rebellion because, probably, no such preparations were being made. The Catholic catechists had more likely heard the result of discussions about the end of the world, the belief that there was to be a Final Battle in which many Africans would be killed. Several months after Kamwana's deportation, in a remote area several days journey from Tongaland, the passage of Halley's comet brought hundreds of villagers fleeing into the bush to confess their sins and prepare for the end of the world.43 If an apocalyptic mood prevailed in 1910, it would be even more likely in I9I4, the year Kamwana prophesied would bring the millennium.

Small Watchtower groups with centres at Limbe44 and near Ncheu had survived Kamwana's deportation. Letters from Kamwana in Chinde came into the protectorate by diverse routes, and his brother, Eliot Yohan Achirwa, visited Watchtower supporters in several districts. Another Tonga, Bennet Gospel Siyasiya, was the main distributor of Watchtower literature in the Ncheu district, and was found after the rising with a certain Beswick Kangaulenda in possession of several tracts in ChiTonga, evidently from Kamwana.45 Apart from this faithful remnant, Watchtower literature and Bibles reached a number of the semi-independent church pastors like David Shirt Chikakude, who was later found with the Watchtower book Millions now living will never die.46 Another Church of Christ pastor, Fred Singano in Likabula, acted as a secret mailing address for

Kamwana after the latter had moved from Chinde to Mlanje in September 1914; he was caught with a considerable volume of Watchtower literature after the rising.47

When rumours of war between the great powers became widespread in Nyasaland during July 1914, interest in Watchtower was rekindled. In villages the mood of impending doom gave rise to a rash of witchcraft accusations,48 but amongst the more sophisticated mission elite in Blantyre it increased the interest in the apocalyptic books of the Bible. On 7 July 1914, Haya Edward Mlelembe, alias Peters, one of Chilembwe's closest associates, wrote to America for Watchtower books for his school.49 Peters was no simpleton. He had been a past associate of Domingo and the founder and secretary of a 'Negro Industrial Union' that had an ephemeral existence in I909 under Chilembwe's patronage.50 He was, moreover, an admirer of the conservative politics of Booker T. Washington,51 and an obssessive imitator of European ways.52 His business interests included timber and tobacco, and Chilembwe was heavily in his debt by 1914.

A few weeks later, Gordon Mataka, who had travelled to Natal with Chilembwe and Booth in I896 and was in business with Duncan Njilima, one of the leading rebels, wrote to Chilembwe: The European war will I think put matter into a shape and people will see that our local ministers were quite right.-4 On being questioned at his trial what he meant by this, Mataka replied: I meant only according to the Bible. John Chilembwe came to Duncan's village either in June or July I914. I was there. Duncan said to me: 'Did you not know that 19I4 is the end of the world?' I said I did not know. Then he (Duncan) said to me: 'You had better repent and take the land (i.e. our estate) and be one denomination and build a church. I never agreed to this and did not repent.'55

It is interesting to note that both Peters and Mataka were far from the centres of revolt when the rising began, the former on a hunting expedition on the P.E.A. border and the latter at his store in Fort Jameson. That Chilembwe also was thinking about the Final Battle can be inferred from a letter sent to him by Eliot Yohan Achirwa in the middle of I914. There had evidently been some discussion of Armageddon, with Chilembwe advocating that the Elect should be prepared.

Reference to our conversationI will call your attentiont o what Paul says, 'let every soul be subject unto the higher powers'.... From these you will see we are not thinking about war so far as we know that God is to our side and He said to us 'avenge not yourselves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written that Vengeance is mine and I will repay'..... It is our duty to say to the household of the faith, 'Fear ye not, stand still and see Salvation of the Lord'.56

As Shepperson and Price point out,57 this is the orthodox pacifist position of Charles Taze Russell, President of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and reveals Kamwana's brother as a strict Watchtower adherent.

The news of the outbreak of war reached Nyasaland in the first week of August and put the Kamwana-Chilembwe debate on to a new footing. By October rumours abounded in the Blantyre area. A group of women told Mloggridge that: a Church of Christ teacher near Limbe and John Chilembwe had received messages that the end of the world was coming within the week.58

Hetherwick's scouts came back with news of a widespread belief that the Americans were fighting at Karonga against the British, and that the name of Chilembwe's church was 'Noah's Ark'.59 Mitchell's replacement, I\Iilthorp, collected a number of rumours that Europeans were about to kill all the Africans.60 This fear was sufficiently general for the askaris in the Chiradzulu district to refuse to sleep away from the Boma.61 These rumours clearly stemmed from apocalyptic themes: the battle of Armageddon and the Karonga war, the saved remnant and Chilembwe's sect, the war between the Just and the Unjust, the fear of an attack by the Europeans on the Africans.62

Again, this heightening of millenarian expectations was not limited to illiterate villagers. Two of Chilembwe's teachers, Damson Buloweza and Wilson Kusita, Ngoni elders of the P.I.M., became full-time Watchtower preachers at about this time and preached in the Ncheu district where Kusita formerly directed a P.I.M. school.63 Duncan Njilima, the richest businessman in Nyasaland with three stores and a timber business, who had been prominent in Chilembwe's second attempt at an industrial union in 1911 and whose son, Richard, attended the P.J.M. school,64 was later reported to have made mysterious references to the fact that 'the bugle was ready to sound'.65 Johnston Zolongola, a P.I.M. elder, told villagers during the rising that; 'We are the people on Noah's Ark and know the real truth'.66 All of these men were in Chilembwe's inner circle of conspirators.

When Moggridge questioned Yotan Bango, alias Saiti, in October I9I4, he admitted that Chilembwe expected the second coming at the end of the month.67 Bango was later Chilembwe's emissary to the Germans. Another witness after the rising said that Chilembwe had told him that: 'God would come and all except John Chilembwe's christians would be killed.' 'And I believed it.'68 To what extent such statements were projections on to Chilembwe of beliefs held by the rank-and-file is difficult to assess. He might easily have interpreted his debilitating asthma, bereavement, failing sight, heavy debts, government surveillance and probable coming deportation as the suffering foretold in the Book of Revelation before the exaltation of the Just. World War I, with its multi-national ramifications of which educated Nyasalanders were well aware,69 was easily seen as the war prophecied in the Book of Daniel that was to precede the arrival of the Archangel.70

The period from December 1914 to January 1915 provide more telling evidence. A 'Christians' Roll Book during the war', only half completed and in the handwriting of Stephen Mkulichi, secretary to the inner circle of conspirators, was discovered by government troops at the P.I.M.71 It enabled the government to round up many participants in the rising who might not otherwise have been suspected, and is difficult to explain in anything other than an eschatological context. The 'Book of the Predestinate' is a theme running through many apocalyptic passages in the Bible,72 and Chilembwe would certainly have been aware of it. The link between phrases used by Chilembwe and P.I.M. elders and the 'Christians' Roll Book during the war' is provided in the Books of Daniel and Isaiah.

There is going to be a time of distress unparalleled since nations first came into existence. When that time comes, your own people will be spared, all those whose names are found written in the Book.73

This was to occur after the Final Battle between the nations, and it is not difficult to appreciate how, in January I9I5, Chilembwe might take it literally.74

The last extant letter from Chilembwe does nothing to dispel the impression that Chilembwe thought he was in the last times. It was sent to Wilson Kusita and Jordan Njirajaffa in the Ncheu district75 and dated 22 December 19I4, thus written after Chilembwe had become aware that his mail was being censored.76 Chilembwe had been bypassing the Boma by using runners since mid-November, so he would not have been likely to write in biblical code.77

We are not yet in prison.... It is true that I have written a letter to ask the government for the rights of my people. Brother Chinyama will tell you all about it as he has read the copy of the letter. My dear brethren be strong, preach the true Gospel trusting that our Heavenly Father will help us. Strengthen all weak brethren. Preach the Kingdom of God is at hand.78

It is difficult to reconcile such an undisguised escatological proclamation with portraits of a nationalist martyr. By the beginning of 1915 Chilembwe was moving towards a messianic consciousness that he would inaugurate the 'New Jerusalem'.

The strong circumstantial evidence that Chilembwe was profoundly influenced by millenarian expectations does not explain, however, why almost nine hundred Africans rose in armed rebellion. To answer this more important question it is necessary to return to Kamwana and Watchtower, and the spectrum of belief about the coming of the millennium. Something of the feeling after the outbreak of war amongst hard-core Watchtower adherents can be gauged from a letter sent to the Watchtower magazine from Nyasaland in August:

Surely we are living in the Time of the End, according to the Scriptures.... In Nyassaland we see many things which have been preached in our churches, and what we are learning the Volumes79 and Watchtower-all these things are now being fulfilled.80

But when the parousia failed to dawn in October the excitement began to turn to frustration. In the middle of November, a Seventh Day Baptist supporter of Watchtower wrote to Bennet Gospel Siyasiya to reassure him:

But we will believe that Brother Eliot is a wise man. He would not mislead you because he is a man of understanding. You tell people that this is not the time to learn English as the time has now passed.81

By December recent converts to Watchtower like Kusita began to fall by the wayside.

I am going to let you know about our sayings please I am try to think or thought it, then I find best way that it is impossibility to be in Watchtower. I will not be as one of you in business I am return back my own old place as P.I. Mission.82

From Achirwa's letter to Chilembwe it is clear that the critical issue was pacifism v. activism. Kamwana and his disciples preached Pastor Russell's passivity, while at the other end of the spectrum were men like David Kaduya, an extreme activist. Kaduya, who effectively took command of the southern side of the rising, was the son of an Mpotola chief near Phalombe and travelled widely as Chilembwe's school inspector.83 He had signed on at Fort Lister and gone to Somaliland with the Nyasaland troops to fight in the campaign against the 'Mad Mullah'.84 His experiences of an Islamic religious war in Somaliland seem to have made a deep impression on him. It was reported after the rising that as early as February 1914 he travelled around the Zomba district elaborating on Isaiah, Chapter 52: 'Awake, awake.'85 He explained that it meant Africans should 'fight for their own nation' and told people:

Jesus! You believe that he is the Saviour of all people? He is not the saviour of all people but he is the Saviour of the Jews. He fought on the hill of Calvary with the Romans to save Israel.86

Chilembwe's plans for rebellion at this time may be judged from the letter he wrote to Peters in which he said that he was thinking of leaving Nyasaland for Europe or America.87

Kaduya's unorthodox and singularly martial doctrine of salvation did not go unheeded. In June I914, Daniel Mungalama, a clerk and typist at Port Herald and a P.I.M. member, wrote significantly-to Kaduya and not to Chilembwe-that four askaris at the Boma 'had expressed themselves as willing to destroy Europeans'.88 If the origin of the idea of an armed nationalist uprising is to be sought, then it should perhaps be in Africa and Islamic nationalism,89 rather than in American slave revolts.

The conduct of the rising lends itself to the interpretation that Chilembwe's forces saw themselves as the Just and assumed they would be afforded supernatural protection. After the abortive attack on the Mandala stores on Saturday night, groups were still moving towards Blantyre in broad daylight at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning. A priest on his way from Blantyre mission to say mass at Limbe was lucky enough to be mistaken for a Protestant minister.

I had got to within a mile of Mandala stores on the Zomba road when I was stopped by a band of about 60 men armed with spears, axes, sticks and a few rifles.... Finally after I had told them I neither made war nor carried any arms, they hesitated and, handing me back my breviary-my 'bibulo' they called its aid 'If it is true you are not a man of war strike your Bible'. This I did. Then they let me go.90 The same pre-occupation with the 'men of war' marked the whole rising. Women were to be spared and sent to the Chiradzulu Boma after their husbands had been killed.91

The Ncheu side of the rising was even more quixotic and confused. Cardew, the local D.C., a veteran of the Rhodesian Pioneer Column, had been stationed in the district since I902 and knew it well.92 When a relative of James Kamwamba, a local Ngoni chief who was friendly with Philipo Chinyama, informed the Boma of seditious meetings, Cardew immediately rounded up all pastors in the area with known Watchtower sympathies.93 Chinyama, a Seventh Day Baptist pastor, had visited the P.I.M. in the last two weeks of December94 and then tried to win over local pastors and headmen to the idea of rebellion. 95 On 23 January 19I5, as the Moggridge, 22 Feb. I9I5. Sio/i/6 and SI/46/I9. Auneau, in some notes prepared for an article on the rising, recorded that several of the rebels when caught were wearing amulets as war-medicine, a typical Yao practice from the nineteenth century. L. Auneau, Brouillons Montfort Archives, Rome. These must have been Kaduya's recruits.

rising was beginning in the south, a very worried Chinyama wrote to his American patron, Walter Cockerill:

Now regret is this Brethren B. Siyasiya and Jordan96 and David97 they has caughted by Resident yesterday but even myself I am very near to catching by the hands of Resident.98

After Chilembwe's runners had reached Dzunje during the night, on Monday morning, 25 January, Boma police arrived at Chinyama's village to confiscate his papers. 99 Despite protests from his chief, Makwangwala,100 Chinyama had assembled 200 spearmen and now moved south towards the Shire to link up with the other rebels.101 It was, of course, two days too late.

The confusion that characterized the rising can easily be dismissed as a result of hurried planning; by mid-January Smith, the Governor of Nyasaland, had plans to deport Chilembwe and some of the P.I.M. elders.102 And there were P.I.M. members in government service who could have, and doubtless did, warn Chilembwe.103 But after the initial attacks on Blantyre, there was more than confusion; the rebels simply did not know what to do. Survivors of the rising can give no coherent account of Chilembwe's movements.104 From Rotberg's story of meditation on a hill105 to the government report that he watched the raids on Mandala from the 'old road railway bridge',106 Chilembwe does not appear to have played a prominent part in the rising.107 It may have been that after the initial raids there was a general expectation that some supernatural intervention would occur.

Another enigmatic feature of the rising which finds explanation in a chiliastic interpretation is the selection of Roman Catholics, alone amongst missionaries, as targets for attack. The Ngoni chief, Njobvualema108 at Kaloga, next to the Montfort mission of Nzama, received a letter from Chinyama with orders to kill the priests. They were only saved by the coincidence that the chief had already left for Ncheu to defend the Boma, and the letter was handed over to one of the only literate members of his entourage to read; this was the head catechist from the mission.109 The letter was immediately burnt, and Njobvualema razed and looted

Makwangwala's village to prove his loyalty to the Boma.110 The Montforts in the south were not so fortunate. Nguludi mission, only four miles from the P.I.M., was burnt to the ground in the early hours of Tuesday, 26 January. The attackers, led by Kaduya, left a priest who had stayed to defend the mission for dead in the cemetery."'1 Fr. Swelsen, a tough six-foot Dutch carpenter, survived, but a coloured orphan inadvertently left behind by the sisters perished in the blaze.112 Onlookers say that the raiders stayed from about 3.30 a.m. until almost daybreak singing hymns in the half-built shell of the cathedral.113K aduya was shot in the leg by a local Catholic headman, Sumani, and left carried in a machila; he was later killed by government troops near the P.E.A. border.114

Rotberg presents the attack on Nguludi as a probable accident when Chilembwe had lost control of his forces.115 Shepperson, on the other hand, makes the more perceptive suggestion that it was a deliberate attack on the mission that had first informed the government.116 The priests would have agreed to neither view. For them the rising was a deliberate act of religious persecution carried out by a fanatical Protestant sect against the Catholic Church.117 Their intemperate verdict contained some insight. Auneau, with a training in Church History that concentrated on the glorious Middle Ages, saw Chilembwe as an 'illumine' against a backdrop of Hussites and Anabaptists.118 Eken, who wrote a short book on the revolt after discussions with the Nguludi priests, Dutch fathers who had visited Chilembwe for tea on a number of occasions, suggested that the war and expectations of the end of the world had precipitated the rising. It comes as something of a suprise to find an insignificant Dutch Montfort, writing in 1924, suggesting that Chilembwe's problem was that he, and his associates, were 'gedeclasseerden'-marginal men.119

The Catholic view was not just a symptom of a ghetto mentality. The smaller Protestant sects were virulently anti-Catholic. An example of this is Cardew's translation of one of the ChiTonga tracts found at Ncheu:

The Kingdom of Great Britain is increasing itself, like the church of Rome, because Great Britain collects together all the churches of Babylon that they may pray for their chief, the Pope. . . . such churches are in agreement with the Church of Rome, and whoever refuses to adhere to their teachings will be persecuted and perhaps banished.120

It is not hard to understand how Christians, interpreting Chilembwe's possible deportation and their experience of school disputes121 with the Catholics through the distorting prism of this style of teaching, could come to see the Catholics as the 'Beast' of the Apocalypse. Bennet Gospel Siyasiya does use the expression 'chirombo popa of the Roman Chalolika' (the Beast, Pope of the Roman Catholics) in one letter.122 When 'Babylon' was attacked, the 'Beast' could not be spared.

The development from a passive waiting for the millennium to active rebellion, from Kamwana to Kaduya, took place between October 1914 and January 1915. By November, the prophet's mantle had begun to slip from Kamwana as it became apparent that the parousia would not dawn without resort to arms. Although Kamwana seems to have pushed the date back to April 1915,123 the tremendous upsurge of millennial expectation caused by the world war could not be dammed. Wilson Kusita, a useful barometer of the change from passivity to activity, was writing to Eliot Yohan Achirwa in December; 'I know that you are Great Pastor in the Lord',"24 but sometime between g-23 January he wrote again:

The people will not be saved by you but here it is possible that we will be saved (because) that John Chilembwe is really American. Here I am with people that I know and we are not afraid.125

Although it was Kamwana who had focused hopes on October 1914, and had been supported by the apparent accord between the biblical apocalyptic prophecies and events in the world, Watchtower teaching could not provide a legitimization for violence.126 None of Kamwana's close followers joined in the rising. Only Chilembwe, with the prestige of his foreign travels to America and black helpers, like Cheek, and his pre-eminent knowledge of the Bible, could produce the supernatural mandate for revolt. By bringing together the images of oppression in the Babylonian captivity and the two great eschatological themes of the Final Battle and the saved remnant, he was able to lead himself and his followers from passivity to revolt.

Why then has this chiliastic interpretation been shunned, or overlooked, by former writers?127 The most important reason seems to be the dissociation of religious ideology from the beliefs and social consciousness of Africans in the rebellion. The Europeans whose 'legend' Shepperson mocks, and Shepperson himself, never get beyond the obfuscating abstraction 'Watchtower' to the beliefs of men in the Nyasaland of I9I4-I5.

The Europeans, aware of the millennial overtones of the rising and of Chilembwe's planned 'theocracy',128 concluded 'Watchtower' was to blame. Shepperson, without the material that showed the extent of millenarian

beliefs in the protectorate, emphasized the hiatus between 'Watchtower' and the rising. That Kamwana's views were merely the articulate expression of a widespread, more inchoate sense of impending catastrophe could only be discovered when the focus of analysis moved from the elite to the crowd.

The failure of the rising to reach the scale of the Maji-Maji war, in which the critical role was played by traditional religious beliefs, seems to lie as much in the nature of Christianity as a religious system as in the social conditions in colonial Malawi. The different missions with their varied theologies split Chilembwe's potential Christian support. None of the Catholic peasants on the Bruce estates joined the rising. They had access only to collections of Bible stories, 'Mulungu Yekha' and 'Za Mpulumutsi', 129 which, of course, lacked the apocalyptic passages of the Bible. More importantly, they would have been unlikely to have heard sermons on the Second Coming from their priests at Nguludi. On the other hand, the Churches of Christ, with whom Chilembwe appears to have attempted to unite on I2 January I9 I5,130 while having millennial expectations, were strongly influenced by Watchtower pacifism.

The problem of enlisting the support of the Yao was even more acute. Despite Kaduya's efforts to recruit chiefs and headmen in the Zomba and Mlanje districts, the attacks planned in these areas were a fiasco.131 However great Chilembwe's prestige, he could not produce a Biblical legitimization for revolt that would be acknowledged by readers of the Koran. This absence of concerted tribal support from the Yao was more serious than the indifference of the Ngoni chiefs. The Yao had many grievances, and a successful attack on Zomba from neighbouring Yao chiefs might have prolonged the rising and thus encouraged more widespread support.

While it may be agreed with Worsley132 that the important criterion for assessing religious movements is not 'millenarian v. non-millenarian' but 'passivism v. activism', it is plain that members of pacifist movements with millennial expectations can experience intense deprivation, social and religious, driving them to realize their frustrated hopes by violence.133

Neither did Christian ideology provide an integrative, legitimizing force in the Chilembwe rising. Quite the reverse. Just as the Bible separated Chilembwe from his own Yao, the inherent divisiveness of Christianity further split his already fragmented Christian support. The essential dualism of Christianity, its grace and works, passion and action, cross and sword, provided a formulation of the latent needs of Africans in the protectorate, but an ambivalent one. Ideally a dialectic, this duality never seems to have been solved by Chilembwe. As Rotberg recognizes, Chilembwe never appears to have resolved whether his role was that of the suffering servant or the prophet armed; in this sense he did personify the African response to revolt. As praxis, his Christianity integrated neither himself, it seems, nor Nyasaland Africans. The Nyasaland rising of 1915 provides a paradigm of the divisiveness of missionary Christianity as an ideology of political action in the colonial period.

SUMMARY

The Nyasaland rising of 1915 has been dealt with previously within the perspective of proto-nationalism, and a hiatus has been emphasized between prophetae like Kamwana and the Baptist orthodoxy of Chilembwe. An analysis of the beliefs of many of the lesser lights in the rising, however, shows that millennial expectations were rife at the outbreak of the rising. Kamwana's prophecies of the advent of the millennium in October I914 were provided with support by the outbreak of the First World War. The rising is analysed within the context of millennial belief in an attempt to show how a development from passivism to activism from October 19I4 to January 1915 was the proximate cause of open revolt. The failure of the rising is discussed in terms of the religious ideology used to legitimize it, and the role of Watchtower beliefs is clarified. Evidence of millennial hopes is taken from trial reports of rebels and from correspondence confiscated after the rising at Ncheu and Chiradzulu.

APPENDIX

A list of Africans with some connexion with the rising for whom there is a body of information concerning social position, religious belief and degree of involvement.

ELIOT KENAN KAMWANA. Tonga. Resident at Chinde 1910-14 where he conducted a wide-ranging correspondence. Moved to Mlanje at his own request in September I914. Received visits at Mlanje from Watchtower pastors from Port-Herald and Limbe and conducted services contrary to government instructions. Maintained contact through his brother Eliot Yohan Achirwa with Watchtower representatives in Nyasaland. Refused to join the rising. Lyall-Grant, Attorney the failure of the millennium to dawn into active preparation for its inauguration by the sword. On 27 Feb. 1534 an armed uprising expelled Lutherans and Catholics from the town of Muntazer. Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium, 279-86.

General, in 1915 opposed his deportation on the grounds that he preached submission and pacifism. He was deported for attempting to escape, not for Watchtower views. S2/68/1I9.

ELIOT YOHAN ACHIRWA. Tonga. Came to Nyasaland c. 1914 to organize Watchtower groups. He was at Bennet Gospel Siyasiya's village when the rising broke out and was given six months imprisonment for seditious words. In correspondence with Chilembwe, he took a pacifist line like his brother, Kamwana.

Deported in I916 to Mauritius. SIO/I/8/5, S2/68/I9 and NCN 4/I/I.

LOT COLLECTION CHIMWEMBE. A relation of Kamwana. Convicted of seditious words after arrest at Siyasiya's. Sentenced to six months and afterwards detained.

Tonga. NCN 4/3/I, Sio/i/8/5, S2/68/I9, SI/2I8/I9.

BESWICK KANGAULENDA. Ngoni. Sentenced to six months at Ncheu for seditious words. A committed Kamwanaite. While in detention at Kota-kota baptized four people and preached that Europeans were 'hirelings' and not 'true shepherds'. He was in possession of numerous Watchtower tracts. After release given three month sentence again at Ncheu for failure to notify village headman of meetings.

Similar cases: Esau Sinos Chadza and Jackson Banda. Ngoni. SI/46/i9, S2/68/I9, NN 1/20/22.

JAMES RAMSAY APHIRI. Resident of Ndirande from South Nyasa District. Full time head of Limbe Watchtower group. In correspondence with Siyasiya and made official reports to Achirwa. On Sunday, 24 January, he conducted his usual morning service in Limbe. No evidence of any complicity. Similarly JAMES ASAFAITI known to have visited Kamwana at Mlanje, and RICHARD ZUZE, cook to a Goan who worked on Limbe railway. Sio/i/8/5, NCN 4/I/I, Sio/i/6.

WILSON FOSTER MALUNGA. Church of Scotland adherent in Mlanje district especially working amongst Alomwe, where he made many converts. Member of the Negro Industrial Union of 1909 but no apparent business interests. Under strongest suspicion of complicity in the Midima conspiracy. At Nkanda's, Mlanje, during rising. His house was razed by Midima volunteers and his gun never found. He refused to speak while under arrest. Released. Together with Kufa he was thought to have been unable to reconcile fighting with his Christian principles. Sio/i/8/3, Sio/i/6. Oral Testimony: Pio Ntwere.

BENNET GOSPEL SIYASIYA. Worked in the North Rand in 1913. Virulently anti-Catholic and an active Watchtower pastor. A close contact of Jordan Njirayaffa and Philipo Chinyama. A note found on him when arrested on 22 January 19I5: 'Please send your boy every day for letters. P. Chinyama.' He was only sentenced for seditious words and given six months. Later detained. He called his church at Msakambewa's village both 'the Watchtower Church of Christ' and 'the Watchtower Bible Society'. NCN 4/I/I, S2/68/I9, SI/46/I9, Sio/i/8/5, Sio/I/6.

JORDAN NJIRAYAFFA. Ngoni. Disciple of Hollis (Church of Christ) and attended the Negro Industral Union in I909. Close associate of Siyasiya. Appears to have been a Seventh Day Baptist at one time and became a Watchtower adherent in 1911. He was linked by Chilembwe with Wilson Kusita. Strong connexions with Chinyama. Life imprisonment and recommended for removal from Nyasaland because of political influence on other convicts. SIo/I/8/3, NCN 4/2/1, SIOI/I/8/2, S2/68/I9, S2/102/23.

DAVID SHIRT CHIKAKIJDE. Ngoni. Corresponded with Siyasiya who was on the Rand. Sentenced to ten years but released on ticket of leave in 1921. Brought before resident at Ncheu for holding night meetings without permission, upon which he explained that he was teaching the doctrines of the Church of Christ as expounded by Njirayaffa and Hollis. Also had Watchtower literature. SI/ 168/22, S2/68/I9, S2/IO2/23, NC 1/23/2, Sio/i/6.

WILSON KUSITA and DAMSON BOLOWEZA. See text. Escaped into P.E.A. SIQ/1/3.

ANDERSON CHIMUTU. Teacher at Tambala's village for the Nyasa Industrial Mission but allowed Chinyama to establish a Seventh Day Baptist school in his home village. By I915 said by the government to be a Seventh Day Baptist.

Executed. NCN/4/2/i, S2/68/I9.

MATTHEW JADALI. A letter sent to Siyasiyain November I9I4on behalf of Achirwa, although Jadali was, according to the government, a Seventh Day Baptist. Address 'Seventh Day Baptist Church of Christ, Dzunje' i.e. Chinyama's.

Executed. S2/68/I9, NCN 413/I.

FREDERICK SINGANO. Church of Christ teacher who received Watchtower literature and acted as a mailing address for Kamwana. According to government closely identified with Hollis. After release from a sentence of seven years returned to Church of Christ as a teacher and received funds from Mary Bannister in Glasgow. He gave evidence against Chikakude that the latter was a Watchtower adherent. SI/486/I9, S2/85/23, NCN 4/I/I, NN 1/20/22.

GEORGE MASANGANO. Began his career as an interpreter in the resident magistrate's office, Zomba. Then became a Church of Christ teacher at 3 shillings per month. Went on a preaching expedition to Bandawe, Kamwana's district, in i91I and then joined an independent Church of Christ led by Barton Makwangwala at Zomba (executed). Worked as a cotton kapitao in government agriculture department and was contacted by David Kaduya. Given seven year sentence. S II468/I9, S2/85/23. Shepperson and Price, Independant African, pp. 352, 489.

RONALD KAUNDO. Accompanied Masangano to Tongaland in I9I I. He was contacted by Kaduya whilst a teacher with the independent Church of Christ at Zomba. Given a five-year sentence and later rejoined Church of Christ on release. SI/486/I9, S2/85/23-

JOHNSTONZ OLONGOLAA. lias James Stone. Nyanja, ex-kapitao of Magomero but a resident on the Bruce Estates. P.I.M. elder, said to have attended church in the village of Chimbia. Leader of the smaller gang that killed Ferguson and said' We are the people of Noah's Ark....' Fled to Likabula with Kaduya where he was caught. SIOI//3.

Other Kapitaos: WILSON MZIMBA, ex-kapitao of Ferguson in the attack on Livingstone, probably the leader. SIO/I/3. Also LIFEYU, exkapitao of Robertson in the gang that attacked Magomero and according to A. L. Bruce had led a deputation for a P.I.M. school/prayer-house. Dismissed for attending P.I.M. services instead of working. SIO/I/3. Similarly two cotton kapitaos FRED MAGANGA and JAMES SAMUTI were in the Magomero attacks. SIO/I/3.

ABRAHAM CHIMBIA. Yao. P.I.M. pastor and ex-cook of a local planter, Anderson. A leader in the attack on Livingstone, possibly the one who cut off his head. He took with him many followers from his village. SIO/I/3. Other house servants involved: 'Faithful' Hinges (cf. Shepperson and Price, Independent African, p. 283). Shot by court martial. Let attackers into the house. SIO/I/5. Oral Testimony: P.I.M. survivors of raid. Also Graham, C. S. Ingall's cook attempted to kill Ingall but attack unsuccessful. SIO/I/5, and Robin Edward a cook and Z.I.AM. member. Executed. Sio/i/5.

DUNCAN NJILIMA. Originally a Church of Scotland member but close connexions with P.I.M. where his adopted son Richard Njilima was educated. He owned an estate, three stores and a timber business, the most prosperous African businessman in Nyasaland. His two sons were in America where they had been taken by the Rev. Cheek. Worked at one time as a house servant for a U.M.C.A. missionary. His connexions with the Ncheu district were a store and business run by his brother, Clair, a Church of Scotland elder, who was cleared of all complicity in the rising. According to Mataka, Njilima believed in the imminence of the Second Coming and was reported to have said on several occasions, 'the bugle was ready to sound'. Believed by the government to have been in charge of bribing the Blantyre police. Msalule, a relative of Njilima, killed the one askari to die in the rising. Like Kufa he may have lost heart at the last minute. Mang'anja. Executed. S2/68/22, Sio/i/6, SIOII/5. Oral Testimony; Pio Ntwere.

GORDON MATAKA. Yao. Partner of Njilima on the Nsoni Estate. Rejected millenarianism before the war but became interested by August I914. Travelled with Chilembwe and Booth to Natal in 1896. Church of Scotland teacher. Tried but found innocent. SIO/I/3 and see text.

WILLIAM MULAGHA MWENDA. Mentioned here because of his statements to the effect that Kamwana had become Chilembwe's pawn by the beginning of the rising. Worked in the office of the superintendent engineer for the A.L.C. at Chinde. Appears to have been Kamwana's Watchtower general secretary. Keen Watchtower supporter. Not, however, in Nyasaland during the rising, so any of his accounts about Kamwana at this time are, at best, second-hand, at worst lies to get himself out of detention in Mauritius and to dissociate himself from Kamwana. SIo/I/8/2, NCN 4/I/I, S2/68/1I9 and Mulagha to Governor of Nyasaland 19/9/26. S2/8/26 quoted in Rotberg The Rise, p. 69, footnote 34.

Footnote

Trans. French Montfort Archives, Rome.
G. Shepperson, Myth and Reality in Halawi, Fourth Herskovits Memorial Lecture, Northwestern (1966), 113-I8.
G. Shepperson and T. Price, Independent African (Edinburgh, 1958), 4I6.
T. O. Ranger, 'Connexions between "primary resistance" movements and modern mass nationalism in East and Central Africa', J. Afr. Hist., ix, no. 3 (I968), 437-53.
T. O. Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia I896-7, London, I967.
G. C. K. Gwassa, 'The Role of Religious and Other Traditional Beliefs during the Maji-Maji War 1905-7', Dar/U.C.L.A. Conf. on the history of african religious systems, University College, Dar-es-Salaam, June I970.
C. H. George, 'Puritanism as History and Historiography', Past and Present, no. 4I (December I968), 77-I05.
E. Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, London, I93I, I. 24I-6 and G. Shepperson, 'Church and Sect in Central Africa', Rhodes-Livingstone Journal, XXIII (1958), I2-46.
For example the formation of a Christian Democrat party under the patronage of the Archbishop of Blantyre by Chester Katsonga, see Malawi News, 22 Oct. I960, vol. 2, no. 2I, an unsigned article 'Vatican Imperialism by Archbishop Theunissen and Katsonga'. The formation of the party was not supported by the White Fathers' Bishops, however, nor by many of the clergy who lacked a Dutch Catholic political background. For the influence of Calvinism, see the preamble to Rev. A. Ross, 'Origins and Development of the Church of Scotland Mission, Blantyre Nyasaland I875-I926', Ph.D. thesis, Edinburgh, 1968, which gives a fascinating insight into the way the C.C.A.P. had cast itself in the role of the future state church of independent Malawi.
This was particularly true of Watchtower in the 1920S, when its African version in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia was disowned by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in South Africa. T. Walder to Zomba secretariat, 2I Aug. 1926. NN I120/3. National Archives, Zomba.
Chanjiri is one of four Chewa names for the deity. Her movement seems to have been not unlike that of the Bisa 'mfumu ya pansi' who toured the northern Ngoni with great success in the nineteenth century. W. A. Elmslie, Among the Wild Ngoni (Edinburgh, I899), 64. For Chanjiri's prophecies see Nzama Mission Diary, 23 June I907
Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 159-65 and R. I. Rotberg, The Rise Nationalism in Central Africa (Harvard, 1965), 70-72. In I9I6 Domingo was sent to Chinde as an army clerk but was transferred to Zomba in 19I7. In 1919 Moggridge accepted him at Mzimba as a tax kapitao, where he appears to have stayed until 1927, when he was being offered some promotion classes to rise from the level of a third grade clerk. SI/927/19 and NN I/23. National Archives, Zomba.
Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 4I7. Our italics.
R. I. Rotberg, 'Psychological Stress and the Question of Identity: Chilembwe's revolt reconsidered', in Protest and Power in Black Africa, ed. R. I. Rotberg and A. A. Mazrui, (Oxford, I970), 337-77.
"I Rotberg, The Rise, 77, 85.
Rotberg, Protest and Power, 372.
R. Tangri, 'African Reaction and Resistance to the Early Colonial Situation in Malawi: I89I-I9I5', Fifth History Conference of Central Africa (September i968), Salisbury, Historical Association, no. 25, I3.
J. R. Hooker, 'Witnesses and Watchtower in the Rhodesias and Nyasaland', J. Afr. Hist., vi, no. i (I965), 9I-I06.
Published as Strike a Blow and Die, ed. R. I. Rotberg (Harvard, I967).
29 Rotberg, The Rise, 84 and Protest and Power, 357-9.
Rotberg, The Rise, 84.
B. Pachai, Transafrican Journal of History, i, no. i (January 1971), 13I-4.
M. Chanock, 'The New Men Revisited. An essay on the development of political consciousness in colonial Malawi', to be published.
For example, Negro World, 28 July I926, NC I1/23/I.
F. E. Sanderson, 'Nyasaland Migrant Labour in British Central Africa', M.A. thesis, University of London, 1956, 43.

26 B. S. Krishnamurty, 'Land and Labour in Nyasaland: I89I-19I4', Ph.D. thesis, University of London, I964, 305. Casson's government estimate.
27 J. A. Barnes, Marriage in a Changing Society, Rhodes-Livingstone Paper, no. 20 (Oxford, 1I951I), I121-5.
28 M. Read, 'Migrant Labour in Africa and its Effects on Tribal Life', International Labour Review, xiv, no. 6 (June I942), 628. For a different assessment of effects on the Tonga, see J. Van Velsen, 'Labour migration as a positive factor in the continuity of Tonga Tribal Society', in Social Change in Modern Africa, ed. A. Southall (Oxford, I961), 230-4I.
29 Nzama Mission Diary 3 1 Jan. I9I5. A letter from Nguludi from the Montfort Bishop suggests that it was another planter altogether, a Mr Dickie, who had 'fanatacise les Angourous'. The Bruce Estate secretary claimed during the Commission of Enquiry that practices on the estate were normal. He pointed out that Magomero was the only estate with a proper hospital and free medical attention. Similarly Mrs Livingstone pointed out that all planters were targets for attack, not just her husband. This was certainly true. SI/3008/23. National Archives, Zomba.
30 I. Linden and J. Linden, 'Eklesia Katholika: Roman Catholics in protestant Nyasaland 1889-1939', chapter iii. Forthcoming publication.
31 For example, nyau societies, witchcraft accusations and polygamy were recorded to be on the increase. Church attendances dropped away, see M. W. Retief, William Murray of Nyasaland (Lovedale, 1958), II 7.

32 N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (London, i962), 3I4-I5.
33 Moggridge to Turnbull 3 Feb. 1915 with letter from Auneau Siofi/6. National Archives, Zomba.
34 A. G. Blood, The History of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa Vol. II I907-1932 (London, I957), 62.
35 Although the Ngoni were strongly opposed to colonial rule, even by the early 1890s hundreds of Ngoni were working in the Shire Highlands. The raiding pattern of life was displaced by periodic 'raids on the cash economy'. On the other hand the Yao slave trade disappeared with nothing to take its place.
36 Oral Testimony. Fr. Auguste Basle S.M.M. A Montfort missionary at Nankunda in 19I4-arrived in Nyasaland I908. Interviewed at Pirimiti mission, Zomba, Oct. 1970.

37 Copy of depositions taken by Milthorp in Aug. I9I4, Sio/i/6. National Archives,Zomba.

38 By early Nov. more than twenty letters in and out of the P.I.M. had been censored without any incriminating material being found. Moggridge to Zomba secretariat, 3 Nov. 19I4. Sio/i/6.

39 The fields of evangelization of Nguludi and the P.I.M. overlapped. Further, since the arrival of the Catholics in i 90 I, the government had been faced with repeated squabbles between Catholics and the rest over spheres of influence. This was especially acute in the Central Region where Dutch Reformed Afrikaaners faced French, Canadian and Dutch White Fathers.

40 Blantyre Mission Diary. Preamble to foundation 20 Aug. I913. Diary kept at Blantyre Mission.

41 Moggridge to Hetherwick, I4 Nov. I9I4. Sio/i/6.

42 Moggridge to Zomba secretariat, 11Dec. I9I4. Sio/i/6.

43 Rapports annuels de la Socidtu des Missionnaires de Notre Dame d'Afrique. Report for Ntaka-taka, 1910-11. A bound copy of cuttings from the Nyasa vicariate in the White Fathers' Archives, Via Aurelia, Rome.

44 Limbe railway station was their mailing address. The group was led by J. R. Aphiri of Ndirande. NCN 4/I/I, NCN 4/I/2.

45 Affidavit of H. Silberrand, Ncheu DC, I7 June 19I5. S2/68/1i9.

46 NC I/23/2. A government report on Watchtower compiled after the rising stated that Watchtower literature was circulated to Seventh Day Baptists, Church of Christ, Native Church of Christ and other 'independent native religious teachers'. S2/68/I9.

47 See Eliot Yohan Achirwa to Lot Collection Chiwembe, 6 Oct. 19I4. NCN 4/I/I.

48 Utale Convent Diary 7 Aug. I9I4. A witchfinder from Mbalaze village had considerable success. We are indebted to Sister Marie-Terese, Providence Teachers' Training College, Mlanje, for allowing us to read this diary. 4 Sio/i/8/3.

50 Chilembwe to Peters 20 Oct. I908. The first meeting of the Union was on 24 Apr. 1909 and the last scheduled meeting in December that year. SIo/I/8/3.

51 Peter's opening speech drew heavily on Washington's writing, e.g. 'I have never met one who had learnt a trade and regretted it in manhood'. Blacks had to work 'quietly, patiently, doggedly' to create 'visible, tangible, indisputable . . products and signs of civilisation'. 'Truck-farms', i.e. market gardens are also mentioned. Many of the words carried over them a dictionary definition where Peters had looked them up. For Washington's influence see Rotberg, Protest and Power, 364.

52 Rotberg, Protest and Power, 36I.

53. Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 69-72.

54 Extract of a letter read at Mataka's trial. SIO/I/3. 55 SIO/I/3.

56 E. Y. Achirwa to John Chilembwe 26 July I 9 I4, cdo Richard Zuze, Limbe. NCN 4/ I/I.

57 Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 232.

58 I Moggridge to secretariat 11Dec. 1914.

59 Mitchell to Moggridge i8 Aug. I9I4. Sio/i/6.

60 Milthorp to Moggridge I9 Oct. 1914. The testimony of Lupiya Zalela, alias Kettleo, was that Johnston Zilongola rallied his group in the attack on Ferguson and Robertson by telling them that the Europeans would attack the Africans on 25 Jan. 19 Feb. 1915. SoI0/I/6, S 10/11/3.

61 Milthorp to Moggridge, i9 Oct. 1914. Siio/I'/6.

62 Revelation 2o: 7-10 'Satan will be released from prison and ... deceive all the nations in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, and mobilise them for war.... They will come swarming over the entire country and beseige the camp of the saints which is the city that God loves.' Cf. a ChiTonga Watchtower tract found at Ncheu: 'The Europeans are Magog because they are of the tribe of Japhet and the people of Ham, the natives, are crying because the people of Magog are stealing all their possessions.' S2/68/I9.

63Turnbull to Moggridge, 23 Feb. 1915: 'Wilson Daniel Kusita, Ngoni, resided for about ten years at John Chilembwe's village. Closely identified with Chilembwe's Church. Recently a preacher of the Watchtower Society at Maganga's village, Mphezi, Liwonde sub-division and in Ncheu division.' Sio/i/6. Cardew and Turnbull, unlike Moggridge, were far more aware of differences between the churches. Kusita appears in a photograph taken c. 1912 of P.I.M. members, see Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 294. Turnbull to Moggridge, I5 Feb. 1915, describes Boloweza as 'nominally' a teacher of the Watchtower Society at the same villages as Kusita. He appears with Kusita on the 19I2 photograph. Sio/i/6.

64 Oral Testimony. Pio Ntwere, Catholic catechist at Nguludi 1910-71. Interviewed at Nguludi mission, Mar. I97I. S2/i8/22.

65 Evidence given by Betty, wife of Gordon, Mataka in Blantyre 1 Feb. 1915: 'One such occasion was Saturday January i6th 1915.' It is not improbable that she could recall something said by Njilima only two weeks earlier. SIO/I/5.

66 Statement made by Moffat Kuchandika, cattle kapitao at Ferguson's for eighteen years. Not a suspect. SI0/I/5.

67 Moggridge to Secretariat 24 Oct. 1914. 'Chilembwe by the way, although he apparently holds the belief in a znd advent due this month has nothing to do with the Church of Christ.' Moggridge invariably confused Church of Christ with Watchtower, some measure of the penetration of the smaller Protestant sects by Watchtower literature. Sio/i/6.

68 Statement of P.I.M. member, Amon Mankaule, 24 Mar. 1915. S IO/I/3.

69 An open letter to his 'Dear Brothers and Co-Labourers in the harvest' was sent by Kamwana from Chinde as soon as he heard about the war. He informed them that Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey were fighting against France and England. 9 Aug. 1914. SIo/i/8/z2

70 Daniel, chapters I 0, I I and I 2.

71 Turnbull to Moggridge, I4 Feb. 1915: 'I shall send you and Milthorp a copy of the P.I. Mission "Christians' Roll Book during the war" written on January 25th 1915. It contains I75 names.' It 'was not completed as a number of important rebels are not entered'. Sio/i/6.

72Exodus 32:32-3; Psalms69:28and I39:I6; Isaiah4: 3; Luke 10:20; Revelation 20:I2.

73 Daniel 12: I-2.

74 For example Isaiah 4: 3 has a very similar passage: 'Those who are left of Zion and remain of Jerusalem shall be called holy and those left in Jerusalem noted down for survival.'

75 See appendix for details of Njirayaffa.

76 A treasury clerk wrote to Stephen Mkulichi, Chilembwe's brother-in-law, on I I Nov. to tell him that it would be safer to send letters by runners. On 17 Nov. Milthorp wrote to Moggridge that Chilembwe was no longer sending for his letters at the Boma. Sio/I/6.

77 Chilembwe was not an over-cautious personality, and surprised a number of the Ncheu pastors by his letter to the Nyasaland Times, 'in behalf of my countrymen'. Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 234-5.

78 Chilembwe to Kusita, 22 Dec. 19I4. NCN 4/2/I. Italics ours, but the same passage was underlined by a government source when the letter was later found at Ncheu.

79 The Watchtower doctrines of Pastor Taze Russell contained in a series Studies in the Scriptures, no. 4, The Battle of Armageddon (Brooklyn, 1897) being the most important in this context. See Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 458.

80 The Watchtower, Sept. 19I4. Quoted in Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 230.

81 Matthew Jadali to Bennet Gospel Siyasiva, I4 Nov. 19I4. Trans. ChiChewa. NCN 4/3/I.

82 Kusita to E. Y. Achirwa, i 6 Dec. I 9 I 4. NCN 4/ I / I .

83 Oral Testimony. Pio Ntwere and Ben Mononga, Alomwe, plantation worker from Mkanga's village. Employed on Bruce estates at time of rising. He described Kaduya as 'in charge of school affairs'. Interviewed Mar. I969 at Chiradzulu Boma. Ntwere's and Mononga's information was confirmed by Kosamu Mpotola, Mpotola's village, Chiradzulu, in an interview at P.I.M. in Aug. I969. Mpotola fought in the defence of the P.I.M. under Kaduya's command.

84 Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 406.

85 Evidence of George Masangano taken by E. Costley-White on 26 Jan. I9I5. SIO/1/2. 86 Ibid.

87 Chilembwe to Peters, 26 Mar. 1914: 'Believe I will square before I leave this country for Europe or America.' Chilembwe was referring to his debts. Sio/i/8/3.

88 Turnbull to Resident, Port Herald 19/2/15. The four askaris were Corporal Chidawale, Lance-Corporal Chikoko, Private Achille and Private Marekebu Njala, alias Joseph, bugler. Chidawale and Achille were Muslim Yao. NSP I/2/2.

89 Chilembwe was certainly interested in Islam and had several books on the topic in his library-Turnbull to Moggridge, 3 Feb. 1915. Sio/i/6. Similarly two out of the three headmen detained after the rising, Majawa and Fundi, were Muslim Yao-Turnbull to

90 Blantyre Mission Diary, 25 Jan. I9I5. The priest was Fr. Guimard.

91 Statement of Mrs Roach confirmed by Mrs Stanton and Mrs Livingstone. SIO/I/2. It is interesting that in the Final Battle of Isaiah 4: I there is the same selectivity. 'Your men will fall by the sword, your heroes in the fight.... And seven women will fight over a single man that day.'

92 Claud Ambrose Cardew was born at Sandhurst in I870, the third son of Sir Frederick Cardew, former governor of Sierra Leone. He joined the British South Africa Police and guarded the Limpopo drifts against Boer incursions. He arrived in Nyasaland with a letter of introduction from Rhodes for Johnston. A. S. Hickman, Men who made Rhodesia, B.S.A. Co., S. Rhodesia, I960.

93 Nzama Mission Diary, 4 Feb. 1915: 'Kamwamba has been given a £4 reward.' In Jan. 1915 James Kamwamba wrote to Chinyama: 'You mean about the war, but I cannot try to do so.... I cannot try to speak this to which I have heard.' Nonetheless, Chinyama wrote again on i 8 Jan. I 9 I 5 pleading with him to keep quiet, obviously too late. NCN 4/ I /2.

94 The timing of the visit can be guessed from a number of letters. On 14 Dec. 19I4 Chinyama wrote from his own village to Njirajaffa with 'Rev. Chilembwe' as a forwarding address. On 8 Jan. 19I5 James Poya Malangui wrote to Chinyama from Ncheu district: 'Glad to hear that you have come back all right.' Chilembwe to Kusita 22 Dec. I914 indicates that 'Brother Chinyama' is at the P.I.M. It was then approximately from I7 Dec. 19I4-7 Jan. I9I5 that the Ncheu side of the rising was planned. NCN 4/2/i and 2.

95 NCN 4/2/I.

96 Jordan Njirajaffa. See Appendix.

97 David Shirt Chikakude. See Appendix.

98 Chinyama to Brother W. B. Cockerill, 23 Jan. I9I5. Letter forwarded by Cockerill to Moggridge, 3I Jan. I9I5. Sio/i/6.

99 Oral Testimony. Griven Chinkasi, teacher at Nthinda at the time, and Tom Kabanga-Ndau, chief nduna to present chief Makwangwala. Interviewed at Malondo village, Dzunje, June 1969. Makwangwala 'beat them with a stick to stop them going'. These oral testimonies are confirmed in case 9I of Philipo Chinyama in the Ncheu District Magistrate's Book, National Archives, Zomba.

100 Makwangwala was a product of the Baptist Industrial Mission at Gowa and went to Blantyre c. 1905 for further schooling. He was known at Chiradzulu by P.I.M. members and Pio Ntwere, who had no difficulty in distinguishing him from Barton Makwangwala, a Zomba headman, involved in the rising. According to Kabanga-Ndau, Makwangwala went to Durban in 1903, hoping to go on to the coronation of Edward, but never left South Africa. His trip to South Africa would coincide with that of Kamwana and provides an interesting parallel with other important politico-religious figures in the pre-war period. A Ngoni chief, he belonged to the same war division, Mvimbo, as Chinyama, whose father had been an nduna of Makwangwala's father, Kabanga-Ndau. Personal Communication, Inkosi Willard Gomani III. Makwangwala was described in a handbook for DCs produced c. 19I2 as 'of some education and requires watching'. Chiefs and Headmen of Nyasaland,

Society of Malawi Library, Blantyre.

101S hepperson and Price, IndependenAt frican, 293.

102 Governor G. Smith to Governor of Mauritius, I4 Aug. I9I6: 'I regret I did not follow up the telegraphic communication which passed with Sir John Chancellor at the beginning of I9I5 with a fuller statement of the situation. There was at the time grave reasons for believing that under the cloak of a missionary movement certain natives were preaching a seditious propaganda and I had in view the deportation of the leaders of the movement.' Before action could be taken, the matter culminated in the rising of 23 Jan. I9I5, led by John Chilembwe. S2f68"/i9.

103 For example, Moses Chikwanje, the government clerk who warned Mkulichi, later tried and convicted of unlawful assembly. S IO/1I3. B. Pachai also records an oral testimony that Chilembwe was warned of deportation-see 'The Nyasaland rising of I 9I5; an assessment of events leading to it', unpublished paper. Chancellor College Library, University of Malawi.

104 All accounts given in interviews were strongly Biblicized, e.g. Chilembwe was forever disappearing for periods of three days and then appearing suddenly to his followers as they prayed. 'Major' Kaduya, on the other hand, could be traced from his direction of the defence of the P.I.M. to his death as his machila carriers left him to flee. Interviews at P.I.M., Aug. I969 and a collection of interviews with old P.I.M. members, kindly lent to us by a Peace Corps worker, Lee Higdin, teacher at Chiradzulu Secondary School.

105 Rotberg, The Rise, 87. Possibly also a Biblicization.

106 Moggridge to Turnbull, 6 Feb. I9I5. He was with Morris Chilembwe and Stephen Mkulichi, SIO/I5. 107 Oral testimonies: Ntwere, Monoga, Mpotola.

108 Njobvualema, who had accepted a Montfort mission in I9OI, was by I9I4 thoroughly opposed to the Catholic missionaries. See I. Linden and J. Linden, Eklesia Katholika, chapters II and III.

109 Njobvualema had left Kaloga on 27 Jan. The letter was taken to Ncheu by a catechist, Montfort, and read by the head catechist as the chief was illiterate. Nzama Mission Diary, 27 Jan. I9I5 and 2I June 19I5 and Oral Testimony of Maurillo Karvalo, Ngoni, Catholic catechist, interviewed at Nzama Mission, June I969.

110 Nzama Mission Diary, 30 Jan. 19I5. Makwangwala then put a rifle to his throat and committed suicide. Oral Testimony: Griven Chinkasi. According to Karvalo, Njobvualema was known to have been jealous of Makwangwala's education and the machila he used to travel in. An enormous brick monument to Makwangwala is to be found at Malondo village, an obvious act of defiance to the colonial authorities. See also Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 295.

111 Oral Testimony: Valentino Mwasika. Eye-witness and mission cook at the time, interviewed at Nguludi mission, Mar. I970.

112 L. Auneau, 'Report on the burning of Nguludi Mission', handwritten MS. and a letter of 5 Feb. I 9I 5 to La Regne deyesuspar Marie, Feb. I 9I 5, I I I-15, Montfort Archives, Rome.

113 Oral Testimony. Mwasika and Augusto Liboti, house servant at the mission, George village, Chiradzulu. Higdin interviews. Feb. 1969.

114 Auneau, Brouillons. The machila belonged to Auneau and was later returned. I Rotberg, The Rise, go.

116 Shepperson and Price, Independent African, 300-I. The authors proffer a number of suggestions as to why the attack was made.

117 Fr. Brung in a letter to Messager de Marie-Reine des Coeurs, Feb. I9I5. The Montfort magazine for their Canadian province. 'Ce fameux John Cilembur (sic) fier, orgueilleux et quelque peu illumine', and L. Auneau, 'Christenvervolging in Shire', Onze Missionarissen (our missionaries), May I9I5. In a letter sent before the rising to the Montfort magazine of the Dutch province he wrote: 'Under the pretext of driving out the Europeans his main aim seems to be to attack the Catholic Religion and deal it a mortal blow', trans. Dutch.

118 Brung and Auneau, ibid.

119 P. W. Eken, Een Afrikaansch Oproermaker (An African Rebel), Meersen (c. I925), 14, I5. This book is in the possession of Rev. Dr J. M. Schoffeleers, Likulesi Catachetical Institute, Phalombe. We are very grateful for his directing us to, and helping to obtain, Dutch material on the rising.

120 In an affidavit of H. Silberrand, DC Ncheu, 29 June I9I5, Government Trans. S2/68/I9.

121 Pio Ntwere: Hostility grew up because Chilembwe thought Bruce was allowing Catholic schools on the estates. Ben Mononga: Chilembwe was annoyed at the collusion of Catholics in the burning down of P.I.M. prayer houses on the estates. Ntwere confirmed that on one occasion Chilembwe had warned Swelsen about one such incident.

43 AH XII

122 B. G. Siyasiya to D. S. Chikakude, 27 Dec. 1913. A letter sent by Siyasiya from the North Rand. NCN 4/3/I.

123 Mwenda to Governor of Nyasaland, I9 Feb. 1926. S2/8/26, quoted in Rotberg, The Rise, 69. Auneau gave a first date as 2 Nov., when an attack was due. 'The hostilities were due to begin on the night of November 2nd 2914. We do not know what the future holds in store for us.' Onze Missionarissen, May 1915. This would fit Kamwana's earlier prophecies of the parousia at the end of Oct. well.

124 Kusita to Achirwa, i6 Dec. 2924. NCN 4/I/I.

126 Letter 'E' (Letter D was 9 Jan. 1925). Kusita to Achirwa Trans. Chichewa NCN 4/I /I. Siyasiya then wrote to Zuze 25 Jan. 2915, 'Wilson Kusita has left the truth because he wants to be as those people in that place (P.I.M.)'. NCN 4/3/I.

126 For example, a typical Watchtower response was that of Achirwa to Kusita's defection: 'Although we are suffering in the flesh we are rich in spirit and in hope and our true treasure is in heaven.' Trans. ChiChewa. NCN 4/I/I.

127 Even in G. Shepperson, 'Nyasaland and the Millennium' in Millennial Dreams in Action, ed. S. Thrupp (The Hague, I962), 144-59.

128 Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Nyasaland Native Rising, Nyasaland Government Gazette, Supplement, 31 Jan. I9I6. Zomba, paragraph 14.

129 'God alone' and 'About the Saviour'.

130 Report on Hollis and Churches of Christ. Undated. SI/486/i9.

131 Moggridge to Milthorp, I4 Feb. 1915: 'I think many of them were sitting on the fence'-in reference to Yao chiefs and headmen. SIO/i/5.

132 P. Worsley, The Trumpet shall sound (London, I957), 236.

133 Another example comes from the Middle Ages. A mystic, Melchior Hoffman predicted that the end of the world would come in Strasbourg in 1533. He was imprisoned for life but his followers in Muntzer awaited the millennium with calm and confidence. By the beginning of 1534 a Dutch anabaptist, Jan Matthys, was able to direct their frustration at

Natives Songs From Nyasaland 1921

2011-09-21T04:59:00.000-07:00

by Mrs. Ella Kidney

Source: Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol. 20, No. 78 (Jan., 1921), pp. 116-126

Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society

IT was with great pleasure I accepted your invitation to give a lecture this evening, and I feel it an honour to do so among you who are so learned in things African. Long ago I remember reading, with much interest, Sir

Harry Johnston's wonderful book on British Central Africa, and you will know that it was greatly owing to the wisdom and tact of your President that treaties were successfully arranged with the slave raiders, whose persistent and warlike operations were a constant trouble in that little corner of the world. And when a British Protectorate was afterwards proclaimed, the first Commissioner appointed was Sir Harry Johnston. So you will know all about the geography and history of Nyasaland.

But in bringing the subject of her music before you, I hope it will reveal a new interest, and I should like to say that I have written the music exactly as it is, untouched by European influence, and before degeneration had set in, as it has in the case of the negro music of America. In some of the settings I have tried to suggest the complex atmosphere of the quickly changing emotions. Anyone who has heard a native telling stories to his companions round a camp fire at night will know of the subtleties of expression and change of voice that he puts in, and the acute way he portrays each character in the yarn he is telling. And so it is in his music; and I suppose because it rings true to life it accounts for the occasional strange kinship to our modern musical thought.

Most of the music which we are to consider comes from Nyasaland, a land of lakes and mountains in the highlands of Africa, but some of it is from the sandy, tropical rivers flowing from the heart of the continent.

Nyasaland is called the "Cinderella" Protectorate by those who love her and believe that a fair future lies before her, but is more familiar to home communities as the land of Livingstone.

I should like you to understand that this music was sung or played by the various native tribes entirely for their own ceremonies, enjoyment, or amusement-never for European ears. There are certain melodies sung when travelling, known to those who are observant of such things, but the average person travelling, or even living, in Nyasaland is unaware of the extent of native music and of the very large part that music takes in the native life. Whether in highlands or lowlands, of warlike or pastoral habits, the natives are very shy of singing their choruses except among themselves, and quickly hush when it is known a stranger is approaching. During my first year in Africa I was often travelling up and down the Zambezi River, and was then able to study the boat songs. At that stage I could not understand their meaning, but later found it fascinating to follow the tilt of the

words also. At the end of a year I left the Zambezi River, and my home for sixteen years was among the mountains further north.

As time went on the natives around gradually gave me their confidence, and dusky visitors came often, bringing presents of sheep, beadwork, or skins from various parts of the country. At certain seasons of the year I occasionally visited other parts of the mountains, or went to Lake Nyasa, and thus was brought into touch with a variety of native life. I must confess that primarily my interest was among the women, and their customs and thoughts, and being a keen musician I gradually formed a collection of their songs. Looking back, I can see I could not have chosen a better way to gain the confidence of the menfolk and thus learn their music also. But it was a long labour, and at times discouraging- I have waited three, or even five, years for one song or chorus.

More than once, however, apparently in recognition of some slight service I had rendered to wife or child, a man would tell me of certain dances or war songs sung in his village, and knowing I had what to him seemed a mad craze in that direction, somehow persuaded his friends to let me hear them. On two occasions a little party of ten or twelve men even came to my garden, and sitting on the grass under the trees, sang their short repertoire to me, accompanied, native fashion, by a combination of sounds, crude enough, but, truth to tell, very effective with the voices.

In such a native orchestra there is first, a stringed instrument, something like a small lute, which has three strings and is plucked by the fingers.

Second, there are metal rattles to be shaken, giving tinkling sounds.

Third, rattles made of gourds, bringing in (shall we say?) the wood-wind !

Fourth, the tapping of small sticks on a large hollow bamboo (suggesting perhaps the xylophone).

Fifth, the rhythmic clapping of hands. And last, as a good foundation for all, drums, large and small.

These little performances were given on the distinct understanding that there should be no stranger present, and also that native women should not be allowed near. I suppose they felt it a little beneath their dignity to be seen entertaining a woman, even if she were white, but whatever the reason, the conditions were faithfully kept.

Before a more detailed account of the actual songs, I should like to convey something of the atmosphere of their surroundings, and ask you to imagine the care-free, open-air life of the primitive people who live there, and you will understand their natural effort to find expression of their emotions in music, crude though it may be.

The Rev. Dr. Norman McLean, who visited the country some few years ago on behalf of the Church of Scotland, and contributed a series of articles to the Scotsman, in one of them wrote: " It is strange to think how this great Lake of Nyasa lay here in the heart of Africa, with villages scattered thickly on its shores, and canoes gliding on its waters, and the wooded hills along its sides, and the glory of sky and cloud, sunrise and sunset, glowing on its bosom as on a polished mirror, while the centuries rolled and knew not even of its existence. As one sails out into the lake's deep and wide spaces, one forgets that it is an inland lake-it seemeth

as the sea. And there are ramparts of hills along its sides, and here and there valleys and dells opening among them. Its vastness appeals to the imagination; there is a haunting flush of loveliness on the face of Lake Nyasa."

* * * * * * *

It is rare in these enlightened days to come across music, untouched by softening and civilising influences-its rugged and melodic outline preserved-and from an historical point of view you will regret with me that it is so rapidly disappearing. In the last ten years I have often heard the younger natives singing, or rather murdering, good old English hymns and tunes, and the children are ignorant of the wild music of their fathers.

And now as to the circumstances of our first illustration, a very simple song sung by the Chikunda tribe, and written twenty years ago while on a little river flowing north from the sandy reaches of the Zambezi, within a short journey of the sacred spot where, by the river bank, Mrs. Livingstone was buried. A lovely glimpse of silvery water between mountains covered with primeval forest, grassy plains, a barge, dignified by the name of houseboat, intense heat, slow, lazy travelling-these all make up the journey. On each side of the deck of the barge stand eight brown figures, their supple, well-built bodies showing to perfection under the bright light of a tropical sky.

Each holds a long pole for punting, and their only clothing is of leopard or other skins, fastened around their loins. They make a picturesque group, with their silhouettes clear-cut against the sky. Were it not for their singing and slow, rhythmical movements, one could almost imagine them to be Greek statuary, so graceful and full of suggested strength is their wonderful poise. They sing in antiphonal fashion first one side, then the other taking up the refrain. The barge goes lazily on with the sixteen men punting while singing their slow songs, the time varied to the movements of their poles.

I have written English words, thinking they would be more interesting to you.

1. Out from the waters deep

Arose a misty cloud.

The palm-tree sprang from sand; it rears its head.

The white bird sings.

2. Now on the silvery stream

The grasses nodding float.

The sand-bird builds her nest, her cry is heard.

The sun sleeps on.

3. Low in the West she goes,

The rocks are dark and cold.

The village fires rise high with red and gold.

The night-jar sings.

The women do not take part in native music, and there are two distinct classes of male voices among Nyasaland Bantu tribes :-the first of high pitch, somewhat similar to falsetto in quality, much admired by the natives, and always used for solo parts when available; and the second, which approximates to our baritone, but is of a very rough description, and is the voice of the majority of the men.

Some of their music is founded on the Pentatonic scale, but not all of it by any means. Occasionally, but not often, certain notes were sung slightly, but definitely sharp or flat. These notes did not depend upon the idiosyncrasy of the singer, but belonged primarily to the song itself, and they were always sung in this manner though by different singers. In my manuscripts I have marked these specially inflected notes to indicate how they should be sung.

I have been surprised to discover among the natives their accurate sense of absolute pitch. It is natural to me, but I always carried a tuning fork as a check, and observed that the same songs and choruses sung on various occasions and by different people were practically unvarying in pitch, and in the spirit in which they were sung, though other words were often substituted.

The next illustration is from the Angoni, a race descended from the Zulus, who, resenting the fierce rule of Chaka, went North and settled on the shores of Lake Nyasa, intermarrying with the people there. These are two short songs sung by solo and chorus chiefly at dances during harvest time. The first is somewhat of nursery type about a little chicken with a little cry, but has a fascination of its own. You will notice the interweaving of the parts, and it is wonderful to watch the precision of the entries, remembering there are no conductors or trained singers there.

1. The little chicken ka-lira,

Oh! hear its grief and sorrow!

Cries softly,

Cries "Peep-peep "

Oh! hear its grief and sorrowl

2. The little chicken ka-lira,

Flut-t'ring its wings and feathers:

Cries shrilly,

Pecks gently,

Oh! hear its grief and sorrow!

The second is a merry-hearted impudent song of mischievous boys calling one another, and stealing Indian maize from the fields in the absence of the owner.

Robbers! Come to gather in your neighbour's field!

Lightly I Quickly come and gather up his corn.

Stealing softly in among the golden grain,

Gather! Pluck the fruit and hasten on again.

Golden corn. Seel It's ripe

Quickly come and gather up your neighbour's grain.

Now we turn to the songs of the road. When native chiefs or Europeans wish to go a long distance, they are carried in a canvas hammock called a machilla, slung on strong bamboo poles, and the teams of natives who bear these poles on their shoulders frequently amuse and encourage one another along the road by means of these songs while carrying out their arduous labours. They can carry a machilla a distance of two hundred miles at the rate of twenty miles a day, camping by the roadside at night, and it is no uncommon thing for them to make a single journey on foot of from forty to fifty miles in one day while assisting in the bearing of a heavy machilla.

While being carried thus I have been enabled to write many of these songs, and when halting for a rest in the middle of the day during the great heat, the natives making a fire and cooking their food, I have often elicited interesting information about the songs they had been singing. Some of these songs are sung by Angoni, of whom I have already spoken, and others by Ajawa or Yao tribes.

In the next illustration, the first originated among the boys who had been captured and driven from their homes by slave raiders, and then forced to work in strange countries, where their hearts hungered for their homes and kinsfolk.

1. Our work now is bitter: grievous. Howa-Howa.

Our work now is bitter: grievous. Howa-Howa.

Our brothers are smitten.

Our homes are forsaken: desolate.

Our children are scattered: homeless. Howa-Howa.

2. Our brothers are starving: hungry;

Our spirits are weary: hopeless.

Our shoulders are heavy: broken.

The day brings us sorrow and darkness.

Our work is bitter.

The second of these road songs is in a happier strain-of contented, strong workers looking forward to a good meal when they had reached the end of a journey. I need hardly remind any of the audience who have experience of coloured labour, of the unconcealed delight of the natives at the prospect of a lucky shot at game, which will provide them with a welcome meal.

1. Come, my people-come for fresh meat.

Come, my brothers-come and seek food.

Come, my people-come to buy meat.

Distant going-runs the wild buck,

Horns upraised, and eyes a-glowing.

Come and find him, quick we'll slay him.

2. 'Neath the thorn-tree, 'twixt the branches,

Round a valley, cross the streamlet,

Up the mountain now we track him,

Speed the arrow Hear its laughter!

Spear the wild buck! On the rafters

High we'll place his horns among us.

There are many of these travelling songs, but it is impossible

in a lecture to give more than an "impression " of them.

There are also many "calls "-long-drawn whistles and other sounds used by the natives to communicate with one another, each having its own particular meaning, and I was interested in making notes of them when possible. Although living among the natives so many years, I have never been able to obtain direct information about these "calls," so well are they guarded. When questioned concerning them, the individual always pretended not to understand. So, apart from general knowledge gathered from overhearing or taking part in native conversations, it was only by keen observation over an extended period that I was gradually able to make out the definite communications intended by definite sounds.

Among these children of Nature the sense of rhythm is evoked with intensity, and they are brothers to the modern student, who with a keen ear for the finish of phrases and gradation of tone, concentrates chiefly on the manner of singing, and the regular recurring pulsations, but I am afraid you would be horrified to hear the rough quality of many of the voices. It is interesting to note that I have never come across a song which might be classed as analogous to the civilised so-called "love-song," and this perhaps indicates their attitude of mind. They are very fond of their children, and are generally kind to their fathers and mothers, but singing a love-song to a dusky fair one is-unheard of! We will now turn to a side which in so many countries is voiced in passionate song--that of mourning and lamentation.

The first song of the next illustration is monotonous by reason of its having only three notes, but it vibrates with a real passion when sung in its homeland. The singer is in trouble, and the words present, not the literal meaning, but the native picturesque way of describing his sensations. The allusions to his pipe and his smoke mean his nearest and dearest. His smoke is much to him.

This will be immediately followed by a two-part boat song, from the Elephant March on the River Shire, and represents the villagers turning out of their huts to frighten away the large and fierce eagles they see flying overhead with evil intentions of carrying away any young birds or animals for their prey.

In the settings I have tried to convey that, although only three notes are sung in the first, it is sung in a varied manner and worked up to a certain climax, and also in the second to give the feeling of the gentle rocking movement with which the boat-song is sung. The first part of the former is accompanied by the deep sound of large drums, and later by both large and small. The words are.

1.Oh! my soul! Oh! my pipe! Troublous waters round me.

Oh the sunshine! Ah my smoke! My brother now is starving.

Alas! the moon. Alas! my pipe! You are in the forest.

Ah! The starlight! Ah! my smoke I Here are thorns and briers

Gathering round about me.

In the thicket now I go-none is near to help me.

In the clouds artf fear and woe-down the depths I'm falling.

Troublous waters round me, darkness round about me.

Splashing! Splashing! Splashing! My very soul is torn.

"The approach of the Eagles."

2. Presage of evill Bringer of fearl

Eagles of might are hov'ring near.

Gather around the lambs and the sheep.

Call the strong men to smite them.

Pinions outspread as slowly he flies.

Lizards glance up! The wee chick cries.

Bring our your arrows! Throw your spears!

Hasten! The strong men conquer.

In order to voice more passionately true mourning and lamentation, the art of drum-making is followed, and there is a system of tuning, rough and ready perhaps, but in skilled hands marvellously answering the purpose. This making of drums is prepared for many months beforehand. Likely trees are felled and cut into sections, some large, some small, all proportionate to their girth, ranging from a yard across down to four or five inches only. The inside of the section is burnt and cut out after the wood is considered seasoned; the animals are shot and their skins prepared and stretched. When the drum-makers start their work, assisted by many willing hands, they take the largest section and stretch the skins across the top of these pieces of hollowed trees, and

fasten them round tightly with wooden pegs. Then they prepare the next largest in size, and so on until the smallest is completed, and the material is all used up. The drums are then placed with the hollowed side downwards in a grass hut, and are left there some weeks "to settle."

At the end of that time, starting on a night with a full moon, the singers and musicians are called in by the village people, and there is a great gathering of happy people out to amuse themselves, something like an old English fair. The chief musician is highly decorated on his person by clothing of various handsome furs, long imposing coloured feathers on his head-dress, and weird bead-work and charms on his limbs, and he is generally highly skilled in his own particular way. It is his duty, with his assistants, to test each of the drums, a lengthy process, as there are often a hundred or even more. Some prove unsuitable; the tone is not resonant, or the wood is insufficiently seasoned and has split. The smallest drums are tested first, and great is the satisfaction of the onlookers when their excitement is worked up to the ceremony of testing the larger ones, and a particularly fine drum is passed as "quite good." The chief musician tests them all, even the very smallest, for they each have a use in the scheme.

From the good ones, however, there is a further and most critical selection, and this is how it is made. The singers sing their songs belonging to the village repertoire, and as they are singing, the musician gently taps a drum, and decides if in his opinion the sound of the drum goes with or clashes against the song, and it is chosen or rejected accordingly. Thus their tuning, and the results, are often most effective, and not to be lightly condemned by more learned folk.

These discarded drums, good, but not suitable for their particular songs, are sold among their friends in neighbouring villages, who carry out a similar process of selection, and it is considered a great honour among the native chiefs to be presented with an approved drum.

The following song is without drums. it has both melody and rhythm, and is sung during the final ceremonies of mourning among some mountain races. On the night of a full moon the chief singer stands on the top of a hill, and with hands raised to direct the sounds from his mouth across the valley below he sings the "Lament," with high voice and declamatory manner, while at the foot of the mountain hundreds of villagers sit huddled among the trees to sing a refrain between the sentences of the Lament. You will notice this refrain has a harmonic basis, and is really a series of broken chords.

I. There death now has come to the homestead,

Enter not, my brother.

Ho-ya-ho-ya-ho.

A maiden, alas, there is sleeping.

Ho-ya-ho-ya-ho.

2. Her rest is dark and unending.

She returns no more.

Ho-ya-ho-ya-ho.

Her spirit has passed on a journey.

Ho-ya-ho-ya-ho.

The last is a splendid War Song, accompanied by small drums, the brandishing of spears and movements of the body meaning courage and defiance.

1. Fight now! Come and fight now!

Slay them! We'll brandish spears!

Straight forth doth speed your arrow.

Tremble! Yes They tremble!

When we draw near,

And far they'll flee as we approach them!

2. Sharpen keen your arrows I

Brave heads upraised and shouting

Loudly our defiance.

All there who oppose us

Quickly our spears

Shall pierce their breasts. They will be scattered.

This last illustration brings our lecture to a close. Naturally in this short time I have only been able to reproduce, or perhaps suggest, a slight atmosphere of the original, but I hope these little glimpses may have roused some interest in the music of a far-away people.

ELLA KIDNEY.

Footnote

1. This paper was read at a meeting of the Society held on December 9th' 1920. For report of other proceedings on this occasion, see page 140.

Hastings Kamuzu Banda Quotable Quotes

2011-08-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

There are many quotable quotes from Late Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first President of Malawi. Before going on to some of those quotes, I found an interesting view from Time Magazine of 15th July 1966 which I think accurately described Dr Kamuzu Banda as I used to know him. Here it goes:-

Banda is just as emphatically his own man on Africa-wide matters. Last week Diallo Telli, Guinea's leftist secretary-general of the Organization of African Unity, was in Malawi for Banda's inauguration when he suddenly found some of his pet schemes under scathing attack during a Banda press conference. "I didn't fight the British to exchange British imperialism for Eastern imperialism," Banda snapped. Then looking Telli straight in the eye, Banda shouted: "I mean that! I'm saying that because you are here. You can expel Malawi from the O.A.U." As Telli shrank lower and lower in his chair, Banda sneered at African countries that claim Socialist countries are their friends: "Tell that to the marines, not to Kamuzu."

The following are some of the other quotes I have gleaned from the internet.

"They practice disunity, not unity, while posing as the liberators of Africa. While they play in the orchestra of Pan Africanism, their own Romes are burning."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda responding to accusations about Malawi's relationship with South Africa in Malawi Parliament in 1967

"In Nyasaland we mean to be masters, and if this is treasonable, make the most of it."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, as quoted in Neil Hamilton's Founders of Modern Nations, California, 1995.

"It is only contact like this [between South Africa and Malawi] that can reveal to your people that there are civilized people other than white..."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, as quoted in the Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 24 May 1970.

"If I am a dictator, it is because my people want me to be. I am a dictator of the people, by the people and for the people."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda speaking in July 1966.

"They say my people love me and I would be naïve to deny it."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, as quoted in David Lamb's The Africans, New York, 1985.

" I wish I could bring Stonehenge to Nyasaland, to show that there was a time when Britain had a savage culture."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, as quoted in The Observer, 10 March 1963.

"What do you want? I don't have to fawn on you. I think you're all a pack of liars!"

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, speaking to journalists at the All African Peoples' Conference in Accra, shortly after his return to Nyasaland in 1959. As quoted in Rolf Italiaander's The New Leaders of Africa, New Jersey, 1961.

"We have to start talking to each other. I go to South Africa. You come here. I allow your people to come here and see how the people live. This might not solve the problem today, next month, in five years, ten years, or even twenty years. But I honestly believe that this in the end is the only solution."

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, in a comment made after the official visit of South African prime minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster, twenty or so years before the end of Apartheid. As quoted in the Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 24 May 1970.

History of Nyasaland Aviation

2011-08-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

NYASALAND AT THE AVIATION CROSS ROADS:
ALAN COBHAM'S FLYING-BOAT VISIT, 1928
by Dr Colin Baker

A recurring dream of late nineteenth and early twentieth century British imperial visionaries was the Cape to Cairo highway, the creation of a south to north transport artery running the length of Africa.1There were hopes, initially, that this artery would run entirely through British territory, but the Anglo-German treaty of July 1890, which gave a common boundary to German East African and the Congo State, severed the continuity of British territory and, for a while, damaged those particular hopes although they did not extinguish entirely the Cape to Cairo dream.

The south-north line of British territory through which it was originally envisaged the highway would run was crossed by the line of what the Portuguese had hoped would be an east-west belt of colonial territory joining Mozambique and Angola. Near the area in which these two belts crossed lay the territory which later became Malawi, and indeed it could be argued that Nyasaland - Malawi's name in colonial times - was declared a protectorate in 1891 precisely because the territory was situated in that crossing zone where British and Portuguese aspirations were bound to conflict. The Protectorate's creation settled the matter and prevented the building o fan unbroken trans-African belt ofPortuguese territory just as the 1890 agreement prevented the creation of an unbroken north-south belt of British territory.

In exploring the Cape to Cairo possibilities, Ewart Grogan and Arthur Sharp in 1898 and Mary Hall in 1905 2 had travelled the length of Nyasaland in the course of their Africa-long journeys. But already the vision of a south-north artery was dimming because, whilst the railway pushed up northwards from South Africa through the Rodesias to Katanga, the routes of the Nyasaland, Tanganyika and Kenya railways penetrated laterally from the Indian Ocean in an east-west direction separate from the south-north line. Yet the imperialist visionary flame was not entirely dowsed and was fanned afresh in the 1920's by the development of long distance aviation and international rivalry to establish major inter-continental air services including the Europe- South Africa route, and by the granting of the mandate over Tanganyika which gave Britain the unbroken north-south belt through Africa which she failed to gain in 1890.

Even during the First World War the British Government had set up a committee to "deliberate on questions affecting the commercial use of aircraft in the period immediately following the war" and had concluded that there would be a demand for air carriage of mail, perishable foods and especially passengers. The anticipated developments were, however, delayed by the post-war slump in the world economies, but at the Imperial Conference in October 1926 Sir Samuel Hoare, Britain's Minister for Air, rekindled enthusiasm by arguing very strongly for an imperial airways scheme and by setting up a sub-committee on imperial air communications.

At the 1926 Imperial Conference and the 1927 Colonial Office Conference, the Dominions and Colonies agreed that there were great benefits to be derived, both politically and commercially, from the development of "a complete system of Imperial Air Routes". As a consequence, Britain changed its air policy by reorienting its efforts from European routes to imperial routes. With improved world economic prospects, the remainder of the 1920's saw a race against each other and against time by the western powers, each of whom was determined to gain a lead in inter-continental air travel. By late 1927 Germany was building its LZ 127 airship for a projected cross-Atlantic service to start early in May 1928; France had advanced plans by Bleriot to establish a cross-Atlantic service and had already pioneered a route from France, across Central Africa, to Madagascar which included a sea-plane landing on Lake Nyasa at Fort Johnston in November 1926 ; an American millionaire, Van Lier Black, prepared to fly from Amsterdam to Capetown with a Dutch pilot; the Americans, Brock and Schlee, had crossed the Atlantic and were setting out for Japan on a roundworld flight; and an American airship had landed on a U.S. aircraft carrier demonstrating the possibility of extending flight range by refuelling at sea 6.

In Britain, imperialists like Lord Wakefield believed that the development of air transport was one of the most effective means of bringing the peoples of the world in close touch and that it would do more to effect world peace than would any other development 7. Britain wanted to be ahead in the field, feeling that it was:

essential to the development of Imperial air communications that we should be first in establishing practicable air routes in directions where our interests are manifold 8

It is vital to the security and prosperity of the British community in Africa that we should be first, and thus eliminate competition by drawing all trade through British tenitory 9.

The British R100 and R101 airships, each designed to carry a hundred passengers and ten tons of mail, were being built ready to conduct trials early in 1929 to link London with South Africa. British plans were well advanced to start services to India and Australia and across the Atlantic in mid 1928. Four Royal Air Force biplanes were preparing to leave London on a return flight to Cape Town, another four R.A.F. aircraft - Supermarine flying-boats - started a twelve month cruise to the Far East (10), and the London Times, pleading for a bolder air policy, published a leading article in which it said that:

The active encouragement of civil aviation in all its branches is a matter of increasingly vital importance to the security and prosperity of the nation and the empire.11

It was in such an atmosphere of aviation excitement and activity, and of international rivalry late in 1927 that Sir Alan Cobham -who had already flown 15,000 miles to India and back, 17,000 miles to South Africa and back, 28,000 miles to Australia and back and who had spent a year negotiating with the South African Government and other African Governments - started his 20,000 miles journey through and round Africa to survey the Britain-South Africa route. On the outward journey he followed the Cairo-Cape line.

The great idea was to establish a line of air stations through all British territory from north to south of the continent.

By means of our scheme we hope to bring about the development of those areas that will justify the completion of the Cape to Cairo railway.13

Once again, Nyasaland's cross-roads position became important because the country lay on one of two possible routes which the proposed air service could take on the section between Tanganyika and Southern Rhodesia; the other was via Northern Rhodesia. Was the route through Nyasaland to be selected or was the Protectorate to be a Cinderella in aviation, as in so many other, matters?

It is the purpose of this article to probe that question more deeply by examining the visit which Cobham made to Nyasaland in February 1928

Before he left Britain, Cobham - or a senior colleague, Charles Ward, on his behalf - wrote several letters to the Nyasaland Government seeking advice, information and support. 14 The information requested included details of climatic conditions, means of transport, supplies of petrol and oil, present and future radio and telegraph facilities, letter mail traffic, particulars of tourist traffic, a list of aerodromes and landing grounds, and a map of the country showing railways, roads, telegraph lines, wireless stations and aerodromes. Information was also sought on the possibilities of constructing landing grounds, an outline of current commercial development including agriculture, mining and manufacturing, and possible areas of future settlement for farming and mining. Cobham also sent to the Government of Nyasaland details of the flying-boat he proposed to use, how it alighted, taxied, moored, manoeuvred and took off, what it required in the way of buoys, sinkers and anchors, and advice on how to approach and refuel it when moored. He wrote directly to the District Commissioner at Fort Johnston saying that he had arranged for petrol and oil to be sent there and asking him if he would be so kind as to look after them until the flying-boat arrived. Finally, he explained to the Governor the advantages to Nyasaland of the Cape to Cairo air service: security and military transportation in emergencies, and especially commercial development which would be:

advanced by the establishment of any form of regular transport, and the aeroplane will open up new territory, because it can bridge gaps which would remain unconnected for many years by any form of surface transport. Through carriage of mails by air, business transactions became more rapid and more frequent. Officials of the Government and business houses can travel from place to place in the shortest possible time, so that administration of public and private business is simplified and eventually made cheaper because of the great saving of time 16

Alan Cobham was accompanied by his wife who acted as his secretary and kept his diaries and records; Henry Vernon Worrall, the second pilot; F. Green, the engineer; C.E. Conway, the assistant engineer; and S.R. Bonnett, the cine-cameraman. Their aircraft was the Short Rolls-Royce "Singapore", twin engined, first all-metal, flying-boat, G-EBUP, with a cruising speed of 90 m.p.h. loaned by the Air Council. On 17th November, 1927, having started off in the "wrong" direction - by flying westwards up the Thames from Rochester in Kent so as to pass over as much water as possible without going all the way round south-east England to reach Southampton - they headed by gentle stages towards Africa, flying via Bordeaux, Marseilles, Corsica and Malta where repairs to badly damaged wing tip floats and hull caused a long delay. Once over the African continent they flew via Benghazi, Tobruk, Alexandria, Luxor, Wadi Halfa, Karima, Berber, Khartoum, Malakal, Mongalla, Butiaba, Entebbe, Port Bell, Kisumu, Mwanza and Kigoma to Mpulungu in Northern Rhodesia. 17

In Nyasaland itself, the Nyasaland Times reported the "aviation fever", gave details of Cobham's progress noting each stage of his flight towards Central Africa18 and on 27th January, published a long leading article entitled, "All British African Route" 19 in which the "particular and vital interest (of Nyasaland) in any scheme of aviation between Europe and the African continent" was pleaded. What the Editor most feared was that Nyasaland would be bypassed and that a route south of East Africa would be followed which would favour the industrial and mining interests of South Africa "who have in view only the speedy transportation of gold and diamonds". Acknowledging that Nyasaland's principal interest was in the quicker transport of mail and perhaps passengers - both of which lacked the economic appeal of gold and diamonds - the Editor seized upon the fact that Cobham was using a flying-boat for the current flight, and argued that:

there already exists an all-British natural route from end to end of Africa by way of the Great Lakes, with natural "landing" places for the new all-metal flying-boats that are said to be most suitable for the tropics, and not a penny would have to be expended in building aerodromes or landing fields on this route...we are on the cheapest line of route.

He feared not only South African vested interests but those also in Northern Rhodesia and he pointed out that the Alan Cobham Aviation Company was currently seeking to buy land in the Fort Jameson area upon which to build an aerodrome. Although Cobham personally was already inclined to the opinion that the route from the Mediterranean to East Africa should be by flying-boats and south from there by aeroplanes 20, the Editor knew that only if the route south ofTanganyika used flying-boats did Nyasaland - with its large inland lake, which Northern Rhodesia lacked - stand a chance of being placed on that route.

Daily, as Cobham travelled southwards, Nyasaland waited, and waited. On 8th February he cabled the Editor of the Nyasaland Times, from Mwanza on the Tanganyika shore of Lake Victoria, saying that he had to return to Khartoum but hoped to arrive in Nyasaland in about a fortnight's time21. On 20th February the Editor sent a cable to Karonga for Cobham asking to be informed of the date and time of his expected arrival at Fort Johnston so that the public could be told,and although Cobham, in return, cabled the Chief Secretary from Nairobi saying that he would be at Mwanza again on Thursday, 23rd February, Kigoma on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika on Saturday and Mpulungu at the southern tip of that Lake, near Abercorn - the last stop before Nyasaland - on Sunday, the telegraphic service was interrupted between Abercorn and Karonga so that Cobham's expected, and actual, dates of arrival in Nyasaland could not be announced in advance:

no advice has been received from Sir Alan Cobham as to when he will arrive at Fort Johnston 24.

In fact, Cobham left Mpulungu on Sunday, 26 February at least a day earlier than those in Nyasaland expected.

Our next hop was a short one, a matter of some 200 miles...to the northern end of the Nyasa Lake...and finally we flew above the Songwe Valley down towards the lake until we sighted the small settlement of Karonga, on the north west shore 25.

As the flying-boat flew over, someone - presumably the District Commissioner - sent a message to Zomba and Blantyre to let those there know that Cobham was on his way.26

Cobham had originally intended to land at Karonga but he was worried about the depth of the water there and the difficulty of finding a safe anchorage27. Instead, therefore, he decided to land at Vua some 20 miles further south where a safer anchorage could be found. Vua was marked on his maps and he very carefully studied them but despite his vigilance from the open cockpit he saw nothing but "apparently uninhabited jungle" and it was not until he had flown obviously too far south that he realised that he had missed Vua. He turned round, headed north again and fortunately saw a smoke fire opposite "two houses buried in the trees". He had previously asked that at all places he visited a smoke fire should be started as soon as his flying-boat was sighted so that he would know in which direction to alight,28 and it was such a smoke fire which enabled him to find Vua.

He alighted on the lake and was greeted by Edmund Lushington Rhoades - formerly Commander of the British Central Africa Naval Department - who came out to meet him 29. Rhoades - who had accompanied Grogan in a mule cart on part of his journey through Nyasaland on his way from the Cape to Cairo thirty years earlier- had been expecting Cobham for some time and had prepared the moorings for him. Cobham immediately took to him and found him an excellent and amusing host who "combined the wit of Sam Weller with the resolution of Horatio Hornblower"(31) and was Rabelaisian in wit. 32

The flying-boat party slept the night in mosquito net covered camp beds on the verandah of Rhoades' house, and were up before dawn so that the Cobhams and Worm11 could "take part in a little hunt". After lunch they continued their journey southwards and readily persuaded Dr. Child and his nephew who were on a game hunting vacation to accompany them in the flying-boat although this meant curtailing their vacation by ten days.

They flew low over the lake and were intrigued - as Grogan had been in 1898- by the great smoke-like pillars of Kungu fly, which Bonnett was able to photograph as they passed. They crossed the lake and flew over "what is known as the loneliest cathedral in the world" at Likoma which "looked a heavenly little spot" and then flew southwards to Fort Johnston bar.

News of Cobham's arrival in Nyasaland had reached the readers of the Nyasaland Times early Tuesday, 28th February 34 whilst the flying-boat crew were preparing it for its flight down the lake. Despite the very short notice and the distances involved

scores of folk...journeyed down to the bar...from Fort Johnston proper, some miles away, and there were many more who had journeyed all the way from Zomba, the capital...a journey of eighty miles 35

The "excellent arrangements" for looking after the flying-boat and for the "wonderful reception" were made by Commander Reginald George, who had first come to Nyasaland in January 1915 when he was seconded from the Royal Naval Reserve for service on Lake Nyasa 36. The Governor himself had intended to travel to Fort Johnston to welcome Cobham but the flying-boat's delay clashed with other arrangements which Bowring had to make in the meantime. He was nonetheless anxious that at least some members ofthe Government's Air Committee should be at Fort Johnston when Cobham arrived, and Major Henry Edward Green, Staff Officer of the Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve and Chairman of the Air Committee, together with Major Francis Trant Stephens, the Chief Commissioner of Police, were there to meet him(37).

Cobham stayed in Fort Johnston for only one night - with the District Commissioner, Arthur Cecil Kirby (38)- because it was essential that he should meet the Governor to discuss "the possibilities of the African air route passing through Nyasaland". He and Lady Cobham left the crew at Fort Johnston and journeyed by car with Bonnett to Zomba. If a convenient body of water - a lake or river - had existed at Zomba they would have landed there and saved time, but they nonetheless enjoyed the trip which was "through delightful scenery". The possibility of the flying-boat alighting on Lake Chilwa some twenty miles east of Zomba was explored but to no avail. The District Commissioner of Zomba, Robert Keppel-Compton was told to visit Chilwa as a matter of urgency and to ascertain the depth ofthe water between Chilwa
Island and the end of the road from Zomba:

I dropped everything and spent the rest of the day in a dug-out canoe with a long bamboo pole marked in feet, finding out the depth of water ...the greatest depth was only eight feet close to the Island; elsewhere it was much shallower... Consequently the idea that Alan Cobham could use Lake Chilwa to come down so conveniently near to Zomba was dropped and he came from Fort Johnston by car. I met him next day at dinner at Government house"

Keppel-Compton's report to the Chief Secretary made it clear that not only was the shallowness of the Lake a problem but the condition of the Zomba-Chilwa road in the middle of the rainy season made its use "impractical"40.

Arriving in Zomba, the administrative capital, very late in the afternoon of Wednesday 29th February, the Cobhams stayed with the Chief Secretary and admired, as had so many other visitors, the views across Lake Chilwa to Mlanje Mountain: "some of the most wonderful panoramic views I have ever seen". Thirty years earlier, on his south- north journey through Africa, Grogan had commented that "The view across Lake Shirwa...ranks amongst the finest I have seen in Africa" 41. The Chief Secretary at this time was Wilfred Bennett Davison-Houston, an Irish military officer who had formerly served in the British South African Police, West Africa, France, Canada, the Windward Islands and as Administrator of Saint Lucia; he had been appointed as head of the Nyasaland Civil Service only shortly before, on 22nd September, 1927, and two years later was suddenly taken ill - just after the arrival of a new Governor - and left Nyasaland. He retired from the Colonial Service on grounds of ill health in September 1930 42.

The following morning Sir Alan, with his wife, drove over to Blantyre, the commercial capital, to address a hastily called meeting of the Chamber of Commerce. He had earlier explained to the Governor that he wished to assess the probable support of commercial organisations for his proposals both in respect of initial capital, and in respect of the use of the service when established43. At the Blantyre meeting he explained that the primary purpose of his visit was:

to sound public opinion as to the most suitable route for the proposed air service from Cairo to the Cape and to ascertain by actual flying experience whether flying-boats or aeroplanes were the better type of machine for the purpose44.

He went on to say that he had already mapped out a suitable route as far as Tanganyika, which would follow the Nile, and although he was clear in his own mind as to the problem south of Tanganyika, he seems not to have left the problem unambiguous in the minds of his audience. In his own mind:

The great difficulty was to decide whether the air line should come down through Nyasaland and so on to Salisbury and thence to Bulawayo, or whether it should go southwestward after leaving Tanganyika, through Northern Rhodesia to the railway line at Ndola or Broken Hill, and then via Livingstone to Bulawayo45

In essence, the question was: at the crossroads should the west or the east fork be taken? In the minds of his audience, however, the stark choice may not have been made anywhere near so clear because the Nyasaland Times' account of Cobham's Blantyre address refers to the stop after Tanganyika being "the north west end of Lake Nyasa".

From there, he gathered, in order to serve as large a population as possible, the best route seemed to be via Fort Jameson or Dedza and Blantyre, thence to Salisbury and Bulawayo etc. etc. That route would take in both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland46.

The expression "the north west end of Lake Nyasa" could have been taken, broadly interpreted, to mean Mpulungu (Abercorn) in Northern Rhodesia or, narrowly interpreted, the Karonga-Vua area in Nyasaland; and he furthered the ambiguity by referring to a route which would take in both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and by appearing to leave open the question of whether flying-boats or aeroplanes were the better aircraft on this section.

The Editor of the Nyasaland Times had already warned his readers three days earlier that the strategic question was vital to Nyasaland's interests and that "apathy in this...scheme, destined to further the country's progress, is likely to have retarding effects on our development"(47). Yet there is no evidence that the Blantyre audience focussed on the strategic issue - placing Nyasaland on the main route south of Tanganyika, preferably by using flying-boats - since the only questions which the Nyasaland Times' account of the meeting reported being asked were what the fares might be for intermediate journeys in Africa and whether there were - as they in fact agreed - suitable aircraft landing sites near Blantyre. They overlooked the fact that there were no suitable landing sites for flying-boats anywhere near Blantyre. After this, even the Editor lost his enthusiasm and perspicacity and ended his report of the meeting by telling his readers that the power developed by the flying-boat's engines was sufficient to lift the largest ocean liner in the world one and a half times the height of Mount Snowdon!(48).

Why did Cobham - so clear in this own mind as to the really important question about the route to be followed, a person who normally expressed himself with great clarity, and a man in the habit of not spending longer than was necessary in any one place on his long flight - go to the bother of spending seven days in Nyasaland, of driving all the way from Fort Johnston to Blantyre and addressing a meeting there, and yet not put the all-important question clearly and unambiguously focussed in the minds of his audience? The most probable reason is that he was about to ask the Governor for financial support for the air service and knew that he was more likely to agree if it could be shown that there was public support behind the scheme. Such support would not be forthcoming if the route did not go via Nyasaland. The Editor of the Nyasaland Times had already pointed out how strong were the pressures from South Africa and Northern Rhodesia for the route to go via Northern Rhodesia, and Cobham could not afford to let his audience believe that the issue had already, and adversely, virtually been decided or even that it was likely that the route would by-pass Nyasaland. It would have been in Cobham's interest to let his audience stray from the major issue and to continue to hold out hope of a route via Nyasaland.

The Cobhams returned to Zomba and spent the next two and a half days staying at Government house with Governor Bowring. Cobham had courted the Governors and leading officials at each stopping point on his way south, usually staying at Government House; he addressed a Governors' Conference in Nairobi attended by the Governors of Kenya and Uganda, Sir George Schuster from the Sudan and a senior representative from Tanganyika 49 and he entertained Sir William Gowers, Governor of Uganda on a trip in the flying-boat round Victoria Nyanza, marking the equatorial passage with a cross ing the line ceremony and having lunch in the air complete with champagne, liqueurs and cigarso. In Zomba he was equally charming and later wrote to Bowring in warm terms to thank him.

for all your wonderful kindness and generous assistance on the occasion of our visit...My wife and I will always have affectionate memories of our stay in Nyasaland 51.

Central to the thinking behind Cobham's itinerary lay his financial strategy. The air service which he proposed, would cost about £50,000 in inauguration capital expenditure and £120,000 a year thereafter in running costs which would require a subsidy of £35,000 a year Ministry, the British Government was unlikely to provide the required funds by itself.

However,

If the scheme was urged forward by the various British African Governments (by way of financial contributions) he felt sure the Imperial Government would not hesitate and do their part (53).

He had already persuaded the Governors of Kenya and Tanganyika to provide annual contributions for five years, and he "hoped that Nyasaland and the other territories would do the same(54)including, presumably, Uganda where Sir William Gowers at least owed him a decent lunch! By April 1928, the Sudan, Uganda, Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia Governors, but not Nyasaland's had joined Kenya and Tanganyika in guaranteeing a joint subsidy 55.

Nyasaland's Governor, Sir Charles Calvert Bowring, had been appointed in 1923 and remained Governor for six years. At the age of 23 he had been appointed Local. Auditor in British Central Africa - the name by which Nyasaland had at that time been known -in 1895 "to supervise the accounts of the Administration stations" and had looked after Grogan during his 1898 journey through Zomba 56.His period of gubernatorial office had opened with his having to ask the British Government for the first grant-in-aid to balance the budget for over a decade. He had made that request with reluctance and deep regret possibly because of his earlier training in accountancy, and at his first meeting of the Legislative Council he had set the tone for much of the remainder of his service in Nyasaland:

Strict economy and cautious anticipation must continue to be out main aim 58.

He viewed the burden of guarantee, which made up its public debt, as preventing the contemplation of development, and believed that

The services for which provision had been made barely allowed for the administration ofthe Protectorate without serious risk of breakdown and afforded no possibility...of promoting the welfare and development of...Nyasaland 59.

Although the country's financial position had much improved by 1927 and was considered to be better than at any previous timeoo, Bowring, still the accountant at heart and once bitten twice shy, insisted on preserving a balance of £100,000 - a figure almost half as large as the current annual expenditure - against bad years 61.Ever cautious, he incurred "a considerable expenditure" in 1928 in making preparation to meet a food shortage which did not in fact occur 62. A senior civil servant who knew the Governor well, much later said of him:

Sir Charles' reputation was that of a rather irascible, prickly man...(whose) talents were more in the line of keeping the pot boiling than in innovation

He seems to have been over-awed by difficulties of planning for development during periods of uncertainty:

The uncertainty of what the position will be from year to year adds greatly to the difficulties of making arrangements for local development

So, the Governor now being visited by Alan Cobham was one whose "main aim" was economy and caution, who was reluctant to risk innovation and who found planning in uncertain conditions difficult. He was already at the top of his profession, 56 years of age, a knight of two orders, within a year of retirement. His early service in Nyasaland had been before the railway or motor car had been introduced into the country and at a time when transcontinental travel meant walking on one's own feet by people like Grogan; maybe he found it difficult to grasp the significance of air transportation.

Bowring called a meeting of the Executive Council at which Cobham explained his air service scheme The members of Executive Council, in addition to the Governor and the Chief Secretary, were the Treasurer, the Attorney-General and the Senior Provincial Commissioner 66.

The Treasurer, Keith Ravenscroft Tucker, was born in 1890, had joined the Colonial Service in 1913, as Assistant Auditor in the Gold Coast, and had been transferred to Nyasaland in 1916, being promoted to Treasurer in 1921. On 4th August, 1927 he was "obliged to proceed to England on medical grounds" and arrived back on 6th January, 1928 shortly before Cobham's Visit67.In May 1928 he advised that "aviation expenditure ofany kind must be considered a luxury whichthe Protectorate cannot at present afford 68.

The Attorney-General, W. Harragin, about whom rather less is known, arrived in Nyasaland on 16th April, 1927 from Trinidad where he had been Crown Counsel 69.

The Senior Provincial Commissioner, Harold D'Auvergne Aplin, had been appointed Clerk in the Secretariat in Nyasaland in 1901 and had been promoted Provincial Commissioner in 1922 and Senior Provincial Commissioner on 9th January, 1928. From 9th July, 1927 to 3rd February, 1928 he had been away on leave and in April 1928 he was absent due to ill-health. He retired in 1932. He was 49 years of age when Cobham visited the country70.

The Executive Council, therefore, was comprised ofa cautious, economy- minded Governor who was on the brink of retirement; a 57 year old Chief Secretary also on the brink of retiring who had been in Nyasaland only five months, a Treasurer and a Senior Provincial Commissioner none of whom enjoyed the best of health; and an Attorney-General who had recently been promoted and had been in the country for less than a year. It seems that Cobham failed to make much impression on them. The Protectorate Annual Report for 1928 disposed of his visit in 17 words:

In February, Sir Alan Cobham passed through Nyasaland in his flying-boat on his African transcontinental journey 71.

Had the Governor been a Harry Johnston as in 1891-1897, or a Shenton Thomas as in 1929-1930, or a Geoffrey Colby as in 1948-1956 - all outstandingly dynamic, developmentally progressive heads of government - or even a Hubert Young, an aviation enthusist as in 1932 -1934, Cobham might not simply have "passed through Nyasaland". In the event, it was to be another 21 years before a flying-boat landed on Lake Nyasa again 72 and Colby was able to reach out and create an opportunity which Bowring had failed to grasp or possibly even to recognise.

The remainder of Cobham's time was taken up in being entertained by the King's African Rifles, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Hawkins, who put on a display of the troops at drill and at work - which so impressed him that he said he would never forget it - and by the Chief Commissioner of Police, Francis Trant Stephens, formerly of the KAR, who had welcomed him at Fort Johnston and who now showed him how "the wonderful body of (African) gendarmerie were trained from the raw material"("). He seems to have been much more at home with these extrovert military men, as he had been with Commander Rhoades and Commander George, than with the more cautious civil servants and the more narrow visioned commercial men.

On Saturday, 3rd March, the Cobhams motored back to Fort Johnston, looking for possible landing grounds and examining a number of them on the way. They were up betimes on Sunday morning and although two days earlier the Nyasaland Times had told its readers that the flying-boat would leave the bar at Fort Johnston between 10.00 am and 11.00 am and should be sighted over Blantyre between 12 noon and 1.00 pm, probably in a south westerly direction 74. Cobham in fact took off at 9.15 am. He circled over Zomba - possibly as a final gesture to the Governor - passed over Blantyre and headed south away from Nyasaland towards Beira 75.

In the study of administrative history one can identify "hinge-points", points at which the graph of progress had the opportunity, to a greater or lesser extent, to change direction. One such hinge-point occurred in Nyasaland in 1928. If the Protectorate could be placed directly on a major inter-continental and transcontinental air route, then it would be likely that her economic progress would be significantly enhanced: she would receive more visitors, both businessmen and tourists, and her communications and commercial contacts with other countries would be much enhanced. Nor was the matter solely or simply one with economic implications for there were also significant political and social ramifications. If Nyasaland were to be connected by a feeder aeroplane route to a main route which passed through the Rhodesia, then it was likely that her links with Southern Rhodesia would strengthen and develop. If, however, she were to be placed directly on the main route from East to Southern Africa, especially if the flying-boat route were extended south as far as Lake Nyasa, then there would be the possibility that her links also , or even particularly, with East Africa would strengthen and develop. Once again Nyasaland stood at the cross-roads: the direction - north or south - in which Nyasaland developed her links would influence the political and social, as well as the economic, future of the country. During the referendum period prior to Southern Rhodesia being granted internal self-government in 1923, arguments were very strongly advanced and widely held in favour ofthe incorporation of that country into the Union of South Africa, especially by mining and financial interests and by the Union Government76.In the opposite direction, both geographically and philosophically, also in 1923, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies enunciated the paramountry doctrine in Kenya: "the interest of the African native must be paramount" . It is clear that Sir Charles Bowring was aware that Nyasaland stood at the crossroads and could look either south or north, for in effect he so told his Legislative Council in May 1927.

The geographical position of Nyasaland towards neighbouring British territories is a matter which doubtless causes all ofus constant serious thought... The earlier history of Nyasaland points to a closer association with British South Africa and South Africa is still the most rapid means of communication with the united Kingdom. But as regards climatic conditions, forms of government, native administration, treaty obligations and other matters we have more in common with the territories to the north known as the East African Group 78.

The opportunity to be placed directly on the main route and to influence the direction in which the country's outside contacts would develop came Nyasaland's way with Sir Alan Cobham's flying-boat journey to South Africa in 1928.

Nyasaland's chances of success were not great but they did exist. The country had relatively little to offer Cobham since she lacked Northern Rhodesia's economic wealth and unbroken geographical continuity with Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Her officials could, however, have emphasised the tourist potential which Cobham - himself a great publicist - must have recognised: features such as the Lake, Likoma Island, the Kungu fly, game hunting, Zomba scenery, the King's African Rifles and characters such as Edmund Rhoades. They could also have played on the known liking which Cobham and other pioneer aviators ofthe time, such as H G Brackley, had for flying-boats. Cobham's mind was not yet made up and he was prepared to spend a week in Nyasaland, as opposed to only a day in each of Northern and Southern Rhodesia which he visited as off-shoots to his main journey 79.

The Protectorate also possessed two significant levers of direct interest to Cobham. First, there was Lake Nyasa which could extend the flying- boat route southwards to within 370 miles of Salisbury, the capital of Southern Rhodesia, compared with 620 miles between Mpulungu, on Lake Tanganyika in Northern Rhodesia, and Salisbury. Secondly, there was the possibility of the Nyasaland Government contributing to a subsidy to cover the operational costs ofthe air service. Cobham felt that he needed colonial government financial support if the British Government was to be persuaded to develop the London-South Africa route, and in order to secure Nyasaland Government support he was prepared to spend a whole week in the country and to recommend an aeroplane route which would somehow take in both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. He had also given Bowring to understand that he would prefer to adopt a line from Tanganyika to Salisbury which passed through Nyasaland rather than a line further to the west "because of the more fertile, and consequently more economically valuable nature ofthe areas which would be served by the former route 80.

These levers cold have been used to exert pressure on Cobham to extend the flying-boat route to Lake Nyasa - rather than stop it in East Africa and continue southwards by aeroplane-in exchange for a subsidy.The Nyasaland Government did have the money: revenue exceeded expenditure during each of the three preceding years and they had an accumulated surplus off 135,000 a sum equal to half the Government's annual expenditure and three times the total annual subsidy required from all sources. The Governors ofKenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and the Sudan had committed themselves to sums of £15,000, £7,000, £5,000, and £3,000 respectively and Cobham was negotiating with South Africa and Southern Rhodesia for significant subsidies; the demands on Nyasaland could not have amounted to more than £5,000 and would probably have been much less. Initially, Bowring accepted the advice ofhis Executive Council "that it would be highly desirable forNyasaland to join with other Governments in the proposed general scheme" but he seems to have quickly changed his mind after a visit of Sir George Schuster to discuss the country's finances and the East Africa Loan. What then worried Bowring was the future other demands on his resources rather than the current demands. With the proposals to build the Zambesi bridge and theNorthern Extension railway from East Africa Loan funds he intended to "embark at once on a policy of departmental expansion" which he wished to negotiate with the Secretary of State, and he would need all his money for this. The interest on the loan could not be charged against capital and would therefore need to be met from revenue and this, he felt,

makes it more important than ever for us to husband our resources with every possible caution... I do not consider it would be wise to complicate ... arrangements by introducing this new project of a Trans-African Air Service into the negotiations 84.

Consequently the Governor's response to Cobham was:

I fear that for financial reasons it will be impossible forNyasaland for the present to assist any commercial air route by means of guarantees of annual contributions 85.

The furthest Bowring would go was to agree to his officials "exploring the possibilities" of assisting by providing and maintaining aerodromes and landing grounds - which, as Wakefield had recognised twenty years earlier 86, and as the Editor of the local newspaper had recently pointed out, would not be required if a flying-boat service were introduced. Even this "exploring of possibilities" came to naught. The British Air Ministry agreed to second F. Tymms, their Superintendent for the Cairo- Karachi air service, to the colonial governments in East and Central Africa to investigate the prospects of civil aviation development and advise on landing facilities, but Bowring was very doubtful "as to whether the expense - £300 for Nyasaland - was justified" and his Treasurer agreed that civil aviation was "a luxury" 87 Tymms did not visit the Protectorate.

When an air service between Britain and South Africa was eventually inaugurated in 1932 - by British Imperial Airways which had merged with Cobham's company - it used aeroplanes which took the western route via Lusaka and Livingstone in Northern Rhodesia to Cape Town; and when flying-boats were first used, in 1937, they travelled from the upper Nile down to and along the east coast of Africa to Durban. It was not until after the Second World War that flying-boats took an inland route, through Central Africa, and even then they did so by the western arm, via the Victoria Falls. In each case Nyasaland was bypassed. It was only in the last year of that post-war service, from November 1949 to October 1950, that the route included Nyasaland, that flying-boats again alighted on Lake Nyasa, and that a different Governor was able to use the precedent - which he himself created - of the country for the first time, albeit temporarily, being on a direct international air route, to secure the finances to develop an airport to full international standards so as, somewhat later, to enable the country to be placed permanently on an international and intercontinental air-route and thus occupy a crossroads position which it could have occupied much earlier.

Notes
1. L.A.C. Raphael, The Cape to Cairo Dream: a study in British Imperialism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1936, passim

2. E.S. Grogan and A.H. Sharpe, From the Cape to Cairo, London: Hurst and Blackett, 1900; M. Hall, A Woman's Trek from the Cape to Cairo. London: Methuen, 1907.

A.J. Cobham, "A Flight of Survey Round Africa", a publicity brochure, 1927, in possession of G. Bruce, formerly Company Secretary, Short Brothers; NT 2nd March, 1928.

NT 10th April, 1928.

Nam, S1/1590/27, Ward to Davidson-Houston, 22.9.1027; Ward to Bowring, 1.10.1927; Cobham to Bowring, 13.10.1927, 14.10.1927, 26.10.1927.

NT 10th October, 1949, p. 1.

Cobham, p. 161.
NT 2nd March, 1928.
NT 6th March, 1928 and Cobham, p. 162.
W.V. Brelsford, Rhodesia and Nyasaland, London: Cassell, 1960,

. 80Indians in Kenya,
Legislative Council Proceedings
Cobham, pp. 173-175.
Nam, S 1/1590/27, Bowring to Amery, 28.3.1928
Protectorate Annual Estimates, 1928, P. 7.
NAM, S1/1590/27, Bowring to Amery, 28.3.1928
NAM, Executive Council Minute 52 of 8.3.1928
34th Session, 1927, p.7 London: HMSO, Cmd. 1922, 1923, p. 10.1928, p. 7.op.cit., p. 111; Nyasaland Government Gazette, 30th September, 1922, 30th July, 1927 29 February, 1928, 30th April, 1928.1927, p. 90.1923, p. 12; Nyasaland Government Gazette. 31st March, 1924; Legislative Council Proceedings,_ 34th Session, May 1927, p. 5.1928, p. K.39th Session, April 1929, p. 6. 85. Nyasaland Legislative Council Proceedings 36th session, April, 1928, p. 7.
Allwood, op.

cit., p. 17. NAM, 760/1928, Governor's minute of 21.5.1928, and Treasurer's minute of 22.5.1928 34th Session, May 1927, p. 18. 62. Protectorate Annual Report,

National Archives of Malawi (hereafter NAM) , S 1/1590/27, Ward to Bowring, 1.10.1927.

M. Allward, Seaplanes and Flying-boats, Ashbourne: Moorland, 1981, p. 39; H. Montgomery Hyde, BritishAir Policy Between the Wars, London: Heinemann, 1976, pp. 190-191

NAM, SMP 1425/1926
H. Penrose, British Aviation: the adventuring years, 1928 -1929, London: Putnam, 1973, p. 516: Nyasaland Times (here after referred to as NT), 28th December, 1927, 13th, 20th and 31st January, 1928.A. Cobham, Twenty Thousand Miles in a Flying-Boat, London: Harrap, 1930 (here after referred to as Cobham), p.5.
Cobham, p.3.
NAM, S1/1590/27, Ward to Bowring, 1.10.1927
H. Penrose, op.cit, p. 523; Nt 13th and 17th January and 21st February, 1928; and C.R. Samson, A Flight from Cairo to Cape Town and Back,

Kamuzu Banda's Repression of Jehovah's Witnesses

2011-07-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

Below are Time magazine reports for December 1972 and 1975 on the repression of Jehovah's witnesses in Malawi. It sheds some light on what really happened for the Jehovah's witnesses to be persecuted by the state and Malawi Congress Party cadres.

Time Magazine Dec 1972

By all accounts, a virtual pogrom is in progress against the 22,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in the African nation of Malawi. The Witnesses have been outlawed there since 1967 on the grounds that they are "dangerous to the government," but they have persisted as an underground church. Malawi President-for-life Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda, a staunch elder in Malawi's Presbyterian Church of Central Africa, has become increasingly angered by the "devil's Witnesses," their unwillingness to join his ruling Congress Party, their refusal to take loyalty oaths, and their exclusivist claims to religious truth. A Congress Party convention in September demanded that the Witnesses be expelled from their jobs and property, and since then party zealots have been carrying out the mandate with fervor. One company with 200 employees was shut down because it refused to fire a Witness who worked there. Huts have been burnt, and as many as 60 Witnesses may have been killed. Most of the Witnesses have fled to a calamitously overcrowded refugee camp across the border in Zambia, where an estimated 19,000 have been fighting among themselves for the meager water supply. As many as nine are dying daily, mostly children. Said a distressed Zambian official last week: "Only a change of heart by Dr. Banda can save them."

Time Dec 1975

"My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus said. To Jehovah's Witnesses, who now number more than 2 million worldwide, that is a command to boycott all political activity. Various nations have found this irksome, but few have matched the violence of Malawi's response. During a 1972 crackdown by President-for-life Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, a Presbyterian elder, Malawi Witnesses were robbed, beaten, raped, even murdered. Thousands fled to neighboring Zambia, which shipped most of them back to Malawi. Eventually, about 34,000 found refuge in Portuguese Mozambique.

No sooner did Mozambique gain independence last June, however, than the new republic required everyone to join "dynamization groups" and bone up on Marxism. When the Witnesses balked, they were forced back to Malawi. There they have steadfastly refused to buy 34¢ cards that would make them members of Banda's Congress Party. The penalty: loss of homes and jobs. Hundreds of Witnesses are dying of starvation or disease. Young party thugs are also subjecting them to renewed violence. Awake!, the Witnesses' semimonthly U.S. newspaper, says that Malawi's "record reeks of beastliness, of insensibility to any standards of decency."

Dr Kenneth Kaunda Interview

2011-07-30T02:16:00.000-07:00

Conversations host Harry Kreisler interviews Dr Kenneth David Kaunda, the First President of Zambia (1964-1991). President Kaunda discusses the national and international challenges he confronted as a national leader. He also reflects on his current work with NGOs in the global fight to fight disease, poverty and inequality. When Kaunda was in power Zambia hosted various African freedom fighters from South Africa, Rhodesia, (now Zimbabwe) and Mozambique.

BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA FIRST POSTMASTER GENERAL - Ernest Edward Harrhy

2011-07-26T13:16:00.000-07:00

By Dr Colin Baker

Ernest Edward Harrhy was born in 1869 in Brecon of a poor, hardworking and well-respected family. His father was a stage driver carrying the Post Office mails, and his mother supplemented the modest family income by taking in washing for the local gentry. There were five other children of the family: James, Tom, William, David and Sarah Anne. The family home was 6 Market Street, Brecon (a small cottage which was purchased much later by the Brecon Borough Council for demolition in 1970).

Ernest was a bright child and his parents sent him to the Pendre, Brecon, Church of England School, adjoining the cathedral, where each Monday morning, along with all the other children he paid fourpence for the week's education. Such was his progress that at the age of thirteen years he was sent to Christ College Brecon where he stayed until he was seventeen.

When he left Christ College, in 1886 he joined the staff of the General Post Office in London, and three years later travelled to South Africa where he joined the Cape Telegraphs at Craddock on 15 November 1889. He became Clerk in the Secretary's Office in 1891; Clerk in the Parcel, Audit and Inland Mail Branch on 1st March 1891; and Clerk to the Postmaster General, Cape Town early in 1893.

It was whilst he was serving as Clerk to the Postmaster General of Cape Town, Sir Somerset French, that Harry Johnston, then Commissioner and Consul General of British Central Africa sought Somerset French's help and secured the secondment of Harrhy to his own Administration for a year. Harrhy travelled to British Central Africa with Johnston, leaving Cape Town on 11th May 1993 for Tshiromo. He was appointed British Central Africa's first Postmaster General, at the age of 24 years, and soon established a service of African mail runners - "clad in long frock coats, knickers and fez, minus boots and stockings" and armed with Snider rifles - from Port Herald on to the Lower Shire River, via Tshiromo and Tshikwawa to Blantyre in the Shire Highlands and on to Mpimbi on the Middle Shire from which point the mails were carried north by river and lake steamer. He also established regular weekly mails between Chiromo and Blantyre, thrice-weekly mails between Blantyre the commercial capital and Zomba the Government administrative headquarters, and weekly mails between Blantyre, Mlanje, Mpimbi and Fort Johnston. In the last six weeks of 1893 - from 19 November to 28 December, Harrhy set up the Post Office of Exchange at the Tshinde concession, and thereafter the sorting and distribution of the mails, formerly done at Tshiromo by Hugh Charlie Marshall, were carried out at Tshinde. During his time in the Protectorate, Post Offices were set up at Blantyre, Fife, Fort Anderson, Fort Johnston, Fort Lister, Fort Maguire, Kalungwizi, Karonga, Mlanje, Port Herald, Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Tshikwawa, Tshinde, Tshiromo, Mpimbi, Zomba, Johnston Falls, Abercorn, Deep Bay, Likoma, Leopard Bay, Fort Liwonde, and Fort Rosebery. Harrhy returned to South Africa in 1894

It is probable that he spent a furlough in Britain after leaving British Central Africa because he did not resume his post as Clerk to the Postmaster General of Cape Town until 1 st April 1895.

He was promoted First Class Clerk on 1st July 1901, worked in the Chief clerk's office from 1905 to 1908, and was Principal Clerk in the Foreign Mails Branch from 1909 to 1910. He was posted to the Inland Mails Branch as Principal Clerk from 1914 to 1921 in which year, at the age of 52, he retired and received a pension. During his service his salary rose from £140 a year in 1892, £360 a year in 1905, to £800 a year when he retired in 1921. His pension in 1937 was about £500 a year.

During his service in South Africa he took periodic leaves and travelled to Britain where those who remembered him in Brecon described him as a smartly dressed gentleman, of fair complexion, about 5'8" in height. He was a keen photographer and his photographs were sufficiently good for seven of them to be included in Johnston's "British Central Africa": one of a scene on the southern shore of Lake Nyasa, three of Sikh soldiers, one of a rural post office in British Central Africa, one of the Consulate building in Blantyre, and one labelled "In camp - after a day's shooting" It is probable that this last is a photograph including Harrhy himself. It shows a camp tent pitched beneath a tree in the bush, outside which is an African holding a towel beside a European who is sitting naked in a shallow canvas bath, with a large metal bowl beside him, one hand holding a sponge behind his neck, the other maintaining respectability. The European has a very pale skin save for his face and neck which are well tanned. He has short cropped fairish hair and a moustache. There is only one camp bed in the tent and no evidence of any other European. Since we know that the photograph was taken by Harrhy it is likely that he took it with atime delay and that the photograph is of himself. In his retirement Harrhy lived at the Hotel Avalon in Cape Town. In 1936, on 10 August, he wrote his will. He was only 67 years old then but he may already have been ill. Certainly thereafter he purchased medicine at P. Zetler's the chemist, attended the Diakones Hospital and the Volks Hospital, engaged the professional nursing services of Nurse M. Gregg and the service of Dr. S.F. Silberbauer and Dr. Thomas Jones. On March 8th 1937 he died at the Volks Hospital, Cape Town. At his own request he was cremated, for which purpose he had taken out two shares in the Post Office Friendly Society.

When he died he had £97 in the Standard Bank and to this was added £20 realised from the sale of his gold and single diamond ring, the total sum being bequeathed to his unmarried sister Sarah Anne in Brecon. He had two close friends, Harry Wortlan Wright and his wife Susan who lived at 197 Lower Main Road, Observatory; he appointed his "old friend" Harry as his sole executor and bequeathed all his personal belongings, including radio, pictures, trunks and clothing, valued at £20, to Susan. By this time two of his brothers, James (who had earlier lived at Montpellier, 24 Godfrey Road, Newport, Monmouthshire and is buried in Saint Wollos Cemetery) and Tom were dead but the other two, William Henry and David George, were still alive as were his nephew Ernest and nieces Florrie and Sybil.

Of Ernest Edward Harrhy's 67 years, he had spent 35 in the postal service, 32 of them in Africa. Of these he spent slightly over one year as British Central Africa's first Postmaster General but to that very full and busy year may be attributed the foundation of the Protectorate's postal service: a significant accomplishment for a young man only 24 years of age.

Sources:

H.H Johnston British Central Africa, London, Methuen, 1897.
F. Melville British Central Africa and the Nyasaland Protectorate, London, Melville, 1909
Cape of Good Hope Civil Service Lists 1892-1894; Cape Public Service List, 1914; Cape Civil Service List, 1921

Supreme Court, Cape Town, Records: Death Notice, Will, Liquidation and Distribution Account in the estate of Ernest Edward Harrhy, No. 54079.

Master of the Supreme Court, Cape Town, to author 24 July 1970, IVA.Ec15.1278. privately held.

Chief of the Cape Archives Depot to the Legation Secretary, South African Legation, Blantyre, Malawi, 10 July 1970, privately held.

E. Franklyn Jones, Town Clerk, Borough of Brecon, to author 4 and 27 November 1970, privately held.
W.C. Evans, Brecon, to Town Clerk, Brecon, November 1970, privately held.
D.Marlowe, Public Relations Officer, Borough ofNewport, to author, 16 March 1971, privately held.
R.J. Boulton, Recorder, Old Breconian Association to author, 24 September 1980, privately held.

Interpretation of Dreams in Dowa Nyasaland

2011-07-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

Dreams in Central Africa. By A. G. O. Hodgson.

Source: Man, Vol. 26 (Apr., 1926), pp. 66-68
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

The following information was obtained from ten headmen of theYao, Ngoni, Nyanja and Chewa tribes in Dowa District, Nyasaland, having regard to the questions suggested by Professor Seligman in MAN, 120, 1923. Two of the informants profess Mohammedanism, two had attended Mission schools for short periods, and all were middle-aged or elderly. Although questioned separately, they gave the same interpretation in most cases.

A person dreams because he has a spirit which survives after his death; if he did not dream, he would have no spirit and would perish utterly. No instance is known, however, of a man or woman who has never dreamt; many dream regularly every night in the cool season, and all do so more frequently in cold than in hot weather. Their dreams are usually of common occurrences in the everyday world, but occasionally also of connected stories with obvious meanings or with confused and nonsensical content. No contributory cause is alleged, but dreams of the latter classes have generally accepted meanings, and dreams are generally referred to only in cases where the dreamer is ignorant of the interpretation and seeks the advice of an older man or woman. Some such interpretations are as follows:-

(1) Flying.-If one dreams that oneself or anyone else is flying in the sky like a bird, the person flying will enjoy long life and good health.

(2) Fire.-If one dreams of a fire burning, the dreamer will be involved in a serious misfortune, generally in a law-suit. If the fire goes out, the dreamer will emerge from his suit satisfactorily, the rise and decline of the fire symbolising the outbreak and subsidence of the case. To dream of a great bush fire augurs the advent of war, but if ashes and smoke only, without flame, are observed, the war will come to a speedy and satisfactory conclusion.

(3) Climbing.-To dream that oneself or another is climbing a tree or ascencding a hill signifies that the climber will be promoted to chieftainship or other high rank.

(4) Loss of a tooth or teeth-Is taken to indicate that the dreamer will shortly lose his wife or child or other near relation. One (Chewa) informant interpreted this dream to mean that the dreamer's wife would bear a son who would grow up to be a strong man.

(5) Oedipus.-If one dreams that one is having connection with one's mother or sister, the dreamer is being bewitched by some unknown person, and may procure medicine to put in his house to catch his enemy, though usually he is too ashamed to take any action or to mention the matter.

(6) To dream of a flood of water in a river has the same signification as in No. (2), though the informant quoted in No, (4) stated that it might also mean that the dreamer's wife was commencing her period.

(7) To dream that someone is sick means that the person dreamt of will not be ill for a very long time, and to dream of the death of someone who is in reality sick at the time of the dream augurs the speedy recovery of the patient.

(8) A dream of frequent occurrence is one of being chased downhill by a lion, the common symbol for chieftainship. If the dreamer escapes, he himself will become a chief or otherwise rise to importance: but if he is seized by the lion, it means that a chief is plotting against him.

(9) To dream of crossing a river signifies death; but the informant quoted in Nos. (4) and (6) gave the same interpretation as in No. (2), the dreamer winning his case if successful in crossing the river.

(10) To dream of digging a pit or of hoeing nthumbira (raised mounds for maize or potatoes) signifies that the dreamer will soon be digging a grave for one of his relations, the pit being suggested in the second instance by the depression between the mounds.

(11) To be afflicted with lice is a lucky dream, as the dreamer will acquire great wealth, or, if hitherto a childless woman, will produce a son.

(12) Rain symbolises mourning at the funeral of a relation.

(13) To dream of a snake round one's leg means that the dreamer will be bound in prison, or, in former times, as a slave.

(14) Drinking beer symbolises the drinking of mwabvi (ordeal poison).

(15) To dream of falling through space signifies approaching sickness, but if the dreamer rises after the fall, he will duly recover.

(16) To dream of a hearth stone (fua) means that one will shortly see a chief, as the hearthstone always remains in one place, like a chief, and is not thrown away after use.

(17) If one dreams of an ant-heap, one's wife is pregnant by another man, the likeness being due to the fact that an ant-heap is always slowly increasing in size.

(18) If one dreams that one is catching fish, the dreamer will find a bag of money; but if the fish are of a slippery variety, like mudfish, the dreamer will not be able to keep the money, which will soon be lost or stolen.

(19) It is unlucky if one of the objects of the dream is confused or grotesque, as, for example, if a person or animal has some of the characteristics of another. The spirit of the dreamer is troubled, and must be appeased by the dreamer washing his person in medicine made from the roots of the mtsizi tree and by a beer dance.

(20) If one dreams of a dead relation wearing a black cloth, the dreamer will be in mourning for a long time owing to continual deaths of his relations.

A. G. O. HODGSON.

1949 FAMINE ANALYSIS IN NYASALAND*

2011-07-24T15:42:00.000-07:00

Author: Megan Vaughan

Source: Past & Present, No. 108 (Aug., 1985), pp. 177-205

Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

In 1949 a serious famine occurred in the Southern Province of Nyasaland. In this article I describe the course of that famine in the area in which it struck with greatest severity the Lunzu and Lirangwe sections of Blantyre district. In analysing the description of events I am concerned with two main questions. Firstly, which sections of the community suffered and died during the famine, and is it possible to provide a model which could "predict" the differential impact? Secondly, what were the responses of the community to the onset of famine and how did these responses in themselves condition its course? Bound up with both questions is the issue of how far this was a famine structured by the particular circumstances of the late colonial period in Nyasaland.

The analysis of famine has undergone radical revision in the last few years. The simple and long-standing notion that famine was the result of "food-availability decline" seems not to accord with the facts about contemporary and past famines, and has been largelyr ejected in favour of the theories which stress the role of the market and of government intervention.1 As long ago as 1952 Josue de Castro, in his book The Geopolitics of Hunger, attacked simplistic Malthusian theories of famine causation in favour of a more complicated model:-

". . . essentially world hunger is not a problem of production limited by the coercion of natural forces . . . but of a politics that is based on the premeditated division of the world into ruling and dominated groups". 2

More recent analyses of African famine also stress the global political and economic origins of hunger.3 Along with this recognition of the political and economic origins of hunger has come the increased awareness of the differential impact of famine within any given community. The writer who has highlighted this most and the only

one who has successfully united the analysis of "cause" with that of "effect" is Amartya Sen.4

Sen's "entitlement theory" is primarily concerned with understanding how different sections of the community obtain their entitlement to food in normal times, and how and to what degree these entitlements might be affected by changes in the market economy. His analysis of access to food thus relates directly to the ownership structure of any given society, and the position of each individual within this, and it emphasizes the class basis of suffering in any famine. In passing, Sen also acknowledges that distribution within the family may also be of relevance, and in a recent article in New Society he has given this more emphasis.5 However, the influence of family and kinship relations on the pattern of famine is not part of his entitlement model, but simply a footnote which shows recognition of the attention now being paid to the problem by nutritionists.

What evidence we have for the 1949 famine points to the need for a closer examination of the issue of food distribution within the family; and of how this and marriage relations affect the pattern of suffering in a community struck by famine.

SOUTHERN NYASALAND INDICATING FAMINE AREA

Southern Nyasaland Indicating Area of The Famine

In the first section of this essay I describe the course of the famine. There are few written accounts of this, and therefore the description draws heavily on oral sources.6 Where written sources do exist, however,I have incorporated them.

I

Famine was not a new phenomenon to the people of Blantyre district, and food shortage was for some households there an annual event. But when the rains failed in the 1949 season there was a general feeling that this was a calamity beyond most peoples' experience. In retrospect, older people who had lived through the 1922 famine in the same areas aid that they could have predicted the disaster of 1949. 1947 had been the "year of the locusts", when many crops were destroyed, and in consequence there had been very few full granaries in the area in 1948.7 Furthermore, the rain failed in a way which indicated that the drought was not amenable to traditional remedies. In November and December, when it was apparent that the rains had stopped, people gathered in many villages to pray for rain. They sang the songs which they had always sung to call the rain and appease the ancestors.8 But despite the prayers, and the taboos and sanctions which accompanied them, the rain did not come. Christians were meanwhile exhorted by their churches not to join in the heathen prayers in the villages, but to pray for rain in the church instead. Both Catholic and Protestant churches held rain-calling ceremonies, and the Protestants s ervedt ea and biscuitsa ftert hem.9

When prayers of all types failed, some people looked round at their neighbours to see who might be "holding the rain" for their own ends. The usual suspects were old men with grey hair or bald heads, but people who were making bricks were also in line for accusation after all, they would be the first to suffer if the rain fell. 10 One man working in Blantyre at the time heard stories of such accusations being made in his home village. The people accused there were those who had long been labelled as "lazy" and who, even in favourable conditions, never had enough food to feed themselves. The accused were made to drink water and hot pepper, and if they were men (as they generally were) they had chilli powder rubbed into their testicles.11 Some were taken off to see the famous Doctor Bwanali, a soothsayer and healer who lived in Lunzu, but he invariably looked into his glass and found them innocent, saying that the drought was beyond human intervention.12 Others were taken prisoner by their neighbours and brought to the office of the District Commissioner in Blantyre, but he took a similar line on this to Doctor Bwanali and sent them home. 13 Quite quickly the consensus seems to have emerged that this drought, unlike less severe ones, was the work of God and could not be attributed either to human action or to the anger of ancestors:

No black cloud could be seen, and no thunder was heard.A ccording to our belief, when people are "holding the rain" an expanse of dark cloud is seen and thunder heard, but suddenly all the clouds get swept away and the sky clears. This did not happen in '49. The drought was too serious to blame on any human being. Some believed that the territorial spirits were angered and needed a sacrifice to cool them down. Some believed that it was God's work. The two camps used their means to ask for rain but still no rain came.14

Most people did not replant their maize, both because the seed was difficult to obtain and, more crucially, because the rain with which to replant never fell. There were some people in the area, however, who did have maize in their granaries left over from the previous year. These lucky ones generally had large gardens and gardens which stretched down to the river banks. On such land they were usually able to harvest something, as the soil retained moisture from the river or could be irrigated from it.15 There were also those men who had married into the area but who had retained gardens in their own homes. One man had had a garden at his home in Chiradzulu, an area much less severely affected by the drought, and he had fetched food from there.16 One woman recalled that her parents had a full granary when others had nothing because her father had land at his home in Ntcheu (in the central highlands to the north of Blantyre district) and he brought food from there. She said that every day there were at least ten people queuing up outside their house to beg for food, including old people who had been brought by machila (kind of stretcher).17 Other people who, according to oral accounts, were privileged under these circumstances were urban workers and local businessmen. Urban workers were lucky in that their employers invariably either gave them free food, food on credit, or food at a lower price to that of the open market. Tenants living on estates were usually entitled to the same privilege. Of course within this group there were wide variations in wage levels and incomes, but the main advantage of being a regular employee during the famine was that it entitled one to easier access to food. There was a lot of theft and some unrest in the towns of Blantyre and Limbe, and mindful of this, the government had instructed employers to make sure that their workers were fed. Some employers gave out free food, others gave salary advances. One man interviewed worked at an Indian-owned store in Limbe and earned only 10s. 6d. a month. However, in January 1949 his employer started giving him an advance on his salary of 7s. 6d. to enable him to buy maize. In general, this man said, the people of Blantyre and Limbe had little difficulty in getting maize, as long as they had money.18 One young woman was working as a domestic servant for an Indian family and earning the miserly wage of 3s. 6d. a month. However, her job had the advantage of allowing her to eat with her employers, and during the famine this was worth a lot in real terms.19 Another man also earned 3 s. 6d. a month working as a watchman for an African store owner, but on top of this he received a ration of flour and beans which was enough to feed his family throughout the famine.20 Another was a storekeeper in an owned shop in Indian-Limbe, whose wife and children lived at home in Lirangwe and farmed a garden there. His employer gave him a small basket of maize flour every Saturday which he took home to his family, and he also bought maize from a government depot in Chirimba, near Blantyre. The price was high and everyone complained, but they also recognized that they were better off than their relatives at home in Lirangwe and Lunzu, who could not get even if they had maize money.21These four people were members of the lowest paid group of urban employees, with wages far below those published in the official government statistics, and in normal they must have times been living on the margins. During the famine, however, they became members of a relatively privileged their families group, and considered themselves lucky.

Government and mission employees got the most privileged treatment of all. Employees of the Blantyre Mission of the Church of Scotland, apart from being given maize flour on credit, were allocated gardens also on which to plant sweet potatoes and cassava (chilingano), and were given time off work to cultivate. employees were 22 Government allowed to buy maize at half the price of that on the open market. Although this supply was supposed to be strictly rationed, people found ways around the rationing system and sometimes could accumulate quite large stocks. Depending on the individual, these stocks were than either distributed to family home or sold to members at villagers in the famine area at a handsome-profit. One man had been employed by the government as a stocks of driver, taking maize from one place to another. As a government employee he could buy maize at the price of 3s. per 4 gallon, in the villages and sell it in for 6s. or more. Further more, as he said, so much maize was exposed to him in his job that he was able to "play with it" 23 monkey tricks

Right from the start of the famine, then, there were those who had privileged access to food supplies and could use this in a number of ways. Traders and businessmen with motorized transport were in a particularly advantageous position, for although the government initially tried to prevent the movement of maize from one district to another, this soon proved to be impossible and against their own interests. One businessman "found himself" with twenty bags of maize (each of 200 lbs.) at the beginning of 1949. People came from all over the area to buy from him. He sold the maize at the price of ld. for a small plate, and the twenty bags were exhausted after a month.24 Another businessman, who owned a truck, had thirty bags of maize at the end of 1948, and sold it at the same price of ld. per plate. Those who had no money did ganyu labour for him moulding bricks and cutting down trees in order to earn the money they needed to buy food.25 Another family, whose business normally consisted of buying and selling fish and vegetables, switched to maize trading

in 1949 because it was so profitable.26 One aspect of the African businessman's trade did not do well in this period, and that was maize-milling. As one woman said, "Before the arrival of the government relief maize,one could scarcely heart he sound of a maize mill". 27 Stories abounded of how hungry people gathered at the mills to sweep up the flour which had fallen from the mill and take it home in handfuls, and of how the maize mill owners soon put a stop to this practice and began selling the sweepings instead.28

By March or April 1949 the famine looked really serious in the Lunzu and Lirangwe areas: "The situation had started as a small joke, but it turned into a bad joke, and a serious issue".29 The main features of this second stage of the famine were firstly the extreme mobility of the population (especially the men) in search of food to

buy, earn, beg or gather; and secondly, the progressive breakdown of whatever community support and family solidarity had existed earlier.30 Some aspects of this stage of the famine are recalled vividly in the pounding songs of women in the area.31 These songs, and other forms of recollection, indicate the uneven distribution both within of food the community and within the family. They also show how long-standing links between different geographical areas could be brought into play at times of crisis. Foremost among these links were marriage ties.

As things got worse and as local supplies of food became completely exhausted, people began looking further afield for places where they could obtain food, either with cash or in return for goods or labour. Men (and sometimes women) went off in groups to search for food in the Ngoni highland areas of Ntcheu and Dedza, in the highlands bordering M ozambique to the west, and in the Mulanje area to south-east. Many the of the men who went on these expeditions were making use of family ties in these areas. There was a long history, for instance, of Ngoni men migrating south for work and marrying in Blantyre district.32 So at a time of crisis these men went back to their own homes expecting, and usually getting, help from their relatives there. It was seen as a husband's duty to find food for wife and family, and his those men who did not do this were chided in the women's songs:

Iwe ndi mwamuna wanji

Wokhala pakhomo ndi azimayi

Amuna ku Mwanza awo

Nanga iwe, watani?

Nchito kugwira munchuni basi.

(What type of husband are you,

Staying at home with the women?

The other men are off to Mwanza now,

Why not you?

You just stay here and your only "work" Is to fondle women.)33

Men were aware of the praises they could earn from their wives' families if they succeeded in finding food for everyone. Women sang the praises of their husbands to their sceptical mothers, and the men replied realistically that they did not expect this new-found popularity to outlive the famine.34 The journey on foot to the highlands or to Mulanje was long and arduous, and some people died on the way. While travelling they lived on wild foods which they gathered in the bush, and of which there seems to have been a general communal knowledge. There were varieties of yam-like tubers, wild cassava, banana roots, edible grass, fungi and fruits,35 but collecting and processing these foods was time-consuming and had to be done with extreme care as many of them were fatally poisonous if not cooked correctly. The women and children left at home also collected these wild foods, and often grandmothers would take their grandchildren off into the bush to collect them. As time wore on, many people developed severely swollen limbs, and this they attributed to the eating of these wild foods. 36

When they got to the Ntcheu-Dedza highlands, the men were usually greeted with generosity from their relatives. They were given a meal to revive them and a place to stay, and then they either bought food if they had cash or worked for it. Sometimes they exchanged beads, plates and clothing for maize flour. In the early months of the famine they also sold their domestic livestock (mostly chickens and goats), but the supply of animals was quickly exhausted. In any case it is said that the people of Mwanza began to refuse to accept the

animals in exchange for grain because of their disturbing tendency of turning into snakes as soon as their owners had departed.37

Men bought food in varying quantities, at a price comparable to that paid by the urban workers of Blantyre and Limbe that is, 3s. for a 4 gallon tin. The demand was high and there was no bargaining. One man who had money remitted from a son working in Southern Rhodesia walked to Ntcheu and bought two bags (of 200 lbs. each) which lasted him and his family for about two months. He returned to Ntcheu several times duringt he year.38 Another man was a tailor whose business was naturally suffering with the famine, but who did have some money saved up. He walked to Ntcheu as well, diverging into the hills on the way to collect wild foods.39 One woman whose husband was insane joineda group of peoplet ravelling west to Neno and Mwanza. She had no money so she worked in peoples' gardens in order to earn a small basket of maize.40 Not everyone met with immediate sympathy in the areas in which they sought food, as one man recalled:

One day I went with my friends to look for food in Ntcheu, but when we got there a certain woman asked us rudely to "produce the serious famine for her to see", and after failing to produce it she told us to go back to Lirangwe and wrap the famine in big leaves and bring it to her!41

At home the women waited for their husbands to return, which they usually did at night so that their neighbours could not see how much food they had with them. But if the oral sources are to be believed, often the men did not return at all, but stayed away in their own homes until the famine was over, or married other wives in the areas to which they had gone for food. 1949 is thus remembered as the year of "many divorces", and this aspect of the famine features in many pounding songs:

Chaka chino tabvutika

Amuna akutileka maukwati

Titani ife njala-imeneyi?

(We have suffered this year,

Our men are divorcing us.

Oh what shall we do with this hunger?)42

Those marriages which survived t he faminew ere said to be "good and strong ones" which could outlive any disaster, but for many women the famine proved the fragile nature of marriage ties with men from a different area, and many of the songs sung by the women during the famine were critical of men and sceptical of marriage.43

For those women whose husbands were labour migrants in Southern Rhodesia or South Africa, the famine was also a test of their marriages. Some of these women were better off than most if their husbands sent regular remittances then they had a steady source of cash with which to buy food. But if their husbands sent nothing they had to rely on the help of relatives, and this tended to dry up as the famine progressed.44A s well as being remembereda s the year of divorces, 1949 is also recalled as a year of few marriages and few conceptions. Women did not conceive in this time, and this they attributed to a lack of desire for sexual intercourse (though a menorrhoea probably played a part).45 In one song a young woman laments the fact that she is without a child:

Mulera dzuwa

Ine ndilera dzuwa

Anzanga alera mwana.

(I am the nurse of the sun,

I am nursing the sun

While my friends are nursing babies.)46

Those babies who were born in 1949-50 were said to be sickly and weak, and nursing mothers were anxious that without enough food to feed themselves they would not have enough milk for their babies. One woman recalls how her milk supply becamei nsufficient to feed her three-month-old baby, and how she had to make her drink a thin porridge instead.47 But it was probably the small children who had already been weaned who suffered more than the babies, and their constant wailings were heard everywhere.48 Stories were told of how some mothers unable to quieten their children or to find food for them secretly murdered them, while others were simply abandoned along with the very old and the disabled:

Kaju kamwana kulira kuliramboe ee

Pakuti kulilira chelicheche

Kwagona mwana, kuswakwagona.

(I can hear the crying of the child,

He is crying continuously,

He is crying like a bird.

He has slept out there in the bush

Because he has nowhere else to sleep.)49

As the custom of ubombo50 progressively broke down, so increasingly each family, and then each individual, paid attention only to its own food supply. Families ate only inside their houses, not outside and in public as was usual. Children had to be kept inside at meal times, otherwise they would go and beg at every house in the village. It was recognized that everyone had to look after their own immediate family's problems, but it seems that this situation was nevertheless regarded with some embarrassment. In general it was the women who had the strongest ties at home and who were more or less obliged to stay there and care for the children.

However, some women decided that the only way to obtain food was through prostitution in the towns. According to male informants, many women from the famine-stricken areas came to Blantyre and Limbe and slept with any man who could assure them of a meal. To some extent this evidence is reinforced by the women's own songs which associate the famine with prostitution.51

For many months, then, people survived on a combination of food earning strategies. In some places a small harvest of sweet potatoes relierred the situation in May and June, and those who had planted the fast-maturing variety of cassava could harvest something of this in August and September. More importantly, however, the government finally opened maize distribution centres in the ares, from September onwards.52 One of these was at the Lunzu Native Tobacco Board market, and another was near the railway station at Lirangwe. Here people could buy a ration of maize at the price of 3d. per pound. This distribution system is well remembered by people in the area. A few of them had experienced something similar but on a smaller scale in 1922, but for most this kind of government intervention was a complete novelty. The food distribution system was organized with military precision and relied heavily on the village headmen to ensure that the supply was fairly distributed. Each village headman was allotted certain days of the week when he should come to the centre with his people. Each family head was allowed to buy maize to the value of 5s. per family, though some people managed to get around this regulation and secured more. People who were completely without cash (usually women) had to work for food by collecting large stones which were then used in the building of a road to the railway line. The really old and distitute were given free food, but these issues were kept to the minimum.53 One regulation strictly adhered to, and well remembered by the women, was that all married people had to pay for the food. This applied equally to women whose husbands had abandoned them or whose husbands were migrants but did not send any money home. Most families if they contained more than one adult member used the government distribution as one arm of their overall food-procuring strategy. Urban workers would continue to get food from their employees while their wives queued for food at the government centres; other men would continue to walk to Ntcheu, Dedza) Neno or Mulanje while their wives worked on the road to earn food.

According to official reports, it was around December 1949 and January1950 that people in the Lirangwe-Lunzu area began to show signs of severe malnutrition. People had been suffering from famine oedema for some time, but now there seemed to be a sudden and severe d terioration in their condition. Both oral and writtens ources confirm that it was the very old and the very young who suffered most notably, and oral accounts also mention pregnant women as being vulnerable Many old people were abandoned and either died in their homes or collapsed on the way to the distribution centres.54 The oral accounts of both men and women indicated that it was men who lost most body weight and who died most often of starvation

(though there is no confirmation of this in the written sources).55 Male informants say that men died most often because of the burden of anxiety placed upon them by the responsibility they had to feed their families but some women say that it was those men who had remained sexually active who died.56 Men were also thought vulnerable to dying at the mere thought of food. Several accounts exist of how men would put stones in a pan and pretend that they were frying dried maize, and then would die at the sight of the stones in the pan.57

In January, feeding camps were set up to deal with the worst cases of malnutrition. One of these was on the tobacco estate of a European named Binson, near Lirangwe. Here the old and destitute were kept behind barbed wire and fed twice a day on thin porridge. Their faces were haggard and their eyes protruding, and they all suffered from matenda a njala ("the famine disease"). They wore labels around their necks ("like dogs that have been vaccinated against rabies"), and the woman in charge of feeding them made them dance when they had eaten "so that the food would reach all parts of their bodies".58 The really bad cases were taken to the Blantyre mission hospital for further" food treatment"(. "The disease was hunger and the medicine was porridge so the one who gave out the porridge was known as 'doctor"'.)59

In the meantime the more able-bodied were working hard to weed their gardens. Some people had obtained maize seeds and cassava cuttings free from the government, but most preferred to find their own "local" seeds, and travelled distances to obtain these. Some people got around the suspension on beer-brewing and held work parties to ensure that a maximum area was cultivated. Women complained that they were too weak to both cultivate their gardens and to pound the relief maize (by now no one had money for maize milling).

In some distribution centrest he government began to issue ready-milled maize in the form of ngaiwa when they realized that some women were simply unable to pound.60

At the same time the government was attempting to enforce more strictly the conservation measures which it had introduced into the area in the 1940s. The assumption was made that people would be more willing to follow these now that they had experienced the famine. This link was not so clear in the minds of those who had endured the famine, but the famine and the more strictly enforced measures are directly linked in many peoples' memories.Some people viewed the fines and arrests of people who infringed the laws as being direct punishments for having caused the government so much trouble with the famine. The fact that a 2s. 6d. "famine tax" was levied on all adult males reinforced this impression that the government was punishing them.61

The 1950 harvest was a good one despite the physical weakness of many people at the critical times and despite the difficulties of obtaining seeds. But many people died when they began eating "real" food again. As one person put it: "this was because their bodies had got used to 'bad food' so that when they started eating good food againt his caused reactions in their bodies, with fatal results".62 The situation was complicated by a smallpox epidemic which had started in the highlands of Ntcheu, where many people from the south had gone to get food. The medical authorities found it difficult to control the outbreak because of the extreme mobility of the population during the famine. However, according to oral reports, people from the south were well acquainted with smallpox and of their own accord many went to be vaccinated, so that when the disease reached the famine area its results were not severe.63

By the next planting season (1950-1) people were in a better position to respond to the lessons of the famine, though in many cases their responses were conditioned by government policies and regulations, as well as by the communal memory of this famine and previous ones. Most people apparently planted more cassava and sought out varieties which they had sometimes not grown before. The Lomwe people, whose history was marked by famine, were experts on cassava, and some of them returned to Mozambique to collect cuttings of the varieties which were particularly useful in times of drought.

How the societya daptedi tself back to "normality" after the famine we do not know. There are stories (told by women) of how husbands who had fled during the famine returned afterwards to attempt reconciliation with their wives, but were uniformly turned away. There are songs too which indicate that even during the breakdown of social norms at the height of the famine people were half-conscious of how their behaviour might be judged afterwards. One song warns girls to behave with propriety during the time of hunger, or afterwards they might face harsh judgment:

Zinyankhulani bwino asungwana

Nsalayi idzapita dede

Tiwone kunyada kwanu

(Be careful girls when speaking.

This famine will one day end,

And then we will see [recall] your pride.)64

In this second section I analyse the available background written evidence in an attempt to construct a "Sen-type" model of the famine. I then consider how far this model accords with the evidence from oral sources.

The immediate post-war period in Nyasaland was one of rapid economic change and the marked growth of African capitalist activity. In the area affected by the famine, long-term changes such as the growth of population combined in the post-war period with the increase in wage employment (both at home and abroad), the enforcement of governmenct onservation measures, and the increased circulation of money in the villages. We certainly need to look beyond purely agricultural factors if we are to understand the nature of the

famine in Blantyre district, because by the late 1940s a majority of households there relied for their income on a combination of wage earning and agricultural production, and sometimes on what would now be termed "informal sector" activity.

About half of Blantyre district was occupied by privately owned estates, and this had been the case since the massive land alienation of the late nineteenth century. Although by the 1940s there were about seventy estates in all in the Blantyre district, the greater part of this land was owned by two companies the British Central Africa Company and the Blantyre and East Africa Company. Both companies had histories of inertia and non-exploitation of their vast land reserves.65 However, by the mid-1930s they were beginning to attempt greater control of the African residents on their land, and in particular they were enforcing more strictly the rental obligations of their tenants. An agreement dating from 1943 between one estate and its tenants indicates that these obligations, when enforced, could be very demanding.66 When they were not complied with, the estate owners could apply to the District Commissioner to evict tenants. In 1937, for instance, the British Central Africa Company made application to evict 1,200 tenants for failure to fulfil obligations. Of this number, only 150 finally received eviction orders,67 but the threat of eviction was enough to discourage further settlement on privately owned land. Successive District Commissioners reported that this insecurity led to congestion on Native Trust Land (the unalienated, customary land), where holding sizes were becoming progressively smaller in the 1940s.68

Another feature of the 1940s was the growth of the twin towns of Blantyre and Limbe, and the increase in the number of public works in the area. This growth was allied to the post-war "tobacco boom", which resulted not only in the expansion of estate tobacco production, but also in generally higher levels of investment in urban property. For the people of Blantyre district this meant that there was an increased demand for labour in the area both skilled and unskilled and wage-levels rose. To some extent, then, the increasing congestion on Native Trust Land around Blantyre was compensated for by an increase in employment opportunities. According to the Labour Report for 1949, in March of that year there was a total of 67,630 people employed by European and Indian-run enterprises in the Southern Province, the vast majority of which were male labourers working in the tea and tobacco industries. The wages for unskilled labour had risen to an average of ?1. 2s. 6d. a month (inclusive of a food allowance), compared with the average wage in 1939 of 6s. to 10s.69 Hand in hand with this growth in wage employment went the growth of craft and service industries-this group included butchers, dairymen, traders in fish and vegetables, knife-makers, charcoal burners, lime burners (supplying the building industry), carpenters, canteen owners, shoe-repairers and, most importantly, women beer brewers.70 Beer-brewing became a major industry around Blantyre in the 1940s, and an important means by which families residing on congested Native Trust Land could make up some of their budget deficit. For although wages had risen fast in the 1940s, so had the urban cost of living. Calculations made in 1947 estimated that in the years between 1939 and 1947 the cost of living for an African urban resident had risen by 100 per cent, unless he was in a position to provide most of his food supplies, in which case the estimate was of a 50-60 per cent rise.71 This fact would help explain why in the course of the 1940s labour emigration from Blantyre district to South Africa and Southern Rhodesia increased very markedly.72 As estate owners effectively prevented their male tenants from emigrating (the penalty was family eviction), we must assume that most of the emigrating men came from Native Trust Land. This leaves us with a picture of Native Trust Land around Blantyre which can be summed up as one of increasing land congestion, increasing low-paid wage employment of men, and increasing long-term male absence.

Living in the same areas, however, were the families of a different economic group consisting of skilled employees (artisans, teachers, clerks and the like), and the wealthier of the African self-employed craftsmen and businessmen. This was a relatively small group. We have no figures for the self-employed, but in 1949 of the total of 83,054 people employed by European and Indian enterprises in the whole of the Protectorate, some 4,694 were classified as clerks and artisans. Though a small group, it was an important one and becoming more significant both economically and politically in the 1940s.What little evidence we have points to the fact that members of this group had larger than average landholdings, as well as higher than average earnings from their employment or trade.73 These were the employers of ganyu labour, who do not show up in the official statistics. There are a number of reasons for thinking that the fortunes of this group rose during the immediate post-war period. Firstly, the rise in tobacco prices meant that the earnings of some Africans had increased (as well as their own earnings if they were themselves involved in tobacco production). This money in African hands from cash-crop production was combined with the earnings of disbanded soldiers who had fought in the war, creating what many Europeans saw as a glut of money in African hands. As imports were restricted and expensive, in the post war period a much smaller proportion of this wealth than normal was spent on imported cloth and other goods. The government concluded that money was actually being hoarded in mattresses and under floorboards. When Phyllis Deane investigated this question, however,she came to the conclusion that the money was being circulated, but in the African sector where there was an increased velocity of trade.74 Unable to buy imported items, people instead spent what cash they had on building better houses and eating a more varsed diet hence the growth in the African building industry and the growth in the service sector in Blantyre. European officials also remarked on the increasing number of African traders who owned motorized transport and maize mills, and who thus capitalized on the increasing demand for food from the growing urban or peri-urban population in the south.

The picture that seems to emerge when one looks at the changes of the 1940s is one of increasing differentiation among the African population of Blantyre district. If we now return to the famine, we should be able to see how these different groups fared.

The first group were the upper ranks of the skilled workers and businessmen. These personally suffered very little during the famine. Not only did they have cash and other assets at their disposal, but they also had privileged access to food supplies, either because they were themselves food traders, or because they received food from their employers at very favourable rates. Some members of this group undoubtedly profited from the famine.

The second group to emerge consisted of the smaller self-employed traders and artisans. Most members of this group must have experienced a drastic fall in income-as the famine took hold fewer and fewer people had money to spend on luxury foods and on services such as launderings, hoe-repairing, tailoring and so on. Furthermore, as these people were self-employed they did not have the easy access to food supplies enjoyed by urban employees of government, missions and European and Indian-owned businesses. Whether or not they suffered personally in the famine would depend on whether they had cash savings to spend on food.

The third group were the families of men in low-paid wage employment in the European and Indian sectors of the economy-such people as agricultural labourers, tobacco-graders, road labourers, and so on. These people were drawn from the Native Trust Land around Blantyre. In general they would not have had large holdings of land or significant savings. Many of their wives will have been part employed as beer-brewers, but this aspect of the family income came to a halt during the famine. Some of this group will have been laid off work when the famine struck and thus left to fend for themselves, but the evidence indicates that many of them, along with the resident tenants on estates, were either fed free or given privileged access to food supplies by their employers. Thus although this was generally a group of disadvantaged people, during the famine the fact of their employment in the "formal" sector of the economy carried a definite advantage.

The fourth group, and the one which is least visible in the sources, consisted of those households whose members were involved both in cultivating their own plots of land and in doing ganyu labour for more fortunate peasant households or craftsmen in the area. These people suffered during the famine from not being employed in the formal sector of the economy, and thus not eligible for the help which those employed there received. What is more, their employment by other African households must have ended fairly early on in the famine. One suspects that many members of this group ended up as recipients of free government issues, but only after many of them had died or suffered greatly.

This, then, would be the classification of the population emerging from the written sources, and to some extent it accords with information from oral testimony. The first group the wealthier traders and businessmen and skilled employees emerge as the avaricious mill owners and self-confessed hoarders of the oral testimonies. The second group the self-employed craftsmen and smaller traders are also represented in the testimonies as in the case of the tailor who shut up his business and used his savings to buy food in Ntcheu. The third group-those families of men in low-paid employment in the European and Indian sectors of the economy - also emerge clearly in the oral sources as having benefited from a "legitimate" foothold in the privileged urban sector, with easier access to food supplies. The fourth group, and probably the largest of all, is the least well-defined in oral sources they are simply "the poor" of every village, and as such have little to distinguish them.

But a further consideration of the oral sources shows that there are drawbacks to the model constructed above. To begin with, women are virtually invisible in a classification based on written sources. These sources assume that all women can be classified and identified with their husbands. The oral evidence, however, shows clearly that many women were abandoned during the famine and that others were already living in households without resident husbands. Some but not all of these female-headed households constituted a group which was very susceptible to starvation during the famine. Most women who earned cash did so in normal times through their involvement in beer-brewing or ganyu labour, and both of these activities came to an end with the famine. If they had young children then their mobility was severely restricted, making it less possible for them to travel in search of food. The oral testimonies emphasize that whether or not women and their families suffered often depended on unquantifiable factors of marital breakdown, affection, reliability and so on. For instance, some of the women whose husbands were labour migrants were relatively privileged in having cash remittances at their disposal. Those women whose husbands sent nothing, however, were among the more vulnerable groups in the community when the famine struck. Also emerging from the oral sources is the fact that for biological and social reasons the elderly and the very young weremore likely to suffer than other age-groups. Of course the degree of hardship faced by these groups would depend to some extent on the economic classification of the households to which they belonged so that, for instance, the young children of a businessman were less likely to die than those of a low-paid labourer but it is also the case that social attitudes and family relations had a part to play here. The oral evidence shows conclusively that divisions within the family could be just as significant as divisions within the community as a whole. The evidence on marriage patterns highlights this issue most vividly. Any classification of the population which attempted to predict which groups would suffer during a famine would certainly have to take these factors into account. In other words, if Sen's "entitlement theory" is going to be used practically to define the target groups for famine relief in a given society, then "entitlements" based on marriage, on age and sex need to be fed into the model along with those based on production or exchange. The politics of the family may emerge as being an important factor in defining who suffers in any food shortage.

Also emerging from the oral sources is the fact that both long-and short-term adaptations to food shortage could actually affect the course of a famine. The evidence indicates that the twentieth-century pattern of marriage ties betwen the Ngoni of the central highlands and the Nyanja, Yao and Lomwe communities of Blantyre district provided some kind of "insurance policy" for those communities. Presumably the validity of these ties was strengthened by the experience of the 1949 famine. But the women's recollections also show that there were conflicts inherent in such marriages which could come to the fore during a crisis. While on the whole the people of Blantyre district benefited during the famine from the policy of "out-marriage", for some women the famine simply proved the fragility of marriage with men of a different ethnic group.75 These particular marriage ties were a product of patterns of employment which had their origins in the early colonial period, although the practice of "out-marrriage in" general was also a feature of societies in this area in the nineteenth century.A more recent modification to the nature of marriage ties, however, had come about with the growth of labour emigration from the Southern Province in the 1940s. This quite sudden growth in the absence of men for long periods may well have caused a disequilibrium in family and social relations which came to light during the famine. Clearly further research needs to be done on the nature of labour migration in the 1940s and its impact on these societies, but it is probably fair to say from the evidence that the famine struck at women more severely because of this recent change in the economic orientations of the area.

Some "responses" to the famine were conditioned by the actions and expectations of the colonial state. Several accounts show that people actively petitioned the government for famine relief via their headmen and chiefs. Although generally the famine reinforced the structures of order and authority, it did occasionally and briefly place colonial authority in a hazardous position. Rumours of cannibalism by Europeans were common, and there was a wave of petty theft in 1949 and 1950 which remained largely untouched by the small police force of Nyasaland. The police had no food with which to feed prisoners, so even when a culprit was caught he was usually released.

Adjustments after the 1949 famine were severely affected by government action. For instance, some of the "traditional" agricultural responses were inhibited by current policy. The one crop which survived the drought well was the perennial ratooned sorghum, and one would have expected the cultivation of this crop to have spread after the famine as a result of this. However, there was a prohibition placed on its cultivation by the Department of Agriculture, which was worried about its role in spreading crop disease. Likewise, during the drought those people who had wet dimba land and gardens along the river banks had been able to harvest something but river-bank cultivation was also being actively prevented by the Department of Agriculture, so that further expansion of cultivation into wet areas was severely restricted. In 1950 the government doubled the producer price for maize, thus encouraging people to grow a surplus if they had the land available. However, this action also meant that the urban employees who had been protected against the greatest hardships of the famine now had to pay a higher price for their maize. The already existent pattern of spreading one's risks between a rural and an urban livelihood must have been reinforced by the experience of the famine and the price changes afterwards.

In conclusion, a background knowledge of the economic divisions existing in Blantyre district in the 1940s allows us to make a Sen-type classification of "entitlements" which would in part predict which sections of the population suffered most in 1949. The group which emerges as most disadvantaged in this model is that consisting of households which even in a normal year are not self-sufficient in food, who are short of land, and who make up their food deficit by performing casual labour for other peasant farmers. These households would be the first to suffer in a situation in which the local demand for labour fell drastically and when the price of foodstuffs was high. Unlike those households with employees in the "formal" sector, these casual labouring households were not cushioned by privileged access to food supplies or the paternalism of employers. The oral evidence, however, shows that there are added dimensions to the pattern of suffering. Firstly, it draws attention to the fact that in all groups some family members may have suffered disproportionately, and the poorer the group, the greater the disproportion likely. Both young children and the old suffered more than other age groups. In part this can be seen as a biological rather than social factor, but it is clear from the testimonies that not only were they less able physically to withstand food shortage, but they were also the first groups to be abandoned by their kin. Secondly, the oral evidence draws attention to the plight of women in the famine-to the fact that there were large numbers of women who were without the economic support of a husband even before the famine, and many more who found themselves in this position in the course of the famine. Again, the poorer the household, the more likely a husband was to abandon it, but this phenomenon cannot be fully understood without an understanding of marriage and kin ties in the area.

It is clear that the society's immediate and long-term responses to food shortage did affect the course of the famine, and in ways not predicted by the colonial authorities. In particular, the activation of long-distance kin ties and the communal knowledge of famine foods delayed the necessity for famine relief by about six months. On the other hand, the action of government in feeding the urban population and in eventually providing relief for rural families must have been fed into the community's own "model" of famine and would have conditioned many families into expecting the government to take on this role in the future.

There is no doubt that the 1949 famine was an event structured by the conditions of the post-war period in this area. By placing emphasis on the role of family relations and social structure I am not aiming to deny the role of economic analysis, but rather to indicate that these social aspects of famine are an integral part of the economic analysis.

Family and kin relations were also affected by the conditions of the 1940s by land shortage, labour patterns, government agricultural policies, wage levels and commodity prices as well as by older and less tangible factors such as marital relations and obligations, and attitudes to children.

The story of 1949 in Nyasaland shows that if we are going to understand the impact of famine we must see it in the context of the whole web of economic and social relations, from the level of the household to that of the state.

University of Cambridge Megan Vaughan

Footnotes

* I wish to acknowledge in particular the contribution made to fieldwork by John Yesaya and Humphrey Chindenga and gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Research and Publications Committee of the University of Malawi. This article was first presented as a paper to the American African Studies Association Conference in Boston, December 1983. I am indebted to the following people for their detailed comments and suggestions: William Beinart, Andrew Butcher, John Iliffe, Terence Ranger, Amartya Sen and Lan White.

1. John Seaman and Julius Holt, "Markets and Famines in the Third World", Disasters iv (1980); Pierre Spitz, Drought and Self-Provision in (working paper, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Geneva,1980). For an analysis of these and other reappraisals of famine, see Peter Cutler," Some Current Arguments on the Causes of Famine" (paper presented by the Nutrition Policy Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, to the UNICEF/FAO/NPU/ICAR Workshop on Nutrition in Agriculture Hassar, India, Apr. 1982).

2 Josue de Castro,The Geopolitics of Hunger (New York, 1977edn.), p. 63.

3 Michael F. Lofchie, "Political and Economic Origins of African Hunger", 1.Mod.African Studies, xiii (1975), p p. 551-67; Nicole Ball, "Understanding the Causes of African Famine", Zl. Mod. African Studies, xiv (1976), pp. 517-23; Lionel Cliffe, "Feudalism, Capitalism and Famine in Ethiopia" Rev. African Polit. Econ., i no. 1 (1974); Deborah Fahy Bryceson," Changes in Peasant Food Production and Food Supply in Relation to the Historical Development of Commodity Production in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Tanganyika" 1, . Peasant Studies, vii (1980).

4 A. K. Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford, 1981). Sen's analysis of famine has been applied by other writers on Indian history. For example, Ajit Kumar Ghose," Food Supply and Starvation: A Study of Famines with Reference to the lndian Subcontinent "Oxford Econ. Papers, s YXXiV (1982); Elizabeth Oughton," The Maharashtra Droughts of 1970-73: An Analysis of Scarcity", Oxford Bull. Econ. and Statistics, xliv (1980).

5. A. K. Sen, "The Battle to Get Food", New Society (13 Oct. 1983). Sen has paid further attention to this issue in his "Economics and the Family"( public lecture in the Distinguished Speaker Series of the Asian Development Bank, Manila, 15 Sept. 1983).

6. The oral evidence used in this article comprises nearly two hundred interviews conducted in March-June1983 in the Blantyre, Chiradzulu and Zomba districts of southern Malawi. These interviews were conducted by the author and aided by students of Chancellor College, University of Malawi. Interviews were concentrated in areas known to have been severely affected by the 1949 famine, but within these areas selection of interviewees was random. Unless otherwise stated, all interviews cited for the purposes of the present article were conducted in the Blantyre district.

7. Interviews with J. Manyazi, Gulani village, Traditional Authority (hereafter T.A.) Chigaru; Village Headman Nyani, Nyani village, T.A. Malemia, Zomba district; Christine Somba, Somba village, T.A. Lundu.

8 Koke, kolole,

Koke, kolole,

Kamtambo mvula pano sibwera

Koke.

(Pull, pull hard, pull the clouds,

Why does the rain not come?

Pull, pull.)

Makolo anapita kale

Tatani ife wanu wanu

Tikhululukireni chonde! chonde!

Tivereni ife chifundo

Kodi mukufuna tife

Tumizani mvula.

(Our dead fathers

What have we done?

Forgive us, please, please!

(n. 8 con2.)

Have mercy on us.

Do you want us to die?

Please, please!

Send us rain.)

Sung by Bekana Saimon and friends, Masulani village, T.A. Chigaru. Throughout this essay I use the texts of songs as historical evidence. There are a number of problems with the use of this kind of information.The men and women who sang the songs claimed that they had been composed in 1949 and referred specifically to that famine, but of course there is no other evidence to prove this, and it is probable that many of these songs originated either before or after that date. It became apparent in the course of fieldwork that the survival of these songs was very uneven within the areas covered. One woman explained that the songs survive in areas where famine is a "live" issue, as in her home village where severe food shortages had been experienced in the three years preceding the interview. It is likely, then, that where these songs have survived they have done so in modified form, changing over the years to reflect current conditions. In other places they seem to have fallen out of usage. In part this might reflect a real increase in food security in these areas, but it also reflects the political rhetoric of Dr. Kamuzu Banda and the Malawi Congress Party, which holds that famine is an issue confined to the colonial past. Some new songs about the 1949 famine are sung by women at political meetings and their content is rather different to that of the other songs. The following one, for example, is often sung by women of the Malawi Congress Party:

Timagona nenjo

Musanabwele Ngwazi

' Forty-nine, ' forty-nine, ' forty-nine,

Anzathu anatisiya.

(We slept without food

Before your arrival, Ngwazi [Dr. Banda].

'Forty-nine, 'forty-nine, 'forty-nine,

Our relatives and friends left us.)

Many of the songs collected are women's pounding songs, sung by two or more women while they pound maize in mortars. As will become apparent, many of these songs are critical of men and concerned with strains in the family system. In these cases it is sometimesv ery difficult to decide whether the issue of famine is the major concern or whether it is being used as a vehicle through which to express women's feelings on these other aspects of their lives. Despite all these problems, I have decided to make cautious use of the songs as they appear to reveal peoples' own perceptions of famine in a very direct way. Such evidence is completely lacking in the limited written reports which exist for the 1949 famine.

9 Interviews with Wilfred Kampazaza, Mananan viillage, T .A. Machinjiri; Village Headman Somba, Somba village, T.A. Lundu; Ida Jemusi, Mtendera village,T .A. Kapeni. Some people felt that the famine was related to the war, which had recently ended: "Famine came only a shortwhile after countless people had died in the Second World War, and some said that the drought had come because God was angry about the War". Interview with Rabson Frank, Gulani village, T.A. Chigaru.

10 Grey hair, bald heads, bent backs and brickmakers feature in many of the testimonies, including interviews with Herbert Peter, John Kwadya village, T.A. Kapeni; Jameson Chisala, Kamlenga village, T.A. Machinjiri; Mai Nambewe Joni, Chitima village,T .A. Kapeni;Village Headman Gulani, Gulani village,T .A. Chigaru.

11 Interview with Lapken Moses Kanyenga, Padoko village, T .A. Machinjiri.

12 Interviews with Jameson Chisala, Kamlenga village, T.A. Machinjiri; Mai Mambewe Joni, Chitima village, T.A. Kapeni.

13 Interview with Virginia Yotana Nansato, Kaludzi village, T.A. Machinjiri.

14 Interview with Victor Misonje, Malanga village, T.A. Kapeni.

15 The advantages of these dimba gardens were mentioned in several interviews. For example, Dawa Somba, Somba village,T.A. Lundu:" Sweet potatoes and maize grown along the Lirangwe river survived, but nothing survived in ordinary gardens"; Mai Malita G lani, Gungulu village, T A. Chigaru: "None of my crops survived, but some peoplew ho had dimbas along the Lirangwe river were better off".

16 Interview with Michael Pote, Kandio village, T.A. Kapeni.

17 Interview with Dorothy Kabichi, Mpira village, T.A. Kapeni.

18 Government concern about the possible disruptive effects of food shortages in urban areas is a theme in the history of famine and food riots in Europe. See John Walter and Keith Wrightson, "Dearth and the Social Order in Early Modern England", Past and Present, no. 71 (May 1976), pp. 22-42

19 Interview with Mai Nambewe Joni, Chitima village, T.A. Kapeni.

20 Interview with Mayani Ngolo, Chitima village, T.A. Kapeni.

21 Interview with Beyadi Misomali, Malunga village,T .A. Kapeni.

22 Interview with Thomson Chapimpha, Gulani village, T.A. Chigaru.

23 Interview with Layiti Rabson, Malunga village, T.A. Kapeni.

24 Interview with W. Kumpanda Lunzu Trading Centre.

25 Interview with Adam Diliza, Machinjiri village,T .A. Machinjiri. Ganyu is casual labour performed for other peasant households, usually in the form of piece-work.

26 Interview with K. Kalemba, Lunzu Trading Centre.

27 Interview with Mai Malita Gulani, Gungulu village, T.A. Chigaru.

28 Interviews with John Njoka, Machinjiri village,T .A. Machinjiri, Mrs. Nkupumula, Chimpira village, T.A. Machinjiri; Village Headman Somba, Somba village, T.A. Lundu; Beyadi Misomali, Malunga village, T.A. Kapeni.

29 Interview with J. Manyazi, Gulani village, T.A. Chigaru.

30 Both are apparently features of famine in widely different areas and circumstances:

Richard Pankhurst, "The Great Ethiopian Famine of 1888-1892: A New Assessment", 71. ffist. Medicine, xxi (1966); Derrick B. Jelliffe and Patrice Jelliffe, "The Effects of Starvation on the Function of the Family and of Society", in G. Blix, Y. Hofvander and Bo Valquist (eds.), Famine: A Symposium Dealing with Nutrition and Relief Operations Times of Disaster (Swedish Nutrition Foundation, David J. Campbell and David D . Stockholm, 1971); Trechter", Strategies for Coping with Food Consumption Shortage in the Mandara Mountains Region of North and Medicine, xvi (1982), pp. Cameroon."Social Science 2117-27.

31. See n. 8 above for a description of these.

32. Most societies in southern Malawi are organized around a system and matrilocal marriage. matrilineal inheritance The basic unit of society among the Nyanja, Yao and Lomwe people who inhabit Blantyre district is the sorority which usually comprises group, or mbumba group, a group of sisters, their husbands and children," guarded" by male relative, commonly an elder brother or who married into maternal uncle. The Ngoni men families in Blantyre district from the 1890s onwards came from a society which observed patrilineal rules and where patrilocal Evidence for the prevalence of marriage was the norm. these marriage links, and for the tensions which arose in such marriages, can be found in the records of the thtue rn of the Blantyre District Court, from century onwards: Malawi National Archives ( hereafter Blantyre District Court, BA 1, 1909-36. M.N.A.),

33 Sung by Mrs. F. Michael and friends, Kandio village, T.A. Kapeni.

34 Paja mumamuda mkamwini

Kati ndiwoyipa

Nanga suyu wandipulumutsa ku njalayi

Nanga suyu wandisunga ine

Kundipedzeza chakudya.

([A young womana ddressingh er mother:]

You were saying that your son-in-law

Was a bad man.

But he is the one who has saved

Me from hunger.

He is the one who has kept me,

Finding me food.)

Sung by Mrs. F. Michael and friends, Kandio village, T.A. Kapeni.

Pamudzi pano mundikonda

Chifukwa cha njalayi

Koma ikatha

Mudzizena zambiri.

([A man addressingh is wife's relations:]

You in this village, you love me now

Because of the famine,

Because I brought food here.

But when it ends,

You will start saying many things.)

Sung by Mr. Mubulala, Chikande village, T.A. Kuntaja.

35 The following is a list of the most frequently mentioned of these famine foods: nthudza, matondo and mapoza wild fruits; mapeta and chilazi varieties of wild yam which had to be cooked and washed several times if they were to be safe to eat; gugu a kind of grass, similar to sorghum; matomolo-fruits which look a little like mangoes; dzikolekole-roots, a bit like potatoes; mphandula and kalongonda wild beans; bamboo roots and banana roots pounded and left to dry into flour; green mangoes cooked into a liquid.

36 "Famineo edema" is a common feature of food shortage and was almost certainly not due to the eating of these foods. See A . Keys et al., The Biology of Human Starvation, 2 vols. (Minneapolis, 1950), ii, The Edema Problem.

37 Interview with Bekana Saimon, Masulani village, T.A. Chigaru.

38 Nyasaland migrants in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa heard quickly about the famine taking place at home. An article on the subject was published in the Communist-backed publication, the Guardian, in South Africa.The article accused the Nyasaland government of negligence. Henceforth the Nyasaland Public Relations Officer attempted to censor all reports of the famine leaving the country: M.N.A., MP 12324," Famine Precautions, 1949". Some men interviewed had themselves been migrants at the time of the famine: Donald M pira of Mpira village, T.A. Kapeni, was working in Southern Rhodesia at the end of 1948 and received many letters from relatives asking for money to buy maize; Michael Phiyo of Chitima village, T.A. Kapeni, was working in the mines in South Africa and also heard stories of the famine at home; Flackson Madyera of Somba village, T.A. Lundu, was working as a cook in Southern Rhodesia at the time: "I used to receive insistent letters, especially from my mother, asking me to send money because they had no food. At first I thought this was a lie and did nothing, then a friend who had come back from holiday in Nyasaland said that there was terrible suffering at home and advised me to send money without delay".

39 Interview with Dawa Somba, Somba village, T.A. Lundu.

40 Interview with Mai Malita Gulani, Gungulu village, T.A. Chigaru.

41 Interview with Rabson Frank, Gulani village, T.A. Chigaru.

42 Sung by Mrs. F. Kamowa, Mbera village, T.A. Kapeni. See also many interviews with women, including: S. Ganet, Kandio village, T.A. Kapeni; Agnes Siwetela, Nkawajika village, T.A. Machinjiri (whose husband left her during the famine and never returned).

43 For example:

Wakwatiwa ndi kamnyamata

Kodya nkasiya

Chiri kwathu chingupiti

Ngati aphika achimana.

(You are married to a young man

Who eats and leaves some food on the plate.

But my husband is different. He eats up the whole plate of food

Like a dog

As if he won't eat tomorrow.)

Chikado cha amunanga, chikado eee

EEE ijeremani

Mwamuna chiwiri sindimfuna

Ndifuna wandekha

Nkati kasinja nandiyamika

Mzungu ayi

Ndifuna mwana mngeleli

Wogona mmatilesi, chitseko panulosi

Eeee, eee, ijeremani.

(I don't need a man with two wives.

I want mine only

So that when I pound

He must thank me.

Neither do I need any European.

But I would like an Englishman

Who sleeps on a mattress

In a house with a nice door

But not a German.)

Sung by Mrs. F. Kamowa, Mbera village, T.A. Kapeni.

44 Interviews with Mrs. Chomboko, Mpira village, T.A. Lunzu, whose husband was in South Africa at the time and sent her money regularly; Mrs. Nabanda, Gomu village,T .A. Machinjiri, whose three sons sent her money from South Africa; Mrs. Nandauka, Somba village, T.A. Lundu.

45 The role of amenorrhoeian bringing about a fall in the rate of conception during famines is now well documented for Europe in the twentieth century, and there is evidence to show that it was also a factor in seventeenth-century famines: E . Le Roy Ladurie," Amenorrheain Time of Famine, Seventeenth to Twentieth Century", in E. Le Roy Ladurie (ed.), The Tetntoty of the Historian, trans. Ben and Sian Reynolds (Hassocks, 1979),p p. 255-73. A decline in libido and a higher incidence of miscarriage are other factors which commonly lower the birth rate during famine: Jelliffe, "Effects of Starvation"p, . 57.

46 Sung by Mrs. F. Michael, Kandio village, T.A. Kapeni.

47 Interview with Elizabeth Gomani, Malunga village, T.A. Kapeni. In the early stages of starvation human lactation appears to be little affected, but because of the relationship between lactation and psychological conditions, maternal anxiety can sometimes bring about the termination of lactation. Furthermore, on ee severe chronic malnutrition sets in, lactation declines and ceases: Jelliffe," Effects of Starvation" p, .56.

48 What written evidence we have confirms that young children suffered badly, as well as old people and nursing mothers. At Lirangwe in January 1950 the crowd awaiting famine relief included three or four hundred children, all in an advanced state of malnutrition, and some of whom were moribund. M.N.A., AFC 3/211, District Commissioner, Blantyre, to Provincial Commissioner, Southern Province, andProvincial Commissioner, Southern Province, to Chief Secretary, 17 Jan. 1950.

49 Sung by a group of women, Kandio village, T.A. Kapeni.

50 Ubombo is a word expressing the custom of people helping each other at times of trouble, such as dearth.

51 Ndigopita Limbe

Ndikakwere bus

Makwacha ndine ndemwe

Makonyora, aye makonyora

Lilongwe makonyora

Limbe makonyora

Blantyre makonyora

Salisbury makonyora.

(I must go to Limbe

And board a bus.

My body will pay the fare.

It will do, it will do.

In Lilongwe, my body will do,

In Limbe it will do,

In Blantyre it will do

And in Salisbury, it will produce money.)

Sung by a group of women, Kandio village, T.A. Kapeni.

52 M.N.A., AFC 7/2/1, "Memo on Famine Relief, May 1950".

53 M.N.A., AFC 3/1/l) "Feeding of Aged and Infirmed who are Destitute".

54 M.N.A., AFC 312/1, District Commissioner, Blantyre, to Provincial Commissioner, Southern Province,30 Jan. 1950:; ;The physical condition of the people buying at Lirangwe Food Distribution Centre continues to deteriorate. The old people, children and some nursing mothers are generally extremely emaciated and incapable of even light work. On 12th January, sixty people suffering from malnutrition or starvation are in hospitali n Blantyre. Of these, forty-three are from the areas of T.A. Lundu and Chigaru, and were admitted to hospital after having been seen at the Lirangwe Food Distribution Centre.There are three 'unknown' children who were found by the police wandering in the Blantyre area begging, and who were in a starving condition". See also n. 48 above.

55 Of the sixty people in hospital in Blantyre suffering from malnutrition in January 1950, only eleven were men: M.N.A., AFC 3/211.

56 Interviews with Walter Chotha, Nkama Xikvai llage, T.A. Machinjiri; Michael Pote, Kandiov illage,T .A. Kapeni; Ballon Kachere, Masulani village,T .A. Chigaru; Mrs. F. Kamowa, Mbera village,T .A. Kapeni. This evidence is difficult to interpret though research into psychological changes during starvation shows that "anxiety' may be related to infection and to the suppression of the body's own pain-relieving n energy-conserving substances (endorphins) J:. P. Carter," The Physiology of Fasting, Famine, Starvation and Stress", in J. P. Carter( ed.), Famine in Africa: Proceedings of the Conference of a Working Group on Famine in Africa, Kinshasa3, 'anuaty 1980 (Oxford, 1982), pp. 19-20.

57 Interview with Salima, Masulani village, T.A. Kapeni.

58 It is difficult to know how literally to interpret this widespread story. Certainly there was a young European woman( probably a Red Cross volunteer) who is well remembered for her harshness in maintaining order in the food queues. Interviews with Dorothy Kabichi, Mpira village, T.A. Kapeni (who worked in the relief camp); Mrs. Dorofe Jemusi, T .A. Machinjiri also a relief camp assistant; Christine Somba, Somba village, T.A. Lundu; Mrs. N. Mandauka, Somba village, T .A. Lundu( who remembers being slapped by the white lady at the distribution centre); Village Headman Gulani, Gulani village, T .A. Chigaru ( "On my way to Lunzu every morning I saw hundreds of people going to the centre. My mother used to tell me that they were whipped in the queue by adona").

59 Interview with Anderson Fred, Malunga village, T.A. Kapeni.

60 M.N.A., AFC 3/2/1, Provincial , Southern Province, to Chief Secretary, 17 Jan. 1950.

61 Interview with Nabanda Gomu, T.A. Machinjiri. "This was the time when agricultural officials enforced new systems of farming box ridges and bunds were to be made by force. People took it as a sort of punishment.Those who failed to follow the system were arrested, beaten and charged in the traditional courts. Those who were imprisoned were released aftera short time because they could not feed them".

62 Interview with Agnes Siwetala, Nkawajika village,T .A. Machinjiri.

63 Interview with Salome Alfred Solomon, Mthini village, T.A. Machinjiri. Famine and disease are closely linked in history. Many more people die from epidemic disease during or aftera famine than from actual starvation. To some extent the spread of disease is related to a decline in resistance among severely malnourished people, though some e xperts argue that it is more principally related to the increase in mobility

which usually accompanies famines: J elliffe," Effects of Starvation" p, . 58.

64 Sung by Bekana Saimon, Masulani village, T.A. Chigaru.

65 Official histories of both these companies were written by the Government Lands Officer in the 1940s.These histories stressed the fact that both companies' vast land reserves had remained largely unexploited until the mid-1930s.

66 M.N.A., LB 4/2/1, "Conditions on Estates,1941-51: Agreement between A . L. Bruce, Magomero, and Tenants". Under this agreement a tenant( who might be a man or a married woman) had to pay an annual rent of 12s. in respect of the first hut, and an additional half-rent for any other huts built. Unmarried women were liable to a rent of 6s. If a tenant worked for five or six months for his landlord at a wage of 6s. a month, then he would not be liable for this rent. Alternatively the tenant could pay off his rental obligations by growing a cash crop which he would sell to his landlord. For instance, for every 12 5 lbs. of tobacco which a tenant sold to his landlord, his rent would be reduced by 1s . (but only by 6d. if the tenant was an unmarried woman).

67 M.N.A., NSB 7/1/4, "Annual Reports for the Blantyre and Central Shire Districts, 1937 and 1938".

68 M.N.A., NSB 7/1/5. See also the results of the Blantyre district village survey conducted in 1944. The village surveyed was close to the town boundary and therefore not representative of the district as a whole, but in this village the mean acreage cultivated was 127 per household. M .N.A., AGR 3/7, "Village Surveys, 1944".

69 Nyasaland Government, Annual Report of the Labour Department for 1939 ( Zomba, 1940), and Annual Report of the Labour Department for 1949 (Zomba, 1950).

70 An exhaustive list of these occupations, a long with average earnings for each, was included in the Report of the Census of 1931 (Zomba, 1932).

71 M.N.A., NSB 3/12/1, "Cost of Living, 1947-9".

72 In 1924 the number of passes issued to men from Blantyre district who wished to work outside the Protectorate was 235. By 1944 this figure had risen to 2,116. It should be noted that this figure grossly underestimates the number of men who actually left, as most went informally as independent migrants. It is, however, indicative of an increasing tendency to migrate on the part of men from the more congested areas of

the Southern Province. Earlier in the Protectorate history labour migration had been largely a phenomenon of the "underdeveloped" central and northern areas.

73 M.N.A., AGR 3/7, "Village Surveys: Survey of Matope Village, T.A. Kapeni, Blantyre District". This contains details of the holding sizes and employment patterns of twenty households.

74 M.N.A., LB 5/4/1, "Fiscal Survey,1945-6: P reliminary Notes by Phyllis Deane on the Taxable Capacity of Nyasaland, 1945".

75 See n. 32 above. For the long-term returns to kin obligations, see Maurice Bloch, "The Long Term and the Short Term: The Economic and Political Significance of the Morality of Kinship", in Jack Goody ( ed.), The Character of Kinship (Cambridge, 1973).

Henry Masauko Chipembere on Malawi's Growing Links With Apartheid South Africa

2011-07-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

Masauko and Catherine Chipembere Wedding Photo

Malawi's Growing Links with South Africa: A Necessity or a Virtue?
Author(s): Henry B. Masauko ChipembereSource: Africa Today, Vol. 18, No. 2, Independence: The Second Decade (Apr., 1971), pp. 27-47

Malawi's links with South Africa can be said to date back to precolonial times. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Ngoni people, one of the component units of what was then the Zulu nation of South Africa, entered Malawi in a number of waves and established their hegemony in various parts of the country, easily subduing the various kingdoms of the then progressively decadent Malawi Confederation. The newcomers were quickly assimilated in blood, language, and culture, but their Zulu family names and place names, as well as their pride in their ancestry have been largely preserved.1 These links have created a great affinity of sentiment with the African people of South Africa, an affinity which in recent times has been reinforced by the rising tide of Pan-Africanism and which finds expression in the deep sympathy which the Malawi people have for their suffering brethren in South Africa.

A less significant ethnic link traceable to the nineteenth century was created by the settlement in the Lower Shire area of Malawi by the Kololo people, an offshoot of the Sotho people of South Africa which had conquered much of what is today southern and southwestern Zambia. David Livingstone had recruited many of his porters from among this people. Sixteen of them decided to settle in Malawi. Since Livingstone had provided them with firearms, they acquired prestige and power and became rulers; they enlarged their stock through polygynous marriages.2

The Colonial Period

The colonial period of Malawi's history opens with extensive South African participation. Sir Harry Johnston's expedition sent by Britain to establish British rule over the Malawi people was financed by a 2,000 pound donation from Cecil Rhodes, then premier of the Cape Province of South Africa. Thereafter Rhodes subsidized the financially embarrassed administration of the new British protectorate of Nyasaland (present day Malawi) to the tune of 10,000 pounds annually. In accepting South African aid today, therefore, the new rulers of Malawi are reverting to a pattern set by their colonial predecessors.

One inevitable consequence of this relationship between Rhodes and the protectorate's government was that he exercised considerable influence over the affairs of the territory. Another result was that a number of South African white men were employed in various jobs in the government service. Thirdly it encouraged the flow of South African white hunters, traders, planters, prospectors, and adventurers as well as missionaries - a process which had begun several years before, with the advent of the first European settlers in the land.

The missionaries who came from South Africa were of the ultra-Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). By the rules of the missionary game they were allowed a spiritual monopoly of the central districts of Malawi.3 There they preached their traditional racial doctrines in a subtle manner. The black people, they taught, being descendants of Ham, the sinner, had to work harder for their spiritual salvation than other races because it was exceedingly difficult for them to wash themselves clean of their inherited sin.A The DRC missionaries also opposed any significant increase and improvement in educational facilities and encouraged tribal separatism among their preponderantly Chewa congregations. That members of this tribe are among those who have lagged farthest behind in education and that the less enlightened people among them tend to be tribalistic is largely attributable to the work of the South African missionaries.5 It may also account for the great support that some of them give to the present Malawi government's policy of giving moral support to the South African racist regime. The South African missionaries inculcated an attitude of mind which is, to say the least, incapable of becoming indignant at the racist doctrines of South Africa.

With these growing links, news of South Africa's great wealth quickly spread in Malawi. Large numbers of Malawians, unable to find jobs in their homelands and consequently unable to pay the newly imposed hut tax, flocked to South Africa and Rhodesia in search of work. The mining firms of South Africa found that such workers from outside the country accepted lower pay and were more amenable to control than indigenous labor. They formed an organization to ensure a steady flow of labor from Central and East Africa. The
Witwatersrand Native Labor Association (WENELA, as the organization was called) offered jobs on a contract basis. A laborer recruited by it was made to work for a stipulated period of time and to return home on leave and "join" again if he so desired6 Part of his pay was deducted and sent back home to his dependents, part of it was kept for him until the end of his contract, and the remainder, a small part, was given to him for minor expenses. Food, clothing, and accommodationw ere provided" free," but were in fact reflected in the low wages he received - often 6 per cent of the pay of a white man doing the same type of work!

The influx of workers from Malawi. both those recruited by WENELA and those coming on "Mselfu" (from the words "by himself," i.e., on his own) increased steadily. Thus while in 1946 WENELA recruited 12,750 Malawians 7 by 1961 it was recruiting 31,800 annually8

An office known as the Office of the Nyasaland Government Representative was therefore established in the South African chief commercial and industrial city of Johannesburg to handle the welfare and immigration problems of Malawians working in that country. The Representative was not a diplomat, but he handled all matters concerning immigration, labor, trade, customs, andinformation. By 1967 there were an estimated 80,000 Malawians working in South Africa, of whom 46,000 had been recruited for contract work on the minesby WENELA.9

Throughout the colonial period Britain was the chief exporter to and importer from Malawi. But trade with South Africa was gradually increasing for two reasons. In the first place, Malawi tended to import from South Africa all items which could not be obtained from Britain or could be obtained more cheaply in South Africa, and to export to it most of the agricultural products which Britain was not keen to buy from Malawi. Secondly, during the two world wars when trade routes to and from Britain were not safe some of the trade with Britain was diverted to South Africa.10

In the social sphere the only pre-independence relationship worth noting is the fact that Malawi, lacking a university of its own, used to send its African scholarship winners to the Fort Hare University College in the Cape Province of South Africa, as did Zambia and Rhodesia. Many of the leaders of the nationalist movement in all three countries were such Fort Hare graduates. The arrangement did not last long, however, insofar as Zambia and Malawi were concerned, for in 1953 Central and East African students were banned
from studying in South Africa.

This then was the general picture in the relationship between Malawi and South Africa in 1961 when Malawi achieved its first stage in self-rule, i.e., when the party of black independence, the Malawi Congress Party, won an overwhelming majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly. The leader of this party at once became the dominant figure in the government of the country. It may be worthwhile at this juncture to digress somewhat and devote a few lines to a description of this leader.

Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda

Among the many thousands of young Malawians who were attracted to South Africa by the material and other opportunities of that country during the first two decades of this century were three men who were later to become prominent. The first went to South Africa and returned; the second went to South Africa and stayed; the third went to South Africa and proceeded abroad.

The first was Eliot Kamwana who became the founder and moving spirit of the Watch Tower (Jehovah's Witnesses) movement in Central Africa. The movement acquired open political and anti-colonialist overtones and Kamwana was exiled to the Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles from where he returned only in late old age. The second man was Clements Kadalie who became the architect and leader of the trade union movement in South Africa and later became, in the words of George Padmore, "the uncrowned King of the black masses. "I The third was Hastings Kamuzu Banda who is now President of the Republic of Malawi.

The story of Dr. Banda has been told many times; only the bare outlines.

In 1925, after ten years in Rhodesia and South Africa, Dr. Banda became one of the many beneficiaries of a revival of black American interest in the development of Africa's black people. He came to the United States with a scholarship provided by the African Methodist Episcopal Church's black American Bishop, L. T. Vernon.

He went to high school at Xenia, Ohio, and later studied history and political science at Chicago University, and medicine at Meharry College in Nashville, Tennessee (1937). After obtaining his medical degree, he went to Scotland where he worked for medical credentials that would enable him to practice in the British Empire. During the Second World War he practiced medicine in London and it was here that he developed a keen interest in politics. After the war he became active in various anti-colonial movements and became an associate of Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, then a law student in London. He also became a founder-member and representative of the Nyasaland African Congress which was formed to fight for Malawi's liberation from colonial rule. He wrote a large number of articles in support of the Congress stand and became widely recognized as a radical African nationalist. In 1953 he moved to Ghana where his personal friend, Nkrumah, had become Chief Cabinet Minister.

In Malawi, by 1956, the Nyasaland African Congress began to attract radical young university educated nationalists into its membership and leadership. These young nationalists were dissatisfied with the older leadership which they felt was not dedicated enough to lead a vigorous struggle, nor intellectually well enough trained to hold its own in political arguments and negotiations with European politicians and British government officials. At the 1957 Annual General Conference of Congress they successfully sponsored a
motion asking Dr. Banda to return to Malawi to lead the struggle for independence. No sooner had Dr. Banda arrived in 1958 than the country, already in the throes of political conflict, was engulfed in a series of riots and clashes between Congress supporters on the one hand and armed colonial police and troops on
the other. This situation compelled the British Government to concede self-rule to the people of Malawi who had formed the Malawi Congress Party to replace the now banned Nyasaland African Congress.

With Dr. Banda at the helm, the Malawi Congress Party became the virtual ruler of the country from the day it won a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly in 1961. External affairs were still a subject reserved for the British Government, as were a few other matters. But Dr. Banda, because of the tremendous support that he and the party enjoyed, was already in a position to influence all policy and to make preparations and arrangements to suit the external policy that the ruling party intended to pursue after achieving complete
independence.

Relationship With South Africa After Self Rule

In relation to South Africa, as in the case of relations with all other countries, three alternatives presented themselves before the new rulers of Malawi: they could continue the pattern of relations that the British colonial regime had established; they could decide to weaken or abolish those relations; or they could strengthen them, building on foundations laid by the colonial regime. Dr. Banda, now the country's premier, after a brief period of appearing to move in no direction - a period in which he kept everybody guessing as to
which way he would go - began slowly to make it clear through deeds rather than words that as far as South Africa was concerned, he had opted for the last of the three alternatives, namely, that of establishing stronger ties. It was an about face which jolted many observers as well as his own admirers and supporters. The shock was sharpened by two experiences which stood clearly in people's memories. First, Malawi's struggle had been based on a belief in the equality of human beings and equality of opportunity; but now the party that had led this struggle was seeking to establish friendship with, and thus to give moral support to, a regime that believed in white supremacy and practiced it in its most obnoxious form. Secondly, the election manifesto of that party, for the general election of August 1961 which put the party in power, had promised the people that once in power it was going to participate actively in the struggle for the liberation of other parts of white-dominated Africa, including South Africa. Now the Malawi Congress Party was going to dishonor its election pledge and become the virtual ally of the enemy it had pledged to fight to the bitter end.

Africa was surprised but did not lose hope. Everywhere there was faith in the Malawi people's good sense and their ultimate ability to compel their leader to pursue policies which they themselves wanted to see pursued. Malawi's Vulnerable Position

That Malawi's geographical position and her economic disabilities imposed certain limits on her freedom to participate in the liberation of southern Africa was widely recognized. Malawi is one of the landlocked countries of Africa. She depends on the Portuguese-controlled Mozambican port of Beira for her outlet to the sea and on a Portuguese railway line for access to that port. Malawi is in fact almost surrounded by Portuguese-ruled territory and therefore highly vulnerable to Portuguese retaliation should she participate in the struggle to remove Portuguese rule from Mozambique.

In relation to South Africa and Rhodesia there were two main factors limiting Malawi's freedom to actively support the African people's struggle. The first was that thousands of Malawians were working there, many under the contract arrangements described earlier. If South Africa or Rhodesia, or both, became hostile and repatriated all Malawian workers, Malawi would be faced with the dangerous problem of what to do with thousands of unemployed roaming the streets of Zomba, Blantyre, and Lilongwe. This would make for a political instability that would jeopardize the country's hard-won independence. The second factor was that as a result of British colonial trade policy Malawi's external trade had for decades been first with Britain but secondly with South Africa and Rhodesia. Many manufactured goods, including drugs and machinery, had for years been imported from South Africa. A sudden rupture in this relationship might cause much hardship in Malawi. These problems were understood and appreciated not only by members of Dr. Banda's cabinet but also by many of the leaders of the other African states, including the more radical ones. When Dr. Banda visited the other African states and explained why Malawi could not be active in the struggle for the liberation of southern Africa he met with nothing but uniform sympathy throughout. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, then President of Ghana, after listening to Dr. Banda's exposition of Malawi's delicate situation remarked, "Dr. Banda do you think I can ask you to cut your own throat?"12 Dr. Nkrumah proceeded to demonstrate his understanding of Malawi's plight by strengthening his old friendship with Malawi. He sent several goodwill missions to Malawi and was the first African head of state to send a diplomat to it.

During these pre-independenced ays all explanations of Malawi's difficult position were made in private discussions, but when Malawi became independent in July, 1964, and attended for the first time a summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity (OAU)i n Cairo, Dr. Banda explained the position publicly. His remarks were essentially the same as those he had made in private, but on this occasion his tone and manner changed; he chose to be "blunt," to borrow his own favorite word. Unsurprisingly, the western press took his remarks as a sign of dissent from the attitude of the other members of the OAU and gave them that wide publicity which they bestow on expressions of dissent from any aspect of Pan-Africanism. However, the basic sympathy of the other members of the organization was not destroyed, as I was to learn from some personal experiences during the first two years after the conference. In 1965 I met a member of the Kenya cabinet who had been present at the Cairo summit meeting. He criticised me and my colleagues who had resigned or been expelled from the Malawi cabinet. He said that Dr. Banda's policy towards South Africa was right and ours wrong because Malawi's position in relation to white-dominated southern Africa was militarily and economically precarious. I had the same experience in Cairo in 1966 when an Egyptian cabinet member who had attended the 1964 summit meeting expressed similar views. In the words of this otherwise deeply radical revolutionary, Malawi "cannot afford to be very progressive."

But all the African sympathizers were unanimous on one point, namely, that while Malawi could not afford to destroy her trade and other links with the white-supremacist regimes of southern Africa she should take rapid steps to put herself in a position of less and less dependence on these regimes. She should seek alternative routes and sea ports to her north, especially in Tanzania. Her plans and activities for economic development should be such as wouldc reate internal opportunities of employment, so as to remove or reduce the need for her people to seek work in South Africa and Rhodesia. She should explore possibilities for gradually lessening her trade with the south and for finding new trade partners in other parts of Africa as well as outside Africa.
This is the view that we, the internal critics of Dr. Banda's policies, held. A sudden change, we realized, was impossible, but we felt that a gradual lessening of our country's involvement with the south was possible, and we wanted to see evidence that our leader was moving in this direction. But with each passing day he gave us cause for increasing dismay; far from gradually withdrawing from the south he took steps which could only get Malawi more and more committed to permanent collaboration with white racist minority regimes that were oppressing our own brothers in southern Africa. During Malawi's own struggle for freedom, Dr. Banda himself had always angrily attacked any African government which fraternized with the white supremacist Federal Government of Sir Roy Welensky, from whose federation Malawi was bitterly striving to secede. He had once denounced a Nigerian visiting delegation sent by the late premier Sir Abubakar Balewa for coming as guests of the Federal Government and had boycotted the delegation. We felt that South Africa's black people had every right to feel the same about Malawi fraternizing with South Africa.

Milestones in The Development of Malawi's Southward-Looking Policy

The first overt indication of Dr. Banda's intention to pursue a policy of stronger links with the minority regimes was given in February, 1962, when he became the first African nationalist leader to pay an official visit to the Portuguese Government in Lisbon. There he met the late dictator Dr. Antonio Salazar and had secret talks with Salazar's minister of foreign affairs. The purpose of the visit and the subject of discussion were never revealed to Dr. Banda's cabinet colleagues or to members of the Central Executive Committee of the Malawi Congress Party. No doubt he went to assure the Portuguese of his friendly intentions and also to get them to promise Malawi continued use of the port of Beira and the railway line leading to and from it. But why did this have to be a secret? Was it necessary for him to pay a visit to Lisbon for the purpose? All matters concerning foreign relations at this pre-independence stage were still being handled for Malawi by Britain. Why was this channel of communication not employed in this case? These were questions which the more politically conscious Malawians were asking and which remained, and indeed, still remain unanswered.

The next open move towards the South was made in 1963 when Dr. Banda, then prime minister of a nearly independent Malawi, invited Winston Field, then prime minister of Rhodesia and a leader of the Dominion Party which had come to power by preaching ultra-white supremacism, to come to Malawi on a secret visit. After their secret talks which took place at the residence of the Governor, Sir Glyn Jones, my colleague Kanyama Chiume and I, who were regarded as radicals, were (for reasons I have never been able to figure out with certainty), called to the residence. We were not told what we were being called for but found ourselves being offered drinks and being introduced to the prime minister of Southern Rhodesia. We were most unhappy at being made to meet socially with a man who was refusing to meet with representatives of the
four million Africans in Rhodesia. We could only deduce from this action of Dr. Banda that he expected some criticism from the public and wanted to be able to defend himself by saying, "I was not alone; Chiume and Chipembere too met Mr. Field." A few days later when the news had leaked to the press, Dr. Banda publicly agreed that he had invited and met Winston Field and had found him to be "a decent gentleman" and a man with whom he was prepared to have dealings.

Up until this time and indeed until the coming of independence in July, 1964 there were no open direct contacts with the South African government. All contacts and negotiations were conducted through the British as far as important matters of policy were concerned, while those concerning migrant Malawi workers and trade continued to be handled through the Office of the Nyasaland Government Representative in Johannesburg.

But a few months before independence one more significant development occurred. In the spirit of that genuine desire to help Malawi free herself from excessive dependence on railways and ports controlled by the white-minority regimes of southern Africa - a spirit which pervaded the whole of independent Africa - the Government of Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1963 offered its port of Mtwara for use by Malawi. It also offered assistance in improving, the road leading to and from it. I participated in the initial talks on this topic and recall the great enthusiasm with which President Julius Nyerere and his ministers made this offer to our country.

At about the same time, Tanganyika was discussing with Zambia the possibility of constructing a railway line linking Zambia with the Tanzanian coast, again with the eventual aim of disentangling Zambia from the communications clutches of the south. Dr. Banda suddenly stepped into these latter talks and pressed that the suggested Zambia-Tanzaniar ailway line should pass through central and northern Malawi. Those who are familiar with the geography of Central Africa will easily appreciate how difficult it was for the other two governments to accept the proposition. It would mean making a detour, almost a loop, that would make the line almost three times as long and take that much more time and money to construct. When, quite unsurprisingly, the other two leaders (i.e. Presidents Kaunda and Nyerere) politely rejected the idea, Dr. Banda became indignant. Relations were further "aggravated" when the two presidents held subsequent secret meetings to discuss matters of common concern. Dr. Banda was not invited, whereas on some occasions
President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya was.

Dr. Banda angrily declared to us, his colleagues: "They have rejected my sound suggestion, and now they are boycotting me and ganging together against me. Now they will never be able to blame me for facing south towards the white governments and turning away from the rest of Africa. They will have only themselves to blame."13The relish and apparent relief with which these words were said left us in no doubt that the path to the south was the direction in which our leader had all along been keen to move. He had been looking for a
"valid" pretext for this but had found none until this time when Presidents Nyerere and Kaunda, as it were, 'walked into" his trap. Thereafter Dr. Banda pursued a policy of fraternization and collaboration with the white-supremacist regimes, and of gradual withdrawal from Pan-Africanist circles, with characteristic tenacity and gusto.

It was this steady drift towards a policy of befriending white-supremacist Africa and deliberately antagonizing black Africa that - along with certain aspects of Dr. Banda's internal policy - precipitated the cabinet crisis of
September,1964,which I have described at length elsewhere.14

The expulsions and dismissals of the dissenting cabinet members, the flight into exile of these ministers and their supporters, and the extensive detention and mysterious disappearance of all other critics of the government, left Dr. Banda free to pursueh is southward-looking policies without fear of opposition. In 1966 he began having secret discussions with representatives of the South African regime. These talks culminated in March, 1967, in a goodwill mission to South Africa headed by the then Malawi Minister of Trade and Industry, J. T. Kumbweza, who was accompanied by two other cabinet members. The visit ended in the signing of the first trade agreement ever signed between the South African Government and an independent black African state. The agreement provided for increased trade between the two countries, financial and technical aid to Malawi, cultural exchanges, and the promotion of tourism. A little later another agreement was signed between Malawi and WENELA, permitting the latter to continue recruiting labor from Malawi.

Both agreements were renewals of expiring agreements previously signed between the South African Government and WENELA on the one hand, and the British Government in Malawi on the other. This led President Banda to claim that by signing the agreements he was merely carrying on a practice already firmly established and much too deeply rooted to be abolished without causing economic disaster in Malawi.15 Not only did the new agreements more deeply and inextricably commit Malawi to this inherited relationship but there is ample evidence that this action was not motivated by simple necessity or by fear of economic disaster.

In September, 1967, these links were further strengthened when Malawi became the first independent African state ever to establish diplomatic relations with South Africa. The time chosen by the Malawi Government for
announcing the event was symbolic, for the Organization of African Unity was then holding a meeting of heads of state in Kinshasa, Congo, a meeting which Malawi boycotted. It revealed more than anything else ever had that the southward- looking policy was to be pursued at the expense of African unity and that it aimed to embarrass and frustrate black Africa's aspirations. It is hardly surprising that the presidential address in which the announcement was made also denounced the OAU and stigmatized it as a body that indulges in "crying
for the moon."16

Finally, in May, 1970, Malawi became the first black African state to invite and receive a prime minister of white-supremacist South Africa as a state guest. Malawi women were ordered to dance and "rejoice" for the guest and he received a "hero's" welcome. At the official banquet given in honor of the guest, Prime Minister John Vorster, Dr. Banda, his body trembling with emotion, declared: "This is my finest hour. I have proved that in Africa Black and White can work and live together in harmony." He was apparently unable to remind himself that his guest was a man who was dedicated to the proposition that black and white cannot live and work together and was implementing policies of residential and occupational separation of black and white in South Africa with a fanatical zeal!

These have been the principal milestones in the development of close relations between South Africa and Malawi. But Vorster's visit to Malawi is by no means likely to be the last milestone. If the events and patterns of the past are anything to go by, we should expect more decisions and actions aimed at consolidating and enhancing these ties. It is not inconceivable, for instance, that a defense pact of some kind could be openly signed. (I say "openly" because such a possible accord has to be distinguished from a secret pact that, for some time, has been believed to exist. It is thought that by this secret pact South Africa would come to the assistance of the Malawi government in the event of an internal uprising. The pact is also alleged to provide for an exchange of intelligence.7 This secret accord as extended to Portugal and Rhodesia is also regarded by some to cover the eventuality of a jointly planned and jointly executed four-prongedin vasion of those black Africans tates which actively aid and harbor armed African nationalists fighting the South African, Portuguese,
and Rhodesian white-minority regimes.) Some sort of a federation or confederation linking Malawi with these minority regimes, in which South Africa would be the leading partner, has also been regarded as a possible distant goal of this friendship.

The Extent of South Africa's Presence in Malawi

How extensive is the South African political and economic presence in Malawi and how strong is the influence of South Africa on Malawi or of Malawi on South Africa?

First of all, in 1968, as stipulated by the trade agreement of March, 1967, Malawi received a loan of nearly $12 million from South Africa for building a new capital city near Lilongwe, close to Dr. Banda's home district and among his tribesmen. It was a plan against which Dr. Banda's economic experts had advised very strongly as being financially most unsound, extravagant and likely to discourage those who sympathized with Malawi's economic plight and wanted to offer help. All the traditional western supporters of Dr. Banda, including the U.S., Britain, and West Germany, had for similar reasons declined to provide a loan?8 But Dr. Banda had declared that if he could not get it from his friends he was going to get it from his "enemies" and had proceeded to seek it from the South African government.

In addition, South Africa gave Malawi a "soft" loan of $11 million for the construction of a railway line to the port of Nacala in northern Mozambique. This project is part of Dr. Banda's attempt to "free" Malawi from too much reliance on the Portuguese port of Beira and its access railway. But since Nacala is no less Portuguese-controlled than Beira it is difficult to understand how Malawi is being "freed" by the new port.

Further, in 1969 South Africa provided a loan for the construction of a new international airport near the site of the new capital.

South African private and philanthropic organizations have joined their government in working for the success, in Malawi, of Vorster's "outwardlooking" policy. The Beit Trust and WENELA are among the several nongovernmental bodies that have provided South African funds for building bridges, hospitals, schools, and welfare centers in Malawi.................................................

Post to be continued

Footnote

A former Minister of Education in the Malawi government and leading personality in the Malawi Congress Party, Henry Chipembere is currently studying for his Ph. D. in African history at UCLA and teaching at California State College, Los Angeles.

US Time Magazine on Dr Banda Release From Prison in 1959

2011-07-16T02:39:00.000-07:00

Below is an article the famous US Time magazine wrote on the release of Dr Banda From Gwelo Prison in 1959.

In a pleasant-looking jail of whitewashed brick at Gwelo last week sat Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, 54, who, though a Negro, got a white man's cell to himself. His crime: advocating secession. He wants to take his native Nyasaland out of the Central African Federation with the two Rhodesias. Question: Is Britain once again conferring the martyrdom of prison on a man destined to be the leader of a new nation? The man:

Early Life. Originally named Kamuzu (the little root) because a medicine man had cured his mother's barrenness with a root herb, he later took the name of Hastings from a missionary he admired. When only 13 he ran away from home. At first his parents thought he had been eaten by a lion, learned only months later that he had walked barefoot 1,000 miles to the gold mines of South Africa. There, working by day and studying by night, he accumulated a little learning and a little money, with the help of a Methodist bishop made his way to the U.S. Comparing himself to the wandering scholars of the Middle Ages, he went from the Wilberforce University high school in Ohio to the University of Chicago, to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., and then on to complete his studies for a British medical license at Edinburgh (his church: the Church of Scotland).

Career. Settling down in the lower-class Kilburn district of London, he gradually built up a thriving practice of 4,000 patients, most of them white. His modest home became a favorite meeting place for such future African leaders as Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah, who called him affectionately "G.P." or "the Doc." Intense and impassioned about his native Nyasaland, he became increasingly bitter after the Federation was formed in 1953. "The Nyasas," he insisted, "have been deceived by a people whom they had grown to regard as Christian and honest, and betrayed by a government which for 60 years they had relied upon as trustee and protector." Last July he returned home, after 40 years of self-imposed exile, to give battle.

Personality. From the moment he arrived amid frenetic cheers at the air, he was taken up by Nyasaland's 3,000,000 blacks. A gnomelike, soberly dressed man who neither drinks nor smokes, he could speak calmly of the necessity of proving "that we are responsible people." but, in a sudden shift of mood, he might then begin banging the table in his surgery or shrieking to a mob from a platform: "To hell with federation!"

"We don't want any of this India Bwana stuff," he would cry, and he denounced the moderate Africans in the government as "quislings" who had sold out their country for "a cup of tea in a white man's house." Though always arguing against violence, he called himself "the extremist of extremists," and had a way of stirring up his people as no man had before. He boasts: "To the majority of Africans in Nyasaland, I am the Lord Mayor's Show in London."

Goals. "I've lived in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee and also Britain," says Banda. "I have nothing against those Europeans who think of Africans as human beings. I'm against those who think they're the chosen ones of God and that Africans are their 'boys.' " Banda's immediate goal: to get Nyasaland out of the Central African Federation.

But he insists that he wants to stay in the Commonwealth; he believes his people will fare better at London's hands than at those of the white settlers of Rhodesia. When Nyasaland is on its own, he says, he would keep a number of European Cabinet Ministers (even the most sympathetic Europeans are appalled by his lack of economic realism about a poor country that must be heavily subsidized to stay alive). An emotional, erratic man, he warned just before being carted off to jail: "They will stop nothing by my arrest. Nyasaland is awake!"

From The Moderator: Dr Banda always a controversial figure in our history. You either love him or loathe him.

Margaret Thatcher Speech on Kamuzu Banda

2011-07-16T00:25:00.000-07:00

Below is a speech that Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Great Britain gave at a luncheon held in honour of late former President of Malawi Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda at 10 Downing Street when the latter visited the UK in 1985. I have just discovered from the speech that the cornerstones advocated by Dr Kamuzu Banda of Unity, loyalty and discipline were actually Ancient Rome civic virtues. Still understandable when you consider that Dr Banda was a historian as well as a medical doctor. Below is the speech:-

Mr. President,

Let me first offer you a very warm welcome on behalf of the Government on this your State Visit to the United Kingdom.

I doubt that there can ever have been a State Visitor who knows our country better.

For you lived many years here, indeed, you are really one of us.

You heeded the advice of that ancient proverb:

"He that will England win Must with Scotland first begin."

You went first to Glasgow and Edinburgh to complete your studies, then won our hearts in England, where so many people in Liverpool, in North Shields and in Harlesden still remember your skill and kindness as a doctor ministering to them.

You also became an Elder of the Church of Scotland, a title so fearsome as to make ordinary mortals South of the border quake.

But even more than that, Mr. President, you are one of the most remarkable figures in Africa, a man who has done outstanding service to his people.

And it is above all for this that we welcome you back among us today.

We have followed with great admiration the achievements of your country since Independence.

Malawi is a country at peace.

I well remember how, at the time of Federation, we were concerned because Malawi had the least promising soil.

But now, thanks to your decision to concentrate on raising standards of husbandry, Malawi is not only self-sufficient in food but helps to feed its neighbours.

Malawi has no easy short cut to prosperity.

But security, stability and wise government have provided the framework under your leadership.

Self-reliance, hard work and individual enterprise have been the galvanising forces.

Malawi's achievement is a message of hope and encouragement to those unfortunate parts of the Continent now suffering so dreadfully from hunger.

It shows what can be done when agriculture is properly nurtured, when the independent farmer is encouraged whether he works a small-holding or a large estate, and when enterprise is rewarded.

The thriving state of Malawi's agriculture also reflects your own close identification, Mr. President, with the people on the land. If more countries had followed your example of concentrating on good husbandry, I believe that we should have fewer problems in Africa today.

We in Britain have been pleased to be able to contribute to your success.

Malawi is one of our closest friends.

Many Britons work in Malawi and feel as at home there as I hope the many Malawians in this country feel here.

We are the largest contributor to your development—some £150 million since independence—and your largest export market. But it has been the efforts of your people themselves in the cause of their country's development which have been crucial: and it has been your role, and one which you have performed with outstanding success, to channel the united efforts of all the people of Malawi into that work.

We agree on many international issues and I should like to take this opportunity, Mr. President, to thank you for your Government's steadfast support for us over the Argentine Invasion of the Falkland Islands.

Mr. President, I know that before you became a doctor you were an historian, with a particular interest in classical history.

You have taken into your own political philosophy the civic virtues of ancient Rome: unity, loyalty and discipline.

As an historian you have the capability to see problems in context, to understand the long term.

It is this which has led you to support dialogue even with those whose policies you—and we—oppose, as a contribution to a peaceful solution to the world's problems. That takes courage, Mr. President, a courage which we salute.

We know in you, too, a wise leader in the Commonwealth where your constructive contributions are always heard with attention and respect—and we hope that we shall have the benefit of them at the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Bahamas.

Mr. President, you are a dear and honoured friend of this country, and your Visit is a very happy moment in the relations of warm friendship between Malawi and Britain to which you have contributed so much.

I raise my glass to the health of His Excellency the Life President, Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, and to the prosperity and happiness of our friends, the people of Malawi.

Nyasaland Tribes, Customs and Poison Ordeal 1902

2011-07-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Author(s): L. T. Moggridge

Source: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 32 (Jul. - Dec., 1902), pp. 467-472

Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

Tribes.

MY work has hitherto lain almost entirely in the Shire Highlands and at the south end of Lake Nyassa, so that there are a good many of the Nyasaland tribes whom I have had no opportunity of observing in their homes. However, I will stick to what I really do know, and I hope some of it may be useful.

The Manganja (also called Anyanja or Anyassa) must at one time have been spread all over the southern shores of Lake Nyassa and the Shire Highlands; they are a very unwarlike tribe-they themselves say with perfect unconcern that "every Manganja has the heart of a chicken." For fifty years or so before the Administration pacified the country in 1891-92 they must have been perpetually harried, raided and enslaved by the neighbouring tribes, and particularly the Ajawa and Angoni. There are still considerable settlements of them on the southern shores of Nyassa, but the remnants of the tribe settled most thickly round Mlaiyi and Cholo Mountains, whose steep sides afforded them hiding-places from war parties. In their present security they are lazy and slovenly to a greater degree than the other tribes; yet they are not without intelligence, and some of them who have been taken in hand by missionaries and others have been educated into excellent interpreters and skilled labourers. Their language has become a sort of lingua franca all over southern Nyassaland, owing, no doubt, to their having been the slaves of every tribe.

That peculiarly ugly ornament the mpelele is almost universally worn by Manganja women. As young girls the upper lip is pierced and the hole is enlarged by the insertion of pieces of stick of increasing size till a small rnpelele-a saucer-shaped metal disc-can be inserted. As they grow older they insert larger and ever larger mpelele, and I have seen old hags with their upper lips distended and thrust forward by a disc as large as a five-shilling piece.

The Achikunda are perhaps more nearly related than any other tribe to the Manganja, their language and habits being very similar. The Achikunda are essentially a river people, being settled thickly along the Shire River below the Murchison Rapids,-and stretchinig downstream through Portuguese territory to the Zambesi, where they are known as Achishma (" people of Sehma '). On the Zambesi they are very skilful metal-workers and in other ways are more advanced than their relatives upstream. This is probably due to centuries of contact, and, to some extent, of interbreeding with the Portuguese. Near the Anglo- Portuguese boundary on the right bank of the Shire is a village which is regarded as sacred concerning which there are much more definite superstitions than I have come across in the Highlands, but as my knowledge of it is vague and second-hand I will not attempt to describe it at present.

The Ajawa-slovenly pronunciation has led to this tribe beilng commonly spoken and written of as Yaos-are physically the finest of the South Nyassa tribes. They are also renmarkable for a hig,her sense of persolnal decency, or modesty, and lower morals than those of other tribes. Tlle Ajawa and Amachinga (a subdivision of the same tribe) are widely spread over the Shire Highlands and, in Portuguese territory, downi the Ravuma nearly to the sea. They have a strong tendency fowards Mahommedaniisin which, especially about Fort Johnston in South Nyassa, has takeni a real hold among them. Its influence is certainly elevating; the Fort Johnston Ajawa are cleanly in their habits and self-respecting; the better class of them dress neatly in white Arab kanzas (a garment suggestive of a long loose nightshirt) and, frequently, Zanzibari jackets of a Mahommedan type. A slight strain of Arab blood is not unconmmon among them; many of them can talk, or even write Swahili; and all like to be thought to know it. On the other hand prostitution-unknown among other tribes in their natural state-seems to have come naturally to the Ajawa, and this tendency with its consequent evils is more obvious in Fort Johnston than elsewhere. The Ajawa were great slave-traders in the old days, and in most villages are one or two -men who have been as far as Zanzibar; they are distinctly the aristocrats of British Central Africa. In 1890-92 they made more of a fight against the British than any other tribe, and have since proved the best material for native troops under British officers.

Angoni.-Some fifty or sixty years ago, as far as can be judged, a party of Zulus--said to have been a defeated impi who dared not return home-trekked north and settled on the high plateau west of Lake Nyassa and the Shire River. It seems that they brought but few women with them, and this fact no doubt started them on the slave-raiding career which they carried on till the British occupation. They married slave women, and seem as a rule to have treated their male slaves after a time as members of the tribe, with the result that their Zult characteristics rapidly disappeared. The people now known as Angoni, who come down in large numbers to work as carriers, etc., in the Shire Highlands, are of mixed race, in which the Manganja element and characteristics predomninate. In Angoni-land proper, I am told that there are still some two hundred of pure Zulu blood; but the tribe, which is now very numerous, seems as a whole to have lost the warlike tendencies that imade it a terror to its neighbours in past years, when the Ajawa alone seem to have held their owln against them. With the exception of the Wa Ukonde of North Nyassa, the Angoni are the only cattle-rearing tribe in British Central Africa.

The Atonga are a numerically weak tribe settled oln the east coast of Lake Nyasa. They will probably take a leading place among British Central African tribes in the new order of things, as they show an intelligence and enterprise, coupled with an appreciation of the value of wealth, which is very marked by contrast with the apathy of their neighbours. Five years ago large gangs of Atonga used to come to the Shire Highlands to work on the plantations for monley, but they have found out tllat nlore can be made by collecting rubber for sale to traders or slipping across the border and finding their way down to the high wages of South Africa, and they do not niow often appear as labourers in the Shire Highlands, though many of them work as store boys and skilled labourers. They are the most expert and daring thieves of British Central Africa. They make good soldiers and are largely used-though not in the same numbers as the Ajawa-in the composition of the two British Central African Battalions.

Anguru.-This large tribe have for many years followed their own devices in the no-man's-land known as Portuguese territory south-east of British Central Africa. Now that the Portuguese are establishing forts along our boundary, and thence sending out parties of uncontrolled Black Police who murder, rape and loot under the name of tax collection, large numbers of Anguru are crossing into British territory and settling there.

They are the most thoroughly uncivilized natives I have come across; I have seen gangs from the south-east of Mlaiyi Mount, in which both the men and women were entirely naked, though as a rule a small strip of bark cloth is worn. An idea of their intellectual capacity may be formed from the fact that in a gang who worked on my plantation some four years ago the best counter owed his superiority to the size of his mouth, in which he found room to stow the ends of all his fingers one by one, counting up to ten as he did so. At this point-his fingers being all disposed of and his toes not available-he broke down. He could get as far as ten but no further, and the moment he withdrew his fingers from his mouth his mind became a blank again. However, as no other member of the gang could get as far as ten, his erudition was thought remarkable.

The Anguru, whom we are now encouraging to settle, seem to be slightly more advanced than those with whom I had to deal in my planting days. They build their own huts anid settle down contentedly to work for the Ajawa in return for food until they can raise their own crops. They adapt themselves quickly to their new surroundings, and should soon be seeking work in large numbers and making themselves very useful as carriers.

Religious Tendencies.

Excluding newly introduced religions (Christianity and Mahommedanism), religion seems to have no part in the lives of British Central African natives. It is true that on Cholo Mount there is a sacred stone, and that sometimes, after a severe drought, parties of natives go up to the stone and leave old hoes there with an idea that rain may follow. Most natives, when asked, will say that there is a God (mlungu); and one, an Atonga, once told me that a great snake lived below, and ate bad men when they were dead; but I attribute this to ill-digested recollections of missionary teachings, which have been more or less disseminated through the country for twenty years or more; in any case the existence of a Deity, though admitted, is not a fact which impresses the native or dwells in his mind. I have come across no religious ceremonies of any sort.

The Ajawa make neat little graves for their dead, in graveyards near the villages, fence them in, and erect a shelter over them. They leave the huts of the dead to rot and fall to pieces of themselves. The burying of a person of any importance is an excuse for much drum-beating and beer-drinking.

The Manganja select a piece of forest and bury their dead there; they place the burnt-clay cooking-pots of the dead man near his grave, having first made holes in the bottom of them which render thein useless to the living. Whether this implies an idea of an after-life, and that the pots are supposed to be for the use of the dead, I have not been able to discover.

These cemeteries are never encroached on, so that a Manganja cemetery is always indicated by a clump-covering perhaps 1/4 acre-of fine well grown trees, a rare object in British Central Africa; as, owing to the wasteful methods of native cultivation, few bits of land are left uncultivated for more than thirty years or so, and bush-fires do not allow trees to attain a great size in that time.

Both Ajawa and Manganja have a horror of a body that has died a violent death. I have observed, after an expedition against an Ajawa village, the bodies of a couple of men, who were shot, left to rot where they fell, as their friends would not touch them. Again, I have killed a crocodile which on being cut up was found to have the brass bangles of an Achikundu woman in its belly; my Ajawa and Manganja carriers immediately left the beast and would not touch it again. Some Atonga, however, were not so particular, and dined off the crocodile.

The only tribal ceremony I know of is the nyago, an initiation-dance for girls on reaching a marriageable age. Sir Harry Johnston in his book describes this in dog-Latin, if I remember rightly; it cannot very well be written in English. The Ajawa also have a nyago for boys, of which circumcision is the principal feature.

Another Mahommedan custom which is universal among the Ajawa is the abstention from (1) the meat of an animial whose throat has not been cut sufficiently soon after death for blood to come, and (2) pig flesh. More than once, when, in a hungry camp, I have killed wart-hog, the Manganja and other natives have at once fallen to and had a great feed, while the Ajawa sat apart, looking unihappy, but resolutely refusing the meat. Meat of any sort is a great luxury to natives, and the behaviour of the Ajawa must have cost them a considerable effort.

The Muavi Poison Ordeal.

The poisonous bark of the muavi tree is the principal factor in a form of trial by ordeal which is firmly believed in by all the Nyassaland tribes with whom I have any acquaintance. The natives now recognize that, for some iilexplicable reason, the white man disapproves of muavi and is apt to show his disapproval in an unmnistakable way; and with their usual docility they are gradually dropping the use of it.

All natives (so far as my experience goes) profess, when questioned, absolute ignorance of what the tree is like or where it is to be found. Their invincible obstinacy on this point is probably due simply to fear of being thought to know anything about the forbidden traffic, and not at all to a desire to prevent the white man from destroying every muavi tree in the country, which would be a very simple cure for the whole trouble. The tree must certainly be uncommon, as natives have to travel long distances to procure the bark.

The old-fashioned trial by muavi under the auspices of a chief is getting rare now, as the chiefs in the more settled districts are afraid to try it. Their hold over their villagers is very slight now, and a muavi trial almost always results in a relative of the victim straightway reporting to the Boma (Collector's Court).

During the eight months that I was Acting Collector at Blantyre I only had one genuine case of the sort, though one or two trumped-up stories were brought in, with results unpleasant for the accuser. In this case (which is pretty typical) a petty Ajawa chief living near Blantyre had had a considerable quantity of calico stolen out of his hut, and decided to go into the case himself with the help of an elderly relative who enjoyed some reputation as a medicine man.

Lots were cast to discover the criminal; the preliminary casting indicated a village near Soche Mount, whither the detectives adjourned with a considerable following. They went through this village trying each hut, and finally the lot fell on a young man who, I should say, from such evidence as I could afterwards collect, was nowhere near the scene of the theft when the calico was stolen. In justice to the medicine man I should also say that I could find no evidence of any quarrel between him and the man against whom the lot fell.

The young man was bound and taken back to the village whence the calico was stolen, some three miles away, and was there compelled to drink mnavi-the bark, pounded and mixed with water. His brother Salimu followed and watched the proceedings, and the muavi having been drunk, was allowed to talke charge of him. Salimu remained with his brother under a tree near by for some three hours, and then he vomited and Salimu carried him back to his home- weak, but not permanently the worse. This vomiting, which saved his life, should according to native ideas have been a proof of innocence, but when confronted with the dilemma that the lot had apparently fallen on an innocent man they gave their opinion that he must have stolen the calico, whatever the muavi had to say about it, for the lot could not lie. Salimu having deposited his brother in his own hut, came to the Boma to report. Fortunately natives are not clever enough to be very far-seeing liars, and though all his villagers perjured themselves stoutly in defence of the chief, they broke down badly under cross- examination, and the truth was easily arrived at. The chief and medicine man were allotted three years' imprisonment apiece.

As to the method of casting lots, I have only the unsupported and possibly imaginary story of my interpreter to go on. The witnesses (fearing no doubt that an admission of knowledge would get them into trouble) one and all returned that most irritating answer kaya (" I don't know ") to all questions on the subject. There is no doubt that a horn of a sable antelope which was produced in court, stuffed with roots, odds and ends of calico and other dirty-looking charms to keep it in a state of magical efficiency while out of use, was the prinlcipal instrument in the lot casting. This horn I brought home with me.

My interpreter's account is that the horn is filled with white beans, with onie black one among them, and that these beans are shaken out, one for a village, or individual, as the case may be, till the. appearance of the black bean indicates the guilty persoli. This is very likely true, but my experience is that an intelligent rative, when asked for information by his master, will, in his anxiety to please, prefer inventing a story to giving none at all, so I accept information of this sort with caution.

Mwavi trials of this sort are, as I have said, getting less common; the use of muavi, which it is most difficult to stamp out, is one for which heavy punishmenlt seems absurd. Women are usually the offenders; after a quarrel with another woman or with her husband which has reached the pitch of accusations of adultery or witchcraft -mfiti, wizard or witch, implies thle possessiorn of something like evil eye; an mfiti is also supposed to add to his or her supernatural powers by corpse eating-it is not uncommon for a woman to drink muavi to prove her innocence of the charge. As a rule the taste of the muavi does away with her excitement and shakes her faith in the harmlessness of the poison to an innocent person; then if her village is near the Boma she rushes off and explains matters to the Collector, and a powerful emetic sets matters right again.

Where the woman obtains the muavi from on these occasions I have never been able to discover; probably there is a medicine man in most villages who keeps a supply, but the other natives will never give him away; being, I suppose, too frightened of him rather than too loyal. Some deaths have been reported to me following incidents of this sort, and no doubt a good many more take place and are kept quiet.

MEMORIAL TO DR. DAVID LIVINGSTONE.

2011-07-13T15:56:00.000-07:00

Dr David Livingstone

IT has long been felt desirable, by the many admirers of Dr. Livingstone, that the spot on which the great traveller breathed his last should be permanently marked by a suitable memorial. When, on the discovery by Mr. Weatherley of the precarious condition of the

The Mpundu Tree Under Which David Livingstone's Heart Was Buried near Lake Bangweulu

tree which marked the locality, it was decided by the Royal Geographical Society to take steps to secure the section of the tree bearing the commemorative inscription for safe-keeping in this country, it was hoped that arrangements might also be made for the worthy commemoration of a spot to which, in the eyes of Englishmen, an almost sacred character attaches. At the same time a movement had been set on foot, and funds raised, among residents in Nyasaland and others, with the support of Sir H. M. Stanley, for the furtherance of a similar object, and it was found possible to concentrate the efforts of all interested on a single scheme by the formation of a joint committee, representing our Society and the other body of sympathizers. The labours of this committee have, we are glad to announce, led to a


Section of The Livingstone with the Inscription

satisfactory result all the arrangements having been made for carrying out the design.

It has been decided that the memorial shall take the form of an obelisk, 20 feet high, surmounted by a cross. In the absence of suitable stone in the region in question, the material chosen is the best concrete, which, it is thought, will be the most satisfactory from the point of view of durability. It will be taken out in 450 air-tight cylinders, each of 50 lbs. weight. Moulds, of oak with metal lining, have been prepared for the formation of the blocks, of which over 300 will be used. Tablets, in blackened bronze, will be embedded in the blocks as moulded.

Sketch of The Memorial To David Livingstone To Be Erected On The Site of The Tree

Two of these, placed on opposite sides of the monument, will bear the following inscription: "Erected by his Friends to the Memory of' Dr. David Livingstone, Missionary and Explorer. He died here, May 4, 1873."

On the other faces of the obelisk two more tablets will be placed, on which the following will appear
"This monument occupies the spot where formerly stood the tree, at the foot of which Livingstone's heart was buried by his faithful native followers. On the trunk was carved the following inscription: 'David Livingstone. Died May 4, 1873. Chuma, Souza, Mniasere, Uchopere.'"

The undertaking has met with the cordial support of the British South Africa Company, while its success may be considered assured through the co-operation of Mr. Alfred Sharpe, British Commissioner in Nyasaland, who has kindly made himself responsible for its execution. Mr. Robert Codrington, the company's representative in the Bangweulu region, has also shown himself active in furthering the necessary preparations. It will be remembered that to Mr. Codrington was due the securing of' the section of Livingstone's tree-a mission with which he was entrusted by Mr. Alfred Sharpe, who, at the request of the Council, kindly agreed to act as the Society's agent. The task has been accomplished with entire success. The section has now arrived in this country and is deposited in the house of the Royal Geographical Society. The thanks of the Society are due to the British South Africa Company, who, through their representative, Mr. Codrington, have most generously carried out the Society's wishes in having the section transported from Central Africa to England. It is only fair to state that Mr. Alf'red J. Brown, who designed the memorial, and has taken all the
trouble to obtain and pack the material and design the moulds, has given his services gratuitously.

Northern Nyasaland 1895

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Northern Nyasaland.

By the Rev. James Henderson. (Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1900, pp. 82-9.)

The author summarises observations accumulated during several journeys made between 1895 and 1899 in the territory which lies west of the northern half of Lake Nyasa. The following extracts are of anthropological interest.

"The produce of the native gardens in the coast plains anld on the lower slopes are cassava, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts, several kinds of millet, maize, beans, pumpkins, tobacco, baunaas, and plantains; as well as, where internal influences have been felt, rice, lemons, pineapples, papaus, custard-apples, and mangoes. A kind of hlemp is grown by the fishermen for making nets, and in the swampy plains a pith-tree called mnabingwe is found, which yields a substance nearly as light as cork, uised for floats. In the neighbourhood of Bandawe, the wildl arrow-root plant is plentiful. The Konde people round Karonga ornament their villages with rows of cotton trees. . . . The quality of the soil, except where it is alluvial, is poor, and where it has been long continuously under cultivation, as in the Usisya Plain, it appears to be quite exhausted." (p. 83.)

"Until four or five years ago, sheep and goats were the only food animals kept on the lake shore except at Karonga, where cattle were always abundant, but since then cattle bave been successfully initroduced into most of the villages. There is little doubt that with the practical disappearance of the buffalo, owing to the rinder- pest, the tsetse-fly has also been got rid of from districts that wcre formerly infested." (p. 83.)

"Lion point, which separates Florence Bay from Young Bay, presents, at the Water's edge, a yellowislh white face of soft rock, which has been hollowed out by the action of the waves, and by weathering. It contains a native pictorial art, showing figures of men and animals in Egyptian-like profile, some stationary, others in motion." (p. 84)

"The inhabitants [of the Tumbuka terrace plateans behind the shore plains], who are of the Tumbuka, Henga, and to some small extent Poka tribes, show some skill in agriculture, cultivating successfully all the crops in common use on the lake shore." (p. 85.) "The Tumbuka and Henga tribes are skilled in the smelting and workilng of ironi. Their ruinied ftirnaces, spread over a wide area ini surprising numbers, give evidence both of the general prevalenece of iron ore, and of the extent to which the wouking of it was cairried on in the past." (p. 87.)

"Passing, on now, we come to consider the mountain range which we saw in rear of the northern section of the Tumbuka plateau, to which the name Nyika is generally applied. Nyika is not a proper name, as used by the natives. It is simlply the uplands,' and in that sense it is in very common use. Tanganyika, I venture to think, is nothing more or less than Nyanja ya Nyika, 'the lake of the uplands.' (p. 87.)

"The Poka inhabitants of the Nyika plateau, probably the aborigines of the country, and very low in the native scale of civilisation, have little skill in cultivation. Keeping a few goats and sheep, more for barter than for use, they subsist mostly onl pease. Their huts are built with a view to concealment, and are formed by scooping out the ground, and covering the hole with sticks and turf. Placed, as rnany of them are, among the heaps of rock debris, it is almost impossible to detect them from any distance. On the west, the gardens are made in the open, but near the east face they are to be found on the steep sides of the gorges." (p. 88.) "

As a whole, the district, which I have been describing, is very thinly peopled. The inhabited country is only a fraction of the uninihabited. Fronm the head of the Henga valley to the Rumphi River there is not a single village. The few Poka villages scattered over the Nyika plateau are hardly worth counting as occupations. The Vipsya [the southern extension of the Tumbuka plateau] is entirely without people, and in the far west, until the traveller has descended a long distance inlto the Loangwa valley, he rarely encounters more than two or three villages in a day's march. The great centres of population are Bandawe among the Tonga tribe, Ekwendeni and Hora among the Ngoni and Tumbuka tribes, Kondowi among the mixed Henga alnd Poka, and Karonga among the mixed Henga and Konde. No exact census has yet been made." (pp. 88-9.)

GLIMPSES OF EARLY NYASALAND

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Contributed by M Bayliss
Published in the Nyasaland Journal 1967

William Alexander Maxwell was born on 27th May, 1883 in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He followed in his father's footsteps and served an apprenticeship under him as joiner and carpenter.. After completing this he we irked for eighteen months as a joiner and carpenter for Mitchell Bros., a Glasgow firm of contractors who were then engaged on the Cairn Valley Railway at Dumfries. He left them in November, 1902 and came to Nyasaland, working for the African Lakes Corporation, Ltd. as a carpenter and miller from ,January, 1903 to June, 1907. - Later he began planting cotton in the Nyungwe area of the Karonga lakeshore. During the First World War he was a Lieutenant Quartermaster and Tramp trt Officer for the Nyasaland Field Force, and fought in the Battle of Karonga. After the war he resumed cotton planting at Nyungwe where he lived on his estate for the rest of his Ile died in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Blantyre on 21st .January, 1963. So far as is known he only once re-visited Scothuid, in 1924, when he travelled via Abercorn and Albertville and returned via the Cape

These notes have been compiled from a few old personal documents and two notebooks containing duplicates of correspondence written mainly between 1908-1914 which were found amongst his effects. Apart from some other records written by Lt.-Col. G. L. Baxter and Commander E. L. Rhoades, and a mass of much later business correspondence, no other papers appear to have survived the lire which burned out his house in 1961.

_______________________________

DURING his early days Maxwell appears to have been a general handyman for the A.L.C. From February, 1908 he worked at the Ruo Ginnery and Sawmill at Chiromo, repairing the baling press and fitting the sawmill with an engine which he had earlier operated during a brief spell at Chinde. He also repaired the 'Henry Henderson' which seems to have been one of the early paddle steamers. On 13th June he wrote about one of his tasks to the Agent, A.L.C., Chiromo:-

"I have examined the rikshaw for sale belonging to Mr. Copeland and find it to be in good condition. The upholstery (Hood and cushions) need overhauling but this can be done at little expense, all other parts are in perfect condition."

In 1909 he travelled quite extensively and in May wrote from Fort Johnston to Mr. Bowes, Transport Dept., Mandala (Blantyre) on the condition of the Lirangwe Rest House and the Matope-Liwonde Road of which he said, "This is being hoed from both Matope and Liwonde ends but will be at least two weeks or it is finished, after this is done it will be quite good for Machila travelling."

He then went to Kota-Kota on the 'Queen Victoria' and in June reported to the Superintendent Engineer, A. L. C., Chinde about the difficulties of obtaining a site for new buildings:—

"I arrived at Kota-Kota on 17th May and found the Agent was out on his round of store visits, and as he had not previously been advised of my arrival no instructions were left re-site for building. I applied to the Resident but could get no particulars beyond Mr. Lemons whereabouts, I sent off a runner advising him of my arrival and he returned to Kota-Kota on the 21st. I then learned that although he applied to Mandala for permission to buy or lease a plot for new buildings in October he only got his reply granting it while on or about a week before my arrival. We at once made out an application for plot of land in the new Township which is situated on the ridge in line with the District Resident's house (rough sketch enclosed). This is not the plot which Mr. Lemon originally fixed on as under the circumstances we thought it much better to take the Township plot so that there should be no delay in negotiations. Immediately after making the application we started work on the building and at time of writing it is half-way up windows. No doubt this is a bit risky but much better than waiting untill the matter is settled especially as there is little fear of much competition for land in Kota Kota."

In a second letter in July he wrote:—

"Since writing you last we have heard that our application for plot of land has been returned to the Resident in Kota Kota Zomba being unable to locate it. All particulars as to where it was, who drew out Township plan etc., etc., were supplied and again returned to Zomba. Yesterday the 5th inst. the Resident received a wire asking him to send on Official Survey Map containing said plots, this we suppose explains the delay and means that they do not have a copy of map at Zomba."

The application was soon aproved and the building completed. In October Maxwell sent a plan of it from Fort Johnston to the Clearing House, Mandala which shows a bedroom and sitting room each 18 feet by 16 feet forming a centre block which was surrounded on all sides by a khonde 8 feet wide into which was built at different places a dining room and bathroom. The house is shown as being 100 feet from the "path to Lozi seldom used" and a note says the "Nearest Public Road about 1000 yards off and about same distance to nearest Native Huts in village."

In February, 1910 Maxwell was in Fort. Johnston repairing numerous buildings. He writes, this time to the Manager, A.L.C., Mandala. mentioning Keiller's Buildings, some of which were occupied by Mr. Wenham. He was also "superintending 'Monteith' and Barge repairs in Mr. Cunningham's absence" and "All spare time spent in office assisting Mr. Green with Transport work etc." Some idea of the size and importance of Fort Johnston at that early date is shown by the fact that the African Lakes Corporation then possessed there a transport store, rice store, bulk store, four passenger rooms, a mess room, store and office and a native store. In passing it is worth noting that Fort Johnston is probably the first example of town planning in the country. The township was planned by Sir Alfred Sharpe personally and laid out in his instructions by Commander Edmund Rhoades.

The following October, after a ulendo in the Chombe area (Mount Waller) Maxwell went to Vizara Rubber Estate, Nkata Bay where for the next nine months he was engaged in building work. He generally obtained his supplies from the A.L.C. depot at Fort Johnston, making only occasional reference to their depots at Karonga and Bandawe and the headquarters at Mandala. A typical order is one sent from Vizara in October, 1910:-

"Stores Dept. Fort Johnston.

Please supply

1 case soap (Sunlight preffered)

14 lbs Ideal flour

1 bottle chutney

1 „ L & P sauce (Large)

1 „ Bi Soda

2 Tins Biscuits (Fancy)

50 No. 4 Shot Cartridges

6 Yds Khaki Drill

2 Pkts Candles for Lamps

I should be glad if you will send me 14 lbs Ideal flour or if none 14 lbs Hungarian by every Queen until further orders." The same day he wrote another order which is indicative of the times:—

"The Agent, Fort Johnston.

Dear Sir

Please supply at your earliest a complete outfit of Crockery, Cutlery, Table Linen, etc., etc., necessary for Mess of Mr. Cruickshank and myself.

& oblige.

Yours faithfully,

Wm. A. Maxwell"

This order was duly supplied and drew the following report from Maxwell on 23rd November:—

"The Agent, Fort Johnston.

Dear Green,

The furnishings have arrived but the following are a bit ancient and we would be glad to have them changed.

1 Coffee Pot (Very old and much too large)

1 Frying Pan (Would take about two hours to heat up)

1 Slop Basin (cracked half way round)

1 Soup Ladle ? ? ?

We will return these by next steamer.

Yours faithfully,

Wm. A. Maxwell

P.S. Don't be so hard hearted-1 Knife, 1 fork, 1 spoon, 1 Plate, 1 Tea Cup etc. if we should happen to have a breakage what are we going to do in this out of the way hole.

W.M."

From Vizara he went to Vua near Nyungwe where he began growing cotton, which was to be his primary occupation for the rest of his life. He worked for the British South Africa Company for £30 per month. He also seems to have had private cotton interests because he worked in partnership with David S. Alexander. At that time there was a barge service operated by A.L.C. for the carriage of goods and food between Karonga, Vua and Mlowe. In October, 1913 Maxwell was on ulendo in the north-eastern part of Northern Rhodesia. Alexander instructed McKenzie, the A.L.C. Agent at Karonga, to send stores up to him, and amongst his instructions stated, "The pay of carriers will be about 6/6d and 3 yds or 3 lbs of salt. Please poso boys and charge to his account....... Give boys a pass and invoice and say goods will be cleared at Mpika. Tell boys not to go to Fife, but travel from Nyala direct to Chinsale."

Cotton was already quite a thriving industry on the Karonga lakeshore. The Ngara Ginnery was then owned by the British Empire Cotton Growing Association. The crop was shipped by the A.L.C. to Fort Johnston on the `Guendolen' and sent thence to Port Herald where is was rebated for export duty before being shipped to the United Kingdom where "(it should be) disposed of to best advantage without undue delay." Between 22nd April and 4th June, 1914 Maxwell and Alexander supplied to the ginnery from their land atVua 910 bags of seed cotton with a net weight of 62,567 lbs. On three further occasions up to 5th August they sent another 101 bags weighing 6,207 lbs, making a total for the three-and-a-half month season of 1011 bags weighing 68,774 lbs.

War came, and on 5th August the news reached Karonga by telegram. 'That day Alexander had sent to Ngara what was to be his last consignment of cotton, and he and Maxwell set off for Karonga to discuss with the other Europeans in the area the new situation. He joined the Nyasaland Field Force and became a Scout in the Intelligence Dept. In January, 1916 he died of malaria and pneumonia at Fort Hill where he lies buried in his solitary grave. Maxwell became Transport Officer of the N.F.F. and fought in the Battle of Karonga, at the end of which he chased the fleeing Germans across the lake in a canoe. He survived another half century, still in the area of "this out of the way hole," and now also lies buried in another solitary grave beneath a favourite tree near his house at Nyungwe.

Photos of Hastings Kamuzu Banda

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Kamuzu Banda

The following are some of the historical photos of Late Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda the first president of an independent Malawi.

Kamuzu Banda from the Express Newspaper Archives

Hastings Kamuzu Banda in Kenya in 1967

Nyasaland Constitutional Review Conference

Kamuzu Banda and the future President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta in 1961

Kamuzu Banda and the Prime Minister of South Africa John Vorster in 1971

Hastings Kamuzu Banda In 1963

A yound Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda

Kamuzu Banda Dies

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Kamuzu Banda And Aleke Banda Arriving at Nyasaland Constitutional Review Conference in 1960

by Farai Sevenzo

Source: Transition, No. 85 (2000), pp. 4-29
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute

When Hastings "Kamuzu" Banda died on November 25, 1997, his country, Malawi, went into shock. He was Kamuzu the Conqueror, the Messiah, and he had dominated this modest nation in southern Africa from its inception. Larger than life, this tiny, decorous man had defied the British, the Rhodesians, and the Organization of African Unity; it seems his people had expected him to defy death, as well.

Barely three months earlier, Banda had been acquitted of murdering four opposition parliamentarians. His defense was encroaching senility-he couldn't remember if he was guilty. On December 3, 1997, the day Kamuzu Banda was laid to rest, his uncle produced his christening certificate. He did some quick arithmetic for the assembled masses and announced that the savior of Malawi had died at the age of 110.

Heads of state from across Africa were in attendance. Nelson Mandela had never quite known what to make of Kamuzu, the pan-African hero who had made a separate peace with South African apartheid. And yet when Mandela was released from prison in I990, Banda sent a financial contribution to the ANC, unprompted Robert Mugabe, Kenneth Kaunda, Joaquim Chissano they all came to pay their respects.

Late Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda Lying In State

But it was ordinary people who wept the most and stayed the longest. Banda's funeral went on for eight hours. Witnesses report that women wailed and fainted as his casket was lowered into the ground. He was buried below Capital Hill in Lilongwe, granted an eternal place at the heart of the government. His $50,000 gold-plated coffin and his concrete- lined grave were designed to protect him from the elements-the coffin would not rust for a hundredy ears. Even in death, the lion was to be revered.

And so he is. Last year, thousands gathered at his tombstone to pay homage on the anniversary of his death.When the Malawi Congress Party is in trouble-and these days, it often is-party officials go to Kamuzu's grave and plead for guidance. On the streets of most Malawian cities today, you can buy cassettes and videotapes with titles like Kanmuzu Speeches, 1969-1997 and Kamuzu Agricultural Show, 1981. But the best-selling video remains Kaimuzu Funeral Ceremony.

The 1950s and 1960s were a golden age for Africa. It is a time that will be forever cocooned in colonial nostalgia not for white rule, but for the ecstasy of Uhuru: for freedom, black heroes, and the romance of liberation. That time is gone; it began to slip away many years ago, as heroes became presidents, and presidents became presidents for life. Why do our heroes so often become our greatest villains? Or are villains only fashioned from heroes? Kwame Nkrumah fired the imagination of a continent, leading the Gold Coast to freedom and railing against the depredations of the West; and yet he ruled his new nation, Ghana, like a tyrant. Sekou Toure said "no" to France; but then he said the same to the aspirations of his Guinean citizens. And now Robert Mugabe, the leader of the movement that destroyed the rabidly racist Rhodesian republic, seems determined to jettison his legacy in a vain attempt to relive the glory of liberation-and maintain power at any cost. The contrast with Nelson Mandela couldn't be sharper.

And then there was Banda: a sternfaced, wily, well-dressed man; an elder of the Church of Scotland; an unlikely prime minister, and an even unlikelier dictator; a surgeon who knew more about the manners of middle-class London than about the traditional values of the people he led. He was already in his sixties when he assumed the mantle of power, and he ruled for thirty-three years.

In 1993 Banda agreed to hold a referendum on one-party rule. It was effectively a referendum on Banda himself; perhaps it was a sign of his impending dotage that he allowed it to be held at all. He lost; the following spring, he lost another election and ceded the presidency to Bakili Muluzi. It was a strange end to one of the strangest political stories on the continent.

Imagine it: An intelligent but poor native of the British colony of Nyasaland travels around the world, at a time when few Africans had any concept of the world beyond their own village. He speaks English with a Scottish accent learned from missionaries in his turn-of the- century Nyasa village. He falls in love with classical literature and modern medicine, surrounds himself with the trappings of scholarship and sophistication. He is a good doctor who knows he was born to lead. In the U.S. as in England, he sees himself as every bit the equal of the whites around him, despite his Africanness, his difference.

And he throws himself passionately into the cause of a lifetime: independence. He had left Nyasaland as a teenager-when, legend has it, he walked some thirteen hundred miles throught he wilderness to the gold mines of Johannesburg. It would be another forty-threey ears before he would see the land of his birth again. By then, all of Nyasaland was waiting for him. The people knew that he could see the mountaintop.And so the doctor became a hero, a prime minister, a president, a president-for-life.

In the early years, Banda tried to recreate the world he had left behind. He established schools to teach his countrymen the joys of Latin and Greek, and he importedt he very best teachers. English castles rose up across the Malawian countryside.

But who was he? A man who liked to receive a salute from the back of a Rolls Royce convertible,who required his citizens to line the streets and applaud as his motorcade zoomed by. He was not only president-for-life of the country and president of its only legal political party, the Malawi Congress Party; he was also, at one point, minister of external affairs, minister of justice, minister of public works, minister of agriculture, minister of community development, and minister of social welfare. But he had been born to poor Chewa peasants in the central region of Kasungu. (Throughout Banda's reign, little was said or known of his father; he liked to tell people that his mother had raised him on her own.) Kamuzu means "little root," and Banda was given the name because root herbs were believed to have cured his mother's infertility. He was the Nyasa Napoleon: h e came from nowhere to conquer the world.

In Malawi, not even the Nativity compares to Banda's legend. Before his return, the young militants of the Congress Party made him a hero; afterward, the people did it themselves. People believed he possessed supernatural powers: they said he could appear among his enemies without being seen, he could take the shape of a crocodile, he rode the backs of hyenas at night; they even said the wind obeyed his will.

I am still haunted by an old newsreel of Hastings Banda with Samora Machel of Mozambique, one of my childhood heroes. Machel descends from his presidential jet at Kamuzu Airport in Lilongwe; he is there to take Banda to task for supporting rebels in Mozambique. Machel steps onto a tarmac studded with dignitaries and proceeds directly to Banda, shaking his finger in Kamuzu's face, almost speechless with rage. The sound is poor, but you can read his lips: "You ... you ... Kamuzu!" Twenty-four hours later, the first president of independent Mozambique was dead, killed in a plane crash. It's hard to find a connection between the two events, harder still to imagine there is none.

A filmmaker by profession, I was interested in documenting the most anomalous founding father of Africa's independence. Late last year, I took my first trip to Malawi, on a mission to find the real Kamuzu.

The political life of Hastings Banda was defined by his triumphant return in July 1958. He had been a key player in the rise of the Nyasaland African Congress, and his name was already well known across the territory. He came wearing a lion's skin, like a king, and the people thronged to welcome him. Four men held large poles across their shoulders to bear Kamuzu on his throne.

Four decades later, I walked across the tarmac at Chileka Airport, imagining the roar of Nyasaland's men and women. They believed that colonialism's grip on their tiny country had been shattered with the arrival of one man. Witnesses say that Kamuzu was startled by the reception; he had been uncertain of his decision in the hours and days before his return. But the boisterous crowds at Chileka had an inspiriting effect. "Kwacha!" he cried. The word means "dawn," and it was to become his rallying cry. Kamuzu continued: "Go and tell the British I have come here to destroy their stupid federation."

Though it took him a couple of years, Banda did destroy Britain's Central African Federation, which yoked Nyasaland to the white settler states of Southern and Northern Rhodesia. He led his country to independence in 1964. And he never let anyone forget it. His boldness against the British was the text or subtext of nearly every speech he ever delivered. Every public address began with "Kwacha!" But does saying "dawn" for thirty-three years create permanent sunshine? Or does it cancel out the meaning of light?

It's fifteen miles from Chileka Airport to Blantyre, Malawi's commercial center, a town of 1 million people at the country's southern tip. I had never been to Malawi, although my own homeland, Zimbabwe, is almost a neighbor. Malawi was off-limits when I was growing up: it belonged to a man who was not interested in Africa's Uhuru, a man who did not mind being a guest of honor at the table of John Vorster, the leader of apartheid South Africa. But we all knew Malawians: generations of emigrants have taken jobs as mine workers, grave diggers, maids, gardeners, chefs, and farm foremen throughout the region. Malawi has few resources, and its biggest export has always been its people. No matter how menial their occupation, Malawians have never thought of themselves as slaves. They were sages, unfazed by the arrogance of their wealthier neighbors. If Malawians have a national characteristic, it is patience-interminable, almost spiritual, patience.

The patience of Malawians is often mistaken for obsequiousness, a facile eagerness to please. One thinks of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man-"I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins." It's true that Malawians are known to be generous with their smiles. In 1989 Paul Theroux wrote that Malawians were "essentially conservative and quiet-minded and somewhat puritanical"; the Zimbabwean magazine Moto still jokes that Malawi is "the only country where you can knock someone down with a car and your victim will get up from the road and apologize to you." Perhaps this habit of reticence helps to explain Kamuzu's thirty-three-year reign. Or, perhaps it's simply one more story from a country overrun with myths?

When I was a schoolboy, my parents employed a gardener named Robson Phiri. I suspect it was he who sparked my fascination with the mysterious country to our north-he couldn't stop talking about the glories of Malawi. When I asked him why he never returned, he told me that President Banda had thrown his father to the crocodiles.Years later, I saw Bob Marley perform at Zimbabwe's independence celebration. It was 1980,
and Zimbabwe was heady with freedom. I was not yet sixteen. Marley introduced my generation to reggae, and he also introduced us to marijuana. In southern Africa, there was only one brand, and when the great singer sampled it during his stay in Harare, he told reporters that it made him feel invisible. He was smoking Malawi Gold.

And so I was certain of three things when I embarked on my trip: that Malawi was beautiful, that Malawi Gold was powerful smoke, and that the man I was looking for fed people to crocodiles. It all came back to me as the taxi made its way into town, past rolling hills and palm trees and rows of crowded houses that climbed up the mountains. I had to concede it was beautiful. I absorbed the environs: faces on a bus, in the street; furniture makers carrying beds and sofas on bicycles; billboards exhorting people to buy mobile phones or fly British Airways. When I told the driver that I was making a movie about Kamuzu, he stared at me in the rearview mirror. "Let me say this," he announced peremptorily. "Kamuzu was the father of the nation. He made Malawi." He smiled. "We are a poor country. Kamuzu gave us faith in ourselves, and through that we became rich." He didn't mention the crocodiles. I had only ever heard about Malawi from people who had fled. Now it was time to hear from Kamuzu's children.

I wanted to see the whole country, talk to ordinary Malawians. But I also needed to meet with the country's elite: those who ruled alongside Kamuzu, and those who were imprisoned by him. I soon discovered that they were often one and the same. The list included Bakili Muluzi, who defeated Banda in the 1994 presidential elections, and whose recent reelection was charged with controversy. There was also Vera Chirwa, an activist who had spent over a decade in jail; Sam Mpasu, who went from promising politician to political prisoner and back again; and many others, including Aleke Banda, a cabinet minister at age nineteen, who lost Kamuzu's favor as quickly as he had attained it.

The most compelling member of Banda's menagerie was Cecilia Kadzamira, Malawi's "Official Hostess." In 1958 Banda hired this ravishing young nurse as a surgical assistant, and she remained at his side until his death. If the Scotophilic Banda was Malawi's Macbeth, then Kadzamira was his Lady. He never married her, although every state house and palace included a pair of adjacent bedrooms and cozy eating arrangements. But the Malawian people embraced her: Kamuzu's mistress was known as "Mama."

The ministry of information maintains the official Banda archive in Blantyre: the dictator's life lay in film cans,
strewn across three floors in an anonymous building. Banda was photogenic, and like the Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, he loved having his picture taken and seeing it in the papers. Cameras recorded his every speech; there are miles of footage of the Conqueror opening a bridge, inspecting a harvest, drinking tea at yet another Mother's Day celebration. It is always the same picture: the same man, in the same somber suits, carrying the same ivory-handled fly whisk. But no one was allowed to enter the archive without permission, and permission was difficult to obtain. I soon concluded that my research would be futile without official sanction from Banda's successor.

Raphael Tenthani, a local journalist, told me about a press conference at Sanjika Palace, the official presidential residence in the hills overlooking the city. Malawi is peppered with presidential residences-Kamuzu built one at Zomba, the old colonial capital; at Kasungu, where he was born; and at Lilongwe, the new capital. To his credit, President Muluzi chose to live only in Sanjika.

Sangika Palace is carved out of sheer rock. The road to the palace was lined with jacaranda trees in bloom. It's a majestic estate, flanked by meticulously sculpted gardens that conceal the soccer stadium out back. I managed to befriend the press secretary,Willie Zinganie, who turned out to be an invaluable contact. He booked a presidential interview for me, and when word spread that Muluzi was willing to discuss Banda's legacy on the record, the bureaucrats began to cooperate.

Willie was partial to semisweet wine, a wretched hooch that tasted like it had been culled from the reject grapes of all southern Africa. He also liked to talk about soccer-a sport whose popularity is unbounded in the region. (Banda's backyard stadium was a shrewd political gambit: by inviting the national team onto his estate, he turned football fever to his own advantage.) Willie had been an uncompromising Journalist during the Banda years,which meant that he spent many of those years in jail. He enjoyed recounting the tale of his final indiscretion: when presidential security guards shot and killed a mountain lion on the grounds of the estate, Willie's Malawi News headline read, "Lion shot and killed at Sangika." Banda's secret police panicked. Did he mean to suggest that Kamuzu Banda-Ngwazi, the Conqueror, the all-powerful Lion-had been murdered? Was he trying to start a rebellion?

One of the first government officials who agreed to be interviewed was the Honorable Sam Mpasu, the speaker of Parliament and the first minister of information in the post-Banda era. His story of life under Banda was similarly surreal. It seems that Mpasu had written a racy pulp novel called Nobody's Friend. Malawian security agents naturally assumed that the title referred to Banda, and Mpasu spent two years in a particularly
brutal jail. He had written another book afterward, Political Prisoner3 /75, whose cover bore the detention order that put him away, signed by Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda.

I asked Mpasu if he remembered the moment he first heard of Kamuzu's death. "I was in Oxford attending a conference. When the news came, I felt nothing. I said to myself,'Thank God a god was no longer a god."' Mpasu said it was important to change Malawians' attitudes toward their history. He claimed that people had been "brainwashed" by the old regime.

They had certainly been browbeaten. Hastings Banda possessed a fearsome puritanical streak: in the late 1960s, when Malawi, Rhodesia, and South Africa all outlawed television, Banda went further, lecturing young women on the evils of the miniskirt and hectoring young men to eschew Afros and dreadlocks. Banda fulminated against the latest fashions, routinely banning dangerous imports like flared trousers. Kamuzu's rule was paternalistic in the extreme: though he called himself the Father of the Nation, his stodginess made him seem more like a grandparent. Indeed, he was old enough to be the grandfather of many young Malawians who dutifully followed his prescriptions.

Since Banda's downfall, things have begun to change. Young women wear trousers and makeup; the miniskirt is now ubiquitous. In some urban areas, prostitutes stalk the streets practically naked.Young men with dreadlocks peddle art and incense. The older generation decries the new dispensation; for them, the children of democracy are AIDS, bank robberies, carjacking, and murder. One wag put it succinctly: It's better to
be ruled by one lion than by a thousand rats.

Aubrey Simbuleta, another young Malawian journalist, told me that the changes in Blantyre were only superficial.In fact, he said, most of the country hadn't changed much at all these last five years. There were still villages where no one believed that Banda was dead, let alone that he had been a tyrant. Simbuleta
claimed that across the countryside, people still hung Banda's portrait in their huts.

Malawi is an extraordinarily fertile country: driving the byways, we saw fields crowded with maize and tobacco; children stood by the side of the road selling fish, coconuts, and fruit.We passed a young man who had just been married. He was carrying his new bride and their baby on his bicycle, pedaling furiously to get to his village before nightfall.

We saw a group of masked men dancing in the bushes by the road, trailed by a small but enthusiastic crowd who clapped and sang along in encouragement. Our driver said that the dancers were called Chinyawes. They were essentially a secret society, founded eons ago. It was said that they could create thunder and lightning with their dances, and children were especially terrified of them. Banda's Malawi was officially intolerant of tribalism and factionalism, but he never moved against the Chinyawes, perhaps because he had himself been an initiate. (The only religious group he did see fit to persecute, oddly enough, was the Jehovah's Witnesses-a fairly large minority in colonial Nyasaland.When the Malawi Congress Party moved to organize village people in the 1950s, the Witnesses demurred: for them allegiance to God was exclusive of nation and party. Banda never forgave them, and they were frequently tortured in Malawian jails.)

Suddenly, from beyond a cluster of eucalyptust rees,a strangee dificer oset oward the skies. I asked the driver to stop. It was a dilapidated castle; its roof had collapsed,a nd there were vines growing over its disintegrating walls. It looked like the kind of thing you might see in Venice, or Leeds, or Banda's beloved Scotland. A battered sign half-submerged in red dirt announced that we were standing among the ruins of the Mpanga Young Pioneers Training Centre, one of the most notorious schools for Banda's "boys." Malawian teenagers came hereto learn about agriculture, mechanics, and carpentry. They were also trained in the art of defending Banda's honor, and they were largely responsible for the nationwide paranoia that accompanied his rule. These were no Boy Scouts. Some Young Pioneers were trained in Israel or the Soviet Union, and they were better equipped than the army. It was the Pioneers' responsibility to harass and murder Banda's opponents, maintain order and public dignity, and enforce Kamuzu's peculiar edicts. Although the Pioneers were most often deployed against political enemies, they also intervened in domestic affairs: if a wife, irate at her husband's infidelity, told aYoung Pioneer that he had saids omethinga bout Kamuzu's advancing age, the unfortunate husband might be packed off to jail.

A slight man in khaki shorts and a short-sleeved khaki shirt rose hastily from a deck chair as we pulled up. He
was a policeman, it turned out, and he carried an ornate baton that looked like a riding crop. He saluted and told us that he was guarding the property from further molestation; the castle was slated to become a school for prison guards. When I asked what had happened to the place, he explained that it was one of the casualties of the democracy movement that had finally removed Banda from power. In the early 1990s, when Malawians took to the streets in great numbers, the army refused to quell the disturbances. Months went by; the army dithered; finally, the Young Pioneers decided to act. This was a turning point in Malawi's history: in November 1993, as the country prepared to vote in the referendum on democracy and the Young Pioneers prepared a campaign of violence and intimidation, the army moved against them. It demanded that the Pioneers surrender their weapons. When they refused, the army laid siege to training centers across the country, including this one.

On the outskirts of the castle there were a number of smaller, more modest buildings. These must have been classrooms or dormitories. Sunlights treamed through gaps in the roof, revealing thousands of shoes, rotting away, spilling out of broken closets. Pots and pans lay rusting in corners. Along the walls of one room, Banda's four-part slogan was painted in black, red, and green-the colors of Banda's Malawi Congress Party.
"Loyalty,Obedience, Discipline, Unity!"

* * *
The first city we visited was Zomba, the old colonial capital, thirty miles north of Blantyre. The city was also the site of Zomba Prison, a warehouse for political prisoners that had long symbolized Banda's repressive regime; Willie Zinganie had arranged for us to see the place. But by the time we arrived at the prison, we were nearly six hours late for our appointment.

The prison was an imposing square structure, surrounded by barbed wire and khaki-clad policemen. As I tried to enter the building, six wardens appeared at the door.Why was I so late? The chief warden took me into his office to explain the rules of engagement: Willie had told the warden that I would like to see the cells of famous prisoners like Orton Chirwa and his wife,Vera. Therefore, I could see those two, and no more. I tried to suggest that Zinganie had intended no such restriction, but I was summarily dismissed.

The Chirwas were both English trained lawyers and founding members of the Nyasaland African Congress, and they were among those who had invited Banda back from his European exile to become the figurehead of the struggle against the British. It was the logic of African nationalism at the time: creating outsized heroes would focus and inspire the masses; too many leaders would dilute the movement's effectiveness. And it worked: as his deputies relentlessly compared him to Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Jesus Christ, Banda's authority swelled.

Only later, after the achievement of independence in 1964, did they realize the mistake they had made. Banda enjoyed exercising unlimited power, and he brooked no dissent; further more, he was convinced that Malawi-landlocked, flanked by Portuguese Mozambique to the west, south, and east-had to go its own way in African affairs. As Banda's minister of justice, Orton Chirwa tried to criticize the president's increasing authoritarianism, along with his policy of constructive engagement with Malawi's white-ruled neighbors.

This was the cabinet crisis of 1964. Banda, furious, fired his entire government, unleashing the full power of the state on his "treacherous" ministers. Most of them, including Orton and Vera Chirwa, fled into exile; a few took up arms in an abortive attempt to rally the Malawian people against the Father of the Nation.

The Chirwas made it to Dar es Salaam, where they found work as teachers and became part of a community of expatriate Malawians. But there was nowhere Banda's agents could not reach. Still on the run, the Chirwas eventually reached Zambia. But in I979 they and their teenaged son were abducted at gunpoint on their way to Sunday mass. They were brought back to Malawi, bound and gagged, and sent straight to Zomba Prison. Orton Chirwa, the man who had once served as Banda's personal lawyer, died in 199I of an illness caused by the prison's miserable conditions.Vera Chirwa, a few hundred feet away in the women's wing, knew nothing of her husband's ill health-she had seen him only once in twelve years. She was forbidden to attend his funeral.

When we arrived, Zomba Prison was no longer stocked with political dissidents; it was now full to bursting with actual criminals. Indeed, the prison population was exploding, and it was not uncommon for prisoners to go without food for a week or more, because there wasn't enough money to feed them. Banda had made prisoners grow their own vegetables, but that practice has been discontinued by the new regime, perhaps in an effort to make a clean break with the past.Walking through the courtyard of the prison with my chaperons,
I glimpsed scores of men gathered behind one water tap, waiting for a drink.

As the sun set over the large redbrick edifice, I saw eleven numbered shirts hanging on the barbed wire fence. They belonged to the prison warders' soccerteam; tomorrow was the big gameagainst the police.

* * *
Lake Malawi is the country's lifeblood. In Mozambique, on the eastern shore, it's still known as Lake Nyasa-a colonial misnomer with a life of its own. Nyasa is the word for "lake" in Nyanja, one of Malawi's three major languages. Legend has it that when Dr. Livingstone first encountered the seemingly infinite watery
expanse, he asked, "What is that?" "Nyasa," came the answer, and so the great explorer christened another colony for the British crown. Though the British have come and gone, people still use the lake as they have for thousands of years: they fish in small canoes, casting nets in groups of two or three. In the early hours of the morning, the lakeside is filled with women and children repairing the nets while men haul in catches of chambo, the nation's favorite fish.

Nkhotakota is the major town on Lake Malawi, some 130 miles north of Zomba. There are hot springs here,
which makes Nkhotakota an appealing destination for foreign tourists. Among Malawians, it is more famous as the home of chamba-not a fish, but that entrancing breed of marijuana known to Bob Marley as Malawi Gold. Despite Banda's puritanism, and despite the best efforts of his successor, the people of Nkhotakota continue to earn their living by cultivating the plant. There are families that have been growing marijuana for generations. I wanted to see the chamba fields for myself, but I was told it was too dangerous: chamba farmers have survived decades of state harassment by filling the area with inexpensive but deadly traps. Along the footpaths to their villages, an intruder might disappear int one of the innumerable snake-filled pits.

If I could not walk the fields, I would nevertheless sample the harvest: I bought a bag of marijuana for about $20. The traders seemed to be all women, and I made first contact in an innocuous-looking village. We conducted our business over supper, as the sun went down. The women complained about the police, but no one talked about getting out of the business. Eighty-seven percent of Nkhotakota's population lives below the poverty line: if they were not fishermen, they were farmers; and if they were neither, Malawi Gold put food on the table.

Our next stop was Lilongwe, 80 miles south and west of Nkhotakota. Lilongwe became the official capital in 1975. It was built with the help of the South Africans-years of friendly relations with the pariah government to the south allowed Banda to build this vast, sprawling city, larger and more modern than Blantyre. Blantyre remained Banda's main base, because many businesses and banks were there, but Lilongwe felt more like an African capital-there were crowds, music, markets, bars, and endless townships; expatriate Nigerians, Cameroonians, Tanzanians, and Zimbabweans; tourists from Holland, the United States, and England. But more than anything, there was dust: the architects of Lilongwe didn't foresee the consequences of building a city on these dusty plains. Lilongwe attaches itself to everyone who passes through; at the end of each day, you must remove it in the shower-brown-red dust, running down the drain.

When we arrived in Lilongwe, the controversy over the last general election was reaching its peak. Banda's old MCP was convinced that the election had been rigged; party officials had been quoted as saying that if President Muluzi did not order a recount, they would go "into the bush" to prove they were the real winners.
There were roadblocks everywhere, and the army was carrying out house-to house searches-ostensibly to make sure no weapons were being stockpiled. Muluzi wanted to demonstrate to Malawians (and the international business community) that he was in control of the country, including the armed forces. It was
tense.

Our plans for Lilongwe were set back by an inopportune sweep of our hotel. One of my traveling companions was caught with enough marijuana to send him to prison. Having seen Malawi's prison system first hand, I was extremely concerned. But when I went to the police station to press my friend's case, the officer in charge invited me into the cafeteria and offered me a beer. We had a perfectly pleasant conversation, and eventually he asked how much I thought my friend's fine should be. I named my price, and he suggested it was a little low. By the next morning, my friend was out.

On the way back to Blantyre, we marveled at the constant reminders of Kamuzu. There was a Kamuzu Bridge at almost every river crossing; the main highway that we traveled-the only highway in the country-is Kamuzu Highway; the country's top high school is Kamuzu Academy. The airport at Lilongwe only recently ceased to be known as Kamuzu International Airport. And yet Malawianso ften seem reluctant to pronounce Banda's name. Some of the people we spoke to call him "He who was here before." Does his name still conjuret he dictator's wrath?

Sam Mpasu had agreed to be filmed in his former cell at Mikuyu, the dank heart of Banda's dictatorshipI. t's a prison in the middle of nowhere, memorialized by the novelist Jack Mpanga in The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993). Inside, it was little more than four dormitories where eighty prisoners shared a floor and a toilet. The new government has made Mikuyu into a museum; the chains and the handcuffs are still embedded in cement, as they were when Mpasu was detained here. I noticed a grubby line marking the wall beneath the three small windows like a scar. Mpasu explained that the line was created by people's feet: "If we heard anything the approach of a Land Rover-everyone jumped up to try and catch a glimpse of the world outside."

Mikuyu is resplendent with little ironies. The man who built Mikuyu in 1970 had flown to South Africa's infamous Robben Island to copy aspects of its architecture; he ended up dying in Mikuyu. Focus Gwende, the leader of the secret police, turned up in Mikuyu. Today, most people blame Banda for these decisions, but they weren't necessarily his. His culture of suspicion made every policeman a judge. Banda's signature appeared on every detention order, but it was only a stencil. Every police station had a rubber stamp.

I had come to Malawi looking for traces of Hastings Banda, but it had become clear that, five years after his death, Kamuzu is impossible to avoid. He engineered his own immortality, affixed himself permanently to the shifting landscape. Malawians still talk in hushed tones about Ngulu Ya Nawambe, "the King's House," Banda's fortress in Kasungu, his birthplace. It's an obscenely opulent palace, painted in pink, built into the hills and surrounded by poverty. Then there is New State House in Lilongwe, which now houses all 179 members
of the Malawian Parliament. The parliament secretary, Roosevelt Gondwe, had shown me around the place; it took four hours to see all the rooms. "If you were to turn on every light and electrical appliance in the state house,"he told me, "Lilongwe would be plunged into darkness.Malawi has no oil, but Banda built petroleum tanks underground. To this day, we are still using the gas from those tanks for government vehicles. Banda wanted to make sure that if there should ever be a fuel crisis in Malawi, Banda would keep on running."

In the end, not even a dictator can control the power he has created: absolute power has a character of its own, unfettered by mortality. In 1994 Muluzi, the former secretary general of Banda's Malawi Congress Party, defeated his old boss. Will President Muluzi be able to outrun Banda's shadow? He doesn't seem like the type of man who would declare himself president-for-life. And yet Muluzi has willingly adopted Kamuzu's
trappings of power: women dance for him at the airport, and his ministers call him "His Excellency." Ofcourse, there are no automatic jail sentences for dissent and opposition; Malawians are free to criticize him. For now.

* *

Near the end of my stay in Malawi, I received word that Cecilia Kadzamira, Banda's Official Hostess, had agreed to see me. It was her first interview in ten years. When I met her at her modest house on the outskirts of Blantyre, she was wearing a silky white dress decorated with large blue lilies. She had a slight limp, but at sixty-four years old, she was still quite prim and still beautiful, the personification of Banda's aesthetic. We sat in a room full of pictures: Banda and Cecilia with Queen Elizabeth, with Princess Diana and Prince Charles, with the king and queen of Spain, with the gold tycoon Tiny Rowland, with Henry Kissinger, with countless other dignitaries and captains of industry. Her servants brought us tea and pancakes.

It all seemed a little much. I suggested that many Malawians resent the wealth that Banda accumulated during his reign. I asked her whether she understood the criticism of Banda's opulent lifestyle. She was incredulous. "No, I wouldn't understand it. Dr. Banda had money before he came to rescue his country. It was his money that set up the Nyasaland African Congress. But now it has all changed, everyone says Dr. Banda stole your cattle, your chickens your eggs.They say he was a dictator. A dictator? Yes! But he was a dictator by the will of the people.They wanted him to be Life President. They bestowed his titles on him. He was a dictator by the will of the people."

A cockroach crawled across the lapel of her well-ironed dress. I tried to change the subject. I asked if Banda had ever told her anything about his childhood. She smiled. "I remember one story he used to love to tell after dinner. He said that when he was about twelve, he could already hunt for himself. There was a great lack of food in Kasungu, where he was raised. He was supposed to provide for his family, so he walked for miles in the forest hoping to find a hare or a deer to kill. But then he came across a leopard that had just made a kill of a large antelope. Only half the antelope had been eaten; the leopard seemed to be playing with its food. Kamuzu crawled on his hands and knees until he was a few feet away. The leopard watched him-"

At this point she broke into a giggle. "You should have heard it from him. He said he was determined not to blink. He watched the leopard watching him and carried on, staring at it without blinking. Finally the leopard got bored and walked away."She laughed again, more heartily this time. "Kamuzu took the remains of the kill and was able to provide for his family."

If Hastings Banda planned to ensure that death could not erase him from Malawi's national consciousness he was successful. Perhaps too successful. His words and image and legacy are so insistently trumpeted that his very existence has started to seem like propaganda. Was there ever a Hastings Banda? Did he really rule Malawi for thirty-three years? Who was it who died at Johannesburg's Garden City Clinic on November 25, 1997? The Young Pioneers were the bedrock of Banda's power: it was their responsibility to harass and murder his opponents, maintain order, and enforce Kamuzu's peculiar edicts.

As I traversed the country, talking to people, I heard a curious unofficial biography of the Father of the Nation. It was said that Hastings Banda died in the United States while in medical school in the I940s. A fellow student named Richard Armstrong-an African American- had befriended the lonely Banda, and when Banda died, Armstrong took his place. They say Armstrong learned the young Kamuzus' life and history with
the same deliberateness he had applied to medicine. They say it was Armstrong who returned to Malawi in 1958. He revealed his true identity to a small band of collaborators who paid Banda's relatives in Kasungu to keep quiet. Had Malawi been liberated from the British by an American?

Over and over, I heard stories like this. There's the tale of an elderly aunt from Kasungu who knew Banda as a child. After he became president-for-life he invited all of his aunts to come and live in his state houses. But they knew something was amiss and insisted that Banda show them his toe, which he had injured while working in the garden at the age of twelve. Flustered, Banda ordered all the aunts sent home.

Is this the man whose messianic presence hovers over Malawi today? Was Hastings Banda pure myth, even before he assumed power? Has his death changed anything? Maybe it doesn't matter who he was. He instilled a fierce sense of pride among the inhabitants of one of the poorest countries in Africa. What kind of actor would have been able to pull that off without detection? One with a very strong will, indeed.

The Migrations of Yao and Kololo into Southern Malawi In 19th Century

2011-07-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

Author(s): Nancy Northrup
Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1986), pp. 59-75
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center

A major theme in African historiography has been the influence of migrations in the history of the continent. Some of these migrations, such as those of the Bantu- and Nilotic-speaking peoples, were vast in time and space, and are accessible to historians only indirectly through the analysis of information culled from other disciplines: linguistics, archaeology, even botany and biology. While the findings of these disciplines can provide the historian with hypotheses dealing with the causes, routes, ands cultural and economic effects of migrations, they cannot describe the actual events surrounding these migrations. More recent, and more clearly defined migrations, such as those of the Jaga in Angola in the sixteenth century, and the great Ngoni incursions into East and Central Africa in the nineteenth century, are better understood in their general outlines and are documented through oral traditions and eyewitness accounts. For these reasons, and because of their dramatic, often violent nature, these migrations have been the subject of more detailed accounts.

However, to concentrate solely on these types of migrations is to obscure the major importance of less dramatic, but more common forms of population movement in African history. Throughout most of the history of man in Africa, as elsewhere in the world, migration has been a relatively slow, and generally small-scale affair, involving kinship groups moving short distances to find more plentiful resources or to escape tensions and turmoil in their homeland. Unfortunately, this type of migration in pre-colonial Africa is usually difficult to document in any detail because of the paucity of eyewitness accounts.

One area for which this is happily untrue, at least for the latter half of the nineteenth century, is southern Malawi. In the midnineteenth century, southern Malawi was entering a period of intensive change brought about in large part by the arrival of new groups of people wishing to settle in the area. Southern Malawi had historically attracted migrants because of its natural resources. It was inhabited by the Mang'anja, people of some agricultural skill and technological sophistication. This in combination with other factors enabled the area of the middle Shire Valley and Highlands to support a more dense population than was possible in the surrounding area.l

Throughout their history, the Mang'anja were in contact with their neighbors, fighting or trading with them, and emigrating to or accepting immigrants from the surrounding, culturally related regions. This interaction was intensified in the nineteenth century as southern Malawi became the focus of numerous migrating groups, including Ngoni, Yao, Kololo and British settlers. It is with two of these groups, the Yao and Kololo, who established themselves as political authorities in southern Malawi in the 1860s and 1870s, that this paper is concerned. The quantity and quality of available evidence, both oral and written, makes it possible to examine these migrations in some detail. A closer look at certain aspects of these migrations; their composition, the factors which pushed and pulled the migrants, the impact of economic and political circumstances in the "host" region, and the factors which determined their ultimate success or failure, will produce a clearer picture of these migrations, and suggest some general observations about the process of migration in pre-colonial Africa.2

The migrations of the Yao and Kololo, which took place concurrently and in contiguous regions, cover a broad area on the spectrum of types of migration. The Yao migrations, which focused on the highland region, involved groups moving relatively short distances in small or large numbers and settling down, peacefully where possible and by conquest where necessary, among people of similar culture with whom they had, in some instances, long-established contacts. The Kololo represent another, less common, type of migration, that of a small group of individuals who travel a considerable distance to establish themselves as chiefs among alien peoples. In a sense, they provide a case study of the convention, common in oral traditions, of chiefly invaders or wandering hunters who founded new states.3

Although the original movements of Yao groups into the area of southern Malawi, beginning as early as the 1830s, seem to have been impelled by a combination of political and economic forces, the role of raids against the Yao in their homeland by Lolo/Makua peoples living to their south was remembered as pivotal. Duff Macdonald's Yao informants, for example, stated in the 1870s that the migrations began when a group of invaders, referred to as "Angulu" or "Walolo," attacked the Machinga Yao. At least some of these attacks were for the purpose of capturing slaves to sell at the coast for cloth. Being armed with guns, the invaders were able to defeat the Machinga, who fled into the territory of their neighbors, the Yao living around the Mangoche hills.4 Additional information concerning these events is provided by Yohanna B. Abdallah, who cites internecine warfare among the Makua brought on by famine as the cause of the attacks. In this version the defeated Makua fled, armed with guns, to invade Machinga Yao country, thus setting off the chain reaction in which group after group was dislodged and fled before invaders, in the process becoming invaders themselves.5 An alternative or supplementary explanation is offered by E.A. Alpers, who suggests that the growth of the slave trade at Mozambique and Ibo supports the theory that slave raiding by Makua in the Meto district may have played a part in these events.6

Incursions of the type ascribed to the Lolo/Makua in these accounts cannot have been rare in pre-colonial times, but their impact remains difficult to analyze in the absence of first-hand accounts. While attacks aimed at the seizure of people or food would certainly cause disruption, especially among people less well armed and organized than their invaders, it seems likely that this disruption would be temporary, since the incursions would, by their nature, have to be sporadic. What then could explain the apparent size and intensity of the disturbances caused by Makua-Lomwe in Yao country? Perhaps the culprit here, as in the later upheavals in the Mang'anja area, was not the intrusion itself, but the devastation of farmlands and the disruption of the normal agricultural cycle, which led to famine. Grain crops, such as millet and sorghum, which were the staples of the Yao diet at this time, are especially vulnerable as they require a more rigid cycle of planting and harvesting than do root or tree crops, and, as Alpers has pointed out, Yao agriculture was not highly intensive and productive.7

In the evidence for the Yao migrations into southern Malawi, a number of general features stand out which characterize their migrations as a whole. These general characteristics arise from both the character of Yao polities and society and the particular circumstances in which they found themselves.8

In the first place, it is clear that there was no single "migration" or "invasion." Among the two main Yao groups which settled in southern Malawi, the Mangoche and the Machinga, migration was highly decentralized, as Yao polities were, and migrating groups underwent processes of dissolution similar to those which continually split Yao villages. According to Mitchell, the migrating groups consisted of "the chief and his younger brothers together with their sons and slaves, and some unrelated followers."9

The Chiefs who led the various groups into their new territories are remembered, but their chieftaincies were quickly split by members of the families and followings who broke off from the original group to form new chieftaincies. Such was the case with the major Machinga invaders: Nsamala (whose group split into the Nsamala, Mponda and Kalembo chieftaincies) Nkata (who gave rise to three chieftaincies, Nkata or Jalasi, Nyambi, and Mkumba) and Kawinga (whose junior relative Liwonde established his own chieftaincy).10

It is worth noting that, although the Machinga and Mangoche are treated as separate groups, and apparently identified themselves that way at the time of the invasions, the names are basically geographical. In the 1890s, Hynde commented on the insignificance of the differences between all of the Yao groups, noting that there was little difference in language between any of them.11 Although the Machinga as a whole had pushed the Mangoche as a whole out of their homeland and into southern Malawi, political rivalries did not necessarily split along these lines. One of the bitterest rivalries existed between two Machinga chieftaincies, Malemia and Kawinga, whose enmity lasted from at least 1860 until 1895 when Kawinga was defeated by the British with the connivance of Malemia. On the other hand, there appears to have been some cooperation between Mangoche and Machinga chiefs even during the period of migration.

It is obvious that ethnic differences also were less important than immediate political or economic considerations in determining alliances and enmities on the frontier that was created by the various migrations. Yao might ally with Ngoni or Kololo against Yao, and Mang'anja frequently joined with any of these against Mang'anja. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that ethnic awareness was heightened in the frontier situation which was developing in southern Malawi in the mid-nineteenth century. The juxtaposition of different groups

sharpens the awareness of each of the uniqueness of its own customs at the same time as the competition for available resources imposes on each the necessity for justifying its own position in opposition to the others. The rate at which each group developed a group or ethnic identity varied with the historical and contemporary experiences of the group. The Ngoni, for example, seem to have arrived with a ready-made sense of identity which grew out of their earlier experiences. Others, such as the Kololo, quickly developed a largely fictitious identity in order to strengthen their position as a small minority, and to provide an umbrella of identity under which others might cluster. The Mang'anja, on the other hand, seem to have lacked a larger sense of group identity at this time, hindered perhaps by historical rivalries.12

Although the Yao migrations initially consisted of matrilineal kinship groups, their slaves, and followers, these groups were frequently joined by others whom they met along the way. These were people who had been displaced themselves and who needed to attach themselves to a group for security. In this way, Yao groups could become quite large. One settlement in the highlands near Magomero was estimated to contain two to three thousand people. These large groups, however, were of necessity only temporary, since, as a European

observed at the time, "Want of food, division among themselves, and the incapacity of the land to support any great number of people in one place would compel them to separate, and settle in various parts of the country."13 While some people joined the migrating groups through choice, others seem to have been impressed. Lovell Proctor believed that all of the women in the Yao camp which the U.M.C.A. missionaries fought in August 1861 were captives. One woman told Proctor that she had come to Chikala with Malemia, but had stayed behind and settled with the local people when he moved on. However, when Malemia returned to Chikala, she was enslaved by him. Thus, groups of migrants might increase or decrease over time.14

Not all the Yao who entered southern Malawi and settled there came in groups, and not all migrants were a source of disruption. There were Yao settled in the area before the major migrations, Yao who had come into the region as traders and remained, or who had come, like one Ntula, to buy food, only to find himself captured and enslaved. In other cases Yao migrants were undoubtedly welcomed by local Mang'anja chiefs because of the goods they could provide as traders. Similarly, in later times, the Mang'anja welcomed Zimba and Phodzo migrants because of their skills as elephant and hippopotamus hunters, and Mwenga because of their abilities in working metal. The Yao settlers themselves later welcomed coastal traders who came to southern Malawi, settled at Yao towns to carry on the slave and ivory trade, and were a source of much desired goods from thecoast.15

While, as Mitchell points out, "the Yao invasion of Nyasaland was not a military incursion of the Ngoni type," neither was it possible in the circumstances for such a large scale migration to take place completely peacefully.16 Livingstone and other British observers in the 1860s, interpreting the Yao migrations mainly from the viewpoint of their Mang'anja hosts, saw the Yao as slavers preying upon the peaceful and helpless Mang'anja. As Livingstone described it:

The usual way in which they have been advanced among the Mang'anja has been by slave-trading in a friendly way. Then professing to wish to live as subjects, they had been welcomed as guests, and the Mang'anja, being great agriculturists, have been able to support considerable bodies of these visitors for a long time. When the provisions became scarce, the guests began to steal from the fields; quarrels arose in consequence, and the Ajawa having firearms, their hosts got the worst of it, and were expelled from village after village, and out of their country.l7

Decades after the event, when Nyasaland, and the Yao, had fallen under British control, a different interpretation of these events was offered:

Pressed south, they came to the country round lake Shirwa, and, as there was plenty of land, they would have settled peaceably, but for the Mang'anja or Nyasa race, who fought with their weary (and perhaps thieving) guests, and sold them in crowds to the Portuguese.... By degrees the Yao found themselves the stronger, and turned the tables on the Mang'anja, selling them to the Portuguese.... 18

Which then, if either, were the Yao migrants: insidious immigrants, taking advantage of the hospitality of a peaceful agricultural people in order to seize control of their land and drive them out, or hapless refugees

driven into southern Malawi where they met, not hospitable farmers, but belligerent slavers? Perhaps both of these extremes describe part of what took place during these migrations, but each simplifies the events,

ignoring the importance of the political and economic setting in which they occurred.

According to Schoffeleers, the Lundu state which had been established by the Mang'anja in the sixteenth century, and which at its height had extended from the Shire to the Indian Ocean north of the Zambesi, had collapsed in the seventeenth century due to the tripartite challenge of internal separatism, external migration and invasion, and long distance trade.l9 These three factors were still important in the second half of the nineteenth century, and were not without relevance in the Yao conquest of southern Malawi. By the nineteenth century, the "loose confederation of chiefdoms" which had made up the Lundu heartland, and which had been held together by a system of perpetual kinship in which the Lundu was recognized as the senior chief, and by a network of territorial shrines controlled by the ruling clans, had disintegrated. This absence of centralized power made it easier for the Yao to defeat and take over the individual Mang'anja chieftaincies. Although it may be easier for a centralized military force to take over a centralized state which provides an easily discernable target in its government, for relatively small, uncoordinated groups such as the Yao migrants, the small, individually weak Mang'anja chiefdoms provided a more manageable opposition.

While the political weakness of the Mang'anja had historical roots in the disintegration of the Lundu state, there were also contemporary factors which exacerbated their problems. In 1862, as the Yao were beginning

their move into the highlands of southern Malawi, ecological disaster struck in the form of a severe drought and consequent famine which took its extreme form in the lower river valley where there was little enough rainfall in normal times, but which also affected the highlands. The famine was probably a decisive factor in the Yao migrations. Mitchell hit upon an important point when he noted that "informants maintain that many of the first immigrants came into the country peacefully and in small family groups."20 No doubt these early immigrants, because they were few in number, were able to settle in the area without putting too much strain on the resources of the highlands.

The famine which Livingstone and the newly arrived U.M.C.A. missionaries observed and described in the early 1860s was worsened by the arrival of thousands of Yao who, needing food, raided those crops which the highland Mang'anja were waiting to harvest.21 The failure of rains in 1862 caused devastating famine in the river valley and in the lower plateaus where rainfall as a rule was uncertain. One observer estimated that 9 percent of the river Mang'anja died during this famine.22 These Mang'anja were replaced by others fleeing from the Yao in the highlands. While the Kololo are sometimes credited with containing the Yao in the highlands and preserving the river below the cataracts as a Mang'anja area, it was probably this famine which kept the Yao from moving down to the valley where conditions were anything but inviting, thus giving the still weak Kololo time to consolidate their position in the region.

Among the early immigrants who seem to have come peaceably into the highlands was a group which the missionaries had a chance to observe. This was the large group of two to three thousand Yao previously mentioned, which had fled south before the attacks of the Machinga chief Malemia, and had settled near Magomero shortly before the U.M.C.A. established their first station there. By 1861, these Yao had established villages and intermarried with neighboring Mang'anja and were raising crops.

This state of affairs was short-lived, however. In 1861 a second Mangoche chief, known as Chowe, or Jowi, arrived on the scene, "plundering and burning in every direction." In 1862 war broke out between Kampama and the local Mang'anja chief, Bawi, who had always refused to give permission for the Yao to settle in his territory (although one European observer believed they had received permission from the chief Chisamba).23

The early peacefulness of Kampama's settlement was not to be characteristic of the migration as a whole. The Yao, whom the missionaries found settled near Magomero in 1861, were only the southernmost pocket of the vast migration which would soon engulf the highlands. Within a few months, the Yao had moved in force into the southern highlands, and the local Mang'anja chiefs were forced either to flee or to attempt collaboration with earlier Yao settlers against the greater threat of the latest invaders. Even the English missionaries took the conquest as a fait accompli at this point, and attempted a reconciliation with the future rulers of the country.24 For many of the Mang'anja, however, collaboration turned out to be too little or too late. In April 1863, Horace Waller noted:

Sotchi has met with the fate we prophesied for him. The Achawas allowed him and his people to grow a great deal of corn and now he has to flee for his life while his proteges eat his corn.25

Two months later, Waller recorded the flight of two more Mang'anja chiefs:

Chinsunzi and Kankomba have gone to the Anguru country, they say and there seems to be literally an absence of Mang'anja in the land where thousands were when we arrived and tens of thousands on its discovery by the Doctor.26

Despite the fact that these descriptions leave little doubt that the Yao invasion at this stage was not accomplished peacefully, the military technology available to either side was not sufficiently advanced to cause great loss of life in battle. The evidence indicates that both sides possessed guns, but it is clear that neither was equipped with sufficient firearms or ammunition to make firepower a significant factor, other than psychologically. Although the Yao are often credited with superior weaponry, they claimed to have been driven out of their own country in the first place because the Makua had guns and they did not. In one of the first military encounters between the Yao and the Mang'anja in the southern highlands, the Mang'anja made up an army of 500 men, fifteen of whom carried guns, but none of whom had ammunition for their fire-arms.27 On the other hand, Livingstone described an early encounter with a "large body" of Yao in August 1861 in which the missionaries and their followers engaged in battle. Although four of the Yao had guns, the mission group was shot at with poisoned arrows.

Lovell Proctor also noted that the Yao living near Magomero at that time had "a few guns, but very little powder."28 It is impossible, however, to generalize very far from this. At the end of 1863, Livingstone, travelling north to the southern tip of Lake Malawi commented that "the secret of [the Yao's] success is the possession of firearms," and noted the presence of "a large party of Ajawa ... all armed with muskets" at one village. At this point, it may be that what the sources reveal is a difference between the Mangoche Yao and the Machinga, who may have been far better armed due to their more extensive involvement in the slave and ivory tradewith the coast.29

The character of the first contacts between the Yao invaders and the Mang'anja was determined not only by current political and economic conditions in southern Malawi, but also by earlier contacts which the Yao had had with the area. Unlike migrants whose original homelands lay far from southern Malawi, such as the Ngoni, the Yao were moving into an area which had long been familiar to them. It is impossible to document in any detail the pre-invasion contacts between the Yao and the various Maravi peoples of the southern Lake and Shire region, but there is sufficient evidence that these contacts had been considerable.

It is, as E.A. Alpers points out, likely that intermarriage was fairly common in areas where Yao and Maravi peoples lived in close proximity. This type of social interaction could have been accomplished with little friction between peoples whose customs and cultures were as similar as those of the Yao and Maravi. Numerous nineteenth century observers commented on the similarities between these two groups, and some even suggested that they must be related.30 Better evidence is available for contacts between the Yao and the Maravi through trade. Most of this evidence, tracing these contacts back at least to the seventeenth century, has been collected by Alpers for his study of Yao trade. He points out that, although the Maravi supplied many of the items for the long distance trade to the coast, including ivory, slaves, and the so-called enxadas de Mujao, or Yao hoes, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they had scant involvement in transporting these items beyond the limits of their own territory. Rather, they acted as middlemen, transferring goods from Bisa traders coming from the west to Yao caravans, or as suppliers of goods to the Yao caravans which came to Maravi country to trade and carry the goods to the coast. cites oral testimony to the effect that the Machinga first came into Maravi country to trade for iron goods, while Stannus suggests an even closer link when he says that the Yao learned the skill of ironsmelting from the "Anguru and Anyanja."32

Abdallah also mentions the trading links between the Yao and the Maravi, links which he claims pre-dated the slave trade. The Yao, he says, took goods from the coast "to the Anyasa, the Amanganja peoples south of Chikala, buying salt and cattle from them ... others went to the lake shore at Ng'omba, to Likowe and further south where CheMambe (Mponda) now lives."33 The trade across the southern lake and the Shire was most likely carried on by local middlemen who, unlike the Yao, were experienced in the handling of canoes.

Established trading contacts and trade routes seem to have been a significant factor in determining where the Yao settled on moving into southern Malawi. Lance Klass recorded a tradition that Mkumba I had given Matipwiri and Kuntilamanja gunpowder with which they were to capture Chiperone Hill from the Amalolo. "Matipwili and Kuntilamanja stayed there as Mkima I had told them, so that Mkumba's people would have a place to rest on their way to trade on the coast at Ciwambo."34 This Matipwiri's successor is said to have moved his headquarters to Mt. Mlanje, from which vantage point he could control trade passing from the southern lake to Quelimane. Alpers points out that Yao traders bringing slaves, ivory and iron hoes were well-known at Quelimane by 1859, that is, before their settlement in southern Malawi had taken any clear shape. It is certain that when the Yao did settle down, the most important chiefs chose to settle at places which would give them control over this previously existing trade route. This may have been part of an effort tooffset their loss of control of the ivory trade west of the Shire to the Bisa.35

Further evidence for long-standing contacts between the Yao and the peoples of the southern lake region can be found in certain cultural similarities, such as tshe sharing of clan names. As Mitchell points out, certain clan names among the Yao (Phiri, Milasi, Mbewe, Banda, Simbiri, Mwale, Ngoma) also appear among the Chewa, Mang'anja, Chipeta, Mbo, Lakeside Tonga, Mpotolo, and Lomwe peoples. These clan names do not appear among the Yao in Tanzania or the Acisi Yao under Katuli. No Yao group has any traditions of origin to explain these clan names, nor are these names common words for objects in Yao as they are in Chewa. On the basis of this evidence, Mitchell suggests that the Yao may have acquired their clan names through contact with the peoples of the Maravi empire.36

Clan names were also of significance in determining the pattern of settlement of the Yao in southern Malawi. Mitchell points out instances in which the sharing of clan names is remembered as important, and suggests that a common clan name was used as a claim for protection and as an excuse for settling in an area.37 A most interesting and well documented case of the use of shared clan name by an intrusive group is that of the Machinga chief Malemia who moved into an area controlled by a Nyanja chief named Nyani whose clan name was Mwale, as was that of Malemia. Mitchell finds no reason to think, as Stannus claims, that Malemia purchased land from Nyani for a red blanket. Mitchell prefers the explanation that Nyani placed himself under Malemia's protection, thereby giving Malemia the chieftainship, an explanation which he supports by pointing out that the present-day Nyani is only a village headman in Malemia's area, and that Malemia was the acknowledged chief by 1878.38

Two additional instances where clan names were of significance can be cited. Mitchell cites a second case of a Machinga chief, Kawinga, who, on fleeing from Chikala to escape raids by the British, crossed the border into Mozambique, and settled there with a Mpotola chief named Nkanyele, whose clan, Mbewe, was the same as Kawinga's.39 Hodgson, writing in 1933, noted that though the distinctions of clan are falling daily deeper in disregard, a Mchewa will treat a Myao of the same clan as his mbaZa, or brother, and recently, when the Chewa chief, Mwase, died at Kasunga, the Yao chief Makanjira, living on the lake shore made a journey of fifty miles to attend his funeral ceremonies because both were members of the Phiri clan.40

The Yao and Chewa also share a tradition of origin which may spring from long contact, or from Yao invaders assuming the traditions of the local people.41 According to the Chewa tradition, the Chewa people originated in a place called Kapirimantiya, where footprints mark the spot where man and animals were created. Hamilton and Marwick, studying this tradition and another which places the origin of the Chewa in Luba country, have deduced that these two myths record the origins of two segments of the Chewa, the first

account belonging to the Banda, who are traditionally the clan closely related to the land and rainmaking, and possibly derived from the earliest settlers, and the second recording the origin of the chiefly Phiri clan, who may have come from the Luba country as chiefly invaders. In the comparable Yao tradition, the first men were supposed to have come from west of Lake Malawi where, on a hill called Kapilintiya, two pairs of footprints, those of a man and a woman, are still visible in the rock.42

Once the Yao had established themselves in southern Malawi, the similarities of custom between them and the Mang'anja made accommodation possible for both sides. Duff Macdonald was so struck by these similarities in the 1870s that he concluded that "in their natural state, the Anyasa have the same customs as the Yao."43 Although his conclusion was overstated, his observation is suggestive. Although many Mang'anja fled before the original Yao migrants, others remained or soon returned, and intermarriage was a regular feature of Yao-Mang'anja relations from the start. Both were matrilineal and uxorilocal in their marriage customs. The practice of preferred exogamy made intermarriage more acceptable than it might otherwise have been, and the practice of polygamy, especially by chiefs, made it easier for Yao chiefs to establish important family connections among the local people.

Although Islam would later become the dominant religion among the Yao, many of the first Yao invaders found it useful to adapt themselves to Mang'anja religious customs, especially when they wished to gain access to the spirits associated with the land. Macdonald noted that the Yao chief, Kapeni, continued to invoke the aid of Kagomba, his Mang'anja predecessor, when rain was needed. The belief that those chiefly ancestors who controlled the land could best be invoked by their own descendants made it necessary for Kapeni to seek assistance from those of his Mang'anja subjects who could trace some connection with Kangomba. In this way, the Mang'anja were able to retain an important position in their country.44

Politically the Yao and Mang'anja shared similar, largely decentralized systems. Mary Douglas observed that the Mang'anja "system of administration was sufficiently like that of the Yao for the Maravi headmen in Yao dominated areas to become incorporated into the Yao political system."45 The Yao system consisted of a land chief who controlled a defined territory which was divided into villages each of which had its own headman. The chief ruled his capital and was responsible for arbitrating serious disputes, protecting his headmen, and leading his followers into war. He acted with the advice of a council of headmen. In return, his headmen were expected to send him the ground tusk of any elephant killed in his territory, to provide fighters in case of war, and, if they were senior headmen, to act as members of his council. The Mang'anja system was basically the same, although in theory it included a further level of centralization. In practice, however, the existence of the Lundu was irrelevant, and once the important Mang'anja chiefs were replaced, the lesser chiefs or headmen were able in many circumstances to remain

In contrast to the Yao were the Kololo who were introduced into southern Malawi, more or less incidentally, by David Livingstone. When Livingstone returned to Barotseland in 1860, he found Sekeletu suffering from leprosy, and his conquest kingdom showing signs of stress under his leadership. On leaving Barotseland to return to the Shire region, Livingstone was accompanied by two Kololo, Ramakukan and Mloka, their servants, and a group of canoemen. Ramakukan and Mloka, whom Sekeletu designated as the headman of the group, were to return to Sekeletu with medicine for his leprosy. In the end, however, none of the party returned to Sekeletu, who died in 1863 and whose kingdom was overthrown by Lozi insurgents shortly thereafter. It was this group of about fifteen migrants which carried out the consolidation of power in the Shire valley during the next two decades.

The introduction of the Kololo into the Shire at this time was to have important consequences. Within a few years this small band of foreigners, who arrived unable to speak the language and without wealth or means of support, managed to gain control of the whole river from the Ruo to the cataracts. Although documentation for the Kololo takeover in this area is spotty, the process deserves close attention for what it can reveal about the intriguing problem of how such "chiefly invaders" and "wandering hunters" operate. Lucy Mair has postulated three prime factors in the assumption of rule without conquest: the recognition of the privileged status of the incoming group, the use of polygamy to increase the size of the group, and the availability of unattached (that is, unprotected) people to form a following.46 All of these factors played a part in the establishment of the Kololo on the Shire, but their situation involved other factors as well.

Contemporary observers tended to regard two factors as decisive in explaining the success which the Kololo achieved. Of foremost importance was the disruption caused by the famine suffered throughout the area in 1862-1863 and exacerbated by the incursions of Yao and Portuguese slavers. The second factor, which is usually emphasized, is the intervention of David Livingstone who is seen as having deputized the Kololo as protectors of the Mang'anja upon his departure and provided them with arms and ammunition for this purpose. 47 While it is true that Livingstone gave guns and ammunition to the Kololo, his role in their success should not be overemphasized. In fact the Kololo had already begun their bid for power before Livingstone was recalled, and they had acted largely without his consent, and even against his expressed wishes since he continued to attempt to force them to return to Sekeletu.48

While these factors played a significant part in the success of the Kololo, they exclude one essential factor. Given the necessary prerequisite of the breakdown of political stability, the most significant factor in the Kololo success was undoubtedly the customs and abilities which they brought to this area from the conquest state in Barotseland, and which proved to be uniquely well-suited to the situation in which they found themselves in southern Malawi. They had an early introduction to this situation when they accompanied Livingstone in the summer of 1861 on a journey to Lake Malawi, travelling up the left bank of the Shire where they saw "thousands of Mang'anja fugitives living in temporary huts on that side, who had been driven from their villages on the opposite hills by the Ajawa."49 The Kololo were settled on the river below the cataracts under the auspices of Chibisa, an upstart chief who had established friendly relations with Livingstone, and on their journeys to the U.M.C.A. station at Magomero they observed people fleeing from the wars in the highlands.

The establishment of new villages along the river was a common occurrence among the Mang'anja, many of whom set up temporary villages on the river to farm in the dry season. After the Kololo were left at Chibisa's in 1861, they had either to return to Barotseland or to fend for themselves. Their solution was to establish a village of their own where they built up a following of numerous refugees, and planted gardens to feed themselves and their followers. In this, their previous experiences meshed well with their current needs. At first they put themselves under the protection of Chibisa, who may have felt the need of well-armed allies at that time, and who gave them permission to start gardens, ordering any of his people who had more than one garden to give one to them. The Kololo also began to accumulate wealth by raiding the herds and gardens of neighboring Mang'anja.50 Horace Waller believed they did this with Chibisa's consent, that they were so "hand in glove with him all proceedings of this kind were winked at if not even favored in order that a share might come to him."51 Whether they acted in complicity with Chibisa or not, it is clear that they were acting much as they had in Barotseland, where Livingstone had observed that the King sanctioned cattle raiding among neighboring groups.52

It was apparently a fairly easy matter in the circumstances to build up their small numbers. Following the early habit of the U.M.C.A., they went around breaking up slave caravans and taking the liberated slaves under their protection. The women frequently became their wives, and the men served as farm labor or aided in their

plundering expeditions. They also attached to themselves a number of Yao and Mang'anja from among those who were displaced by the famine and wars on the highlands. Livingstone commented in 1862 that the Kololo at Chibisa's were "living in true native style with many wives." Most of these wives were Yao women; the Kololo claimed that the Mang'anja would not allow them to marry their daughters.53

This may have reflected a resistance among the Mang'anja to marrying their daughters patrilineally. Monica Wilson noted that the Chewa exhibited a similar resistance to marriage with Ngoni men, despite the prestige the Ngoni enjoyed and the cattle they offered, because in Chewa society status derived from the number of followers a man commanded.54 Apparently Chibisa did not share this reluctance. Mloka married a daughter of his, thereby winning the right to reside at Chibisa's village. Whether this affiliation with the local political authority played a role or not in Mloka's rise to power, Livingstone mentioned in April 1863 that "there was some talk of making Mloka a chief."55

While there is conflicting evidence on the importance of guns to the Yao migrants, the possession of guns (though few in number) was a major factor in the success of the Kololo. The Kololo seem to have made great use of their guns. Rowley noted that they "went nowhere without their guns, which they invariably carry loaded and on full cock."56 They used their weapons for a variety of purposes. They acquired a reputation for breaking up slave caravans which passed through their territory on the way to Tete. They also had a less savory reputation gained as a result of their pillaging and the heavy handed justice they meted out to those under their control. On the other hand, their possession of guns gave them the military power to secure their area against Yao and Ngoni incursions on occasions, and guns were an important underpinning of their economic success. With guns provided by Livingstone, they were able to hunt elephants and trade the ivory for more guns and ammunition.57

The Kololo were apparently able to organize their own group quickly into a small government centered at Chikwawa. Primacy fell first to Mloka, and later to Ramakukan, who, as has been noted, were the only true Kololo in the group. The introduction of patrilineal succession was a vital step in holding power. As Rangeley pointed out, This was not in respect for the only two pure Makololo among them, Maloka and Kasisi (Ramakukan), although they all called themselves Makololo. Mobita and Zomba, for instance; we know were of the matrilineal BaRotse. They had no alternative but to adopt patrilineal succession if the Makololo blood was to survive at all in the chieftaincy.58

While the Kololo found it convenient to remain under the protection of Chibisa when they first arrived in the region, this solution to their problem was no longer tenable after Chibisa moved away from the river to Doa to the southwest, and was killed late in 1863. At this point, having alienated many of the river chiefs by their marauding and their alliance with Chibisa, the Kololo may have found it necessary as well as advantageous to consolidate their position by destroying the traditional political authorities in the area. Just as Sebituane had found the internal divisions among the Lozi could be used to his advantage, so the Kololo on the Shire were able to use divisions among the Mang'anja, and enmities between Yao and Mang'anja, to defeat the local rulers.

Their first target was Chibisa's old rival, the current Lundu, Sakhonja. Their challenge to the Lundu's control of agricultural land and his right to control elephant hunting in his territory led to sporadic fighting and finally to an attack on his village at Livunzu in 1863,59 At about this time Sakhonja sent a tusk of ivory to Senor Ferrao, a Portuguese trader of great influence at Sena, requesting that he take possession of his country in order to protect it from the Kololo. Ferrao refused this invitation on the grounds that the Lundu's territory was too far away.60 It might also be noted that Ferrao had by this time established himself as a middleman for the Kololo ivory trade, so he had an interest in the continued success of the Kololo. At any rate, Sakhonja was left to the Kololo. Following a final quarrel over ivory hunting rights, the Kololo and their Yao followers attacked him and burned and looted his village. With the Lundu out of the way, the Kololo then turned to Tragonja Lundu at Mbewe and Mgundo Kaphwiti at Mtope north of the cataracts, both of whom were killed.61

While the Kololo had the advantages of superior arms and experience in the building of a conquest state, and a single-minded determination to defeat their enemies, some of the responsibility for their success rested with the Mang'anja themselves, who were frequently willing to aid the Kololo, as they had sometimes aided the Yao, in an effort to weaken their old enemies. In return, the Mang'anja were effectively organized for defense by their Kololo rulers. While often harsh in dealing with their subjects, the Kololo earned a certain amount of loyalty and respect for their ability to protect their followers not only from the Yao and the Portuguese, but from the formidable Ngoni, just as Sebituane had protected the Lozi from the Ndebele incursions, and thus won for a time the loyalty of those subject people.

By the middle of the decade the Kololo had established themselves firmly on the middle reaches of the Shire, and were "the chiefs of the country round about."62 Their further expansion was prevented by the presence of the Ngoni and the Machinga chief Mponda to the north, and by the Portuguese and the Mang'anja chief Tengani to the south. The land over which they had gained control remained under their power until the imposition of British rule at the end of the century.

The Yao and Kololo experiences offer instructive examples of the way in which successful migration and settlement could occur in nineteenth century Africa. They point up the significance of local conditions in the early stages of migration. In the case of southern Malawi, economic conditions, including the existence of longdistance trade routes, made this an attractive area. The traditional political patterns in the area, which included the absence of centralized authority, the historical failure of the inhabitants to form alliances for mutual protection, and the frequent emergence of upstart chiefs, all offered a receptive setting for migrants. In addition, the particular disruptions caused by drought and famine, and by the political disturbances in the Portuguese sphere to the south provided additional opportunities for better armed or better organized migrants.

Success in the long run, however, depended not only on local conditions, but also on the attitudes and capabilities each of the migrant groups brought with it to this situation. Every group, like every individual, is molded by its past experience, and it is to some extent a matter of chance whether that experience proves functional or otherwise in a given situation. For the Yao and the Kololo, past experience proved to be a useful guide for future success in the unsettled conditions of southern Malawi in the 1860s and 1870s. The Kololo, coming from a recently organized conquest state, carried with them knowledge of the practices of successful conquerors, while the Yao were able to draw on a long history of contact with the people of the region, and both groups were able, using previously acquired skills and knowledge, to take advantage of the economic opportunities which this region offered.

Footnote

1.Although it is not possible to estimate the population in the period under discussion, the pattern was noticeable at the time, and continues today, especially in the Highlands where there are some of the highest population densities in Africa. See William Hance, The.Geography of Modern Africa, 2nd ed. (New York, 1975), 477-478.

2.The original version of this article appeared as a chapter in my dissertation, "Southern Malawi, 1860-1891: A Case Study of a Frontier" (U.C.L.A., 1978), the research for which was conducted in archives in Portugal, England, and Scotland under a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant. Revisions have

been made utilizing the more abundant published material now available outside Malawi, but without access to the richer sources available only in Malawi, as the fieldnotes of the Zomba Oral History Research Project. The generous and helpful comments of an anonymous reviewer have also been incorporated.

3.Jan Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison, 1966), 18. In his useful discussion of migrations, Vansina chose to use the term "migration" only for "movements of population on the scale of politically sovereign communities, or at least of politically organized communities from the village upwards." Although the Kololo were neither of these, they did become a "politically sovereign" group, and their impact was comparable to that of larger groups. For this reason, and for comparative purposes, their movement into southern Malawi is referred to as a migration. In considering how the Kololo episode can cast light on the convention of chiefly invaders, however, it is necessary to keep in mind the sort of distortions which can enter into accounts of this type of event. For example, E.C. Mandala points out that traditions among the northern Mang'anja have shaped the Kololo intrusions to fit the model of the earlier Phiri occupation of the region. E.C. Mandala, "The Nature andSubstance of Mang'anja and Kololo Oral Traditions: A Preliminary Survey," The Society of Malawi Journal, 31, 1 (1978), 7.

4.Of the four main divisions of the Yao listed by Mary Tew Douglas, Peoples of the Lake Nyasa Region (London, 1950), the Chisi, Masaninga, Mangache, and Machinga, we are concerned here only with the last two, which settled in the region southwest of Lake Malawi and along the upper Shire River. Duff Macdonald, Africana (London, 1969) [1882], I, 31 and 334-336.

5.Yohanna Abdallah, The Yaos, trans. and ed. by Meredith Sanderson (Zomba,1919), 36.

6.Edward A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa (London, 1975), 250-251.

7. Ibid., 30. Robert Laws, who arrived in Malawi in 1875 to found the Livingstonia Mission, noted the relationship between agricultural practices and political stability. "When travelling through a district in early days," he wrote, "I used to consider that, if I came across cassava as the principal produce of the native gardens, the soil was either very poor, or the country was politically in a very disturbed state...." Robert Laws, Reminiscences of Livingstonia (Edinburgh, 1934), 251.

8. A useful description of these migrations is to be found in Violet Lucy Jhala, "The Yao in the Shire Highlands, 1861-1915: Political Dominance and Reaction to Colonialism," Journal of Social Science, 9, (1982), 1-21.

9.J. Clyde Mitchell, The Yac V-"'17-, . Study in the Social Structure of a Nyasaland Tribe (Manchester, '1966), 68 69.

10.J. Clyde Mitchell, "Preliminary Notes on Land Tenure and Agriculture among the Machinga Yao," Nyasaland Journal V, 2 (July 1952), 18.

11.R.S. Hynde, "Among the Machinga People," Scottish Geographical Magazine VII, 12 (December 1891), 658.

12.Jhala, "The Yao in the Shire Highlands," makes an interesting case for the importance of ethnic awareness among the Yao during the colonial period, pointing out how their image of themselves as a dominant group helped to shape their reactions to the opportunities and challenges of the colonial period. E.C. Mandala, "The

Nature and Substance of Mang'anja and Kololo Oral Traditions," 6-7, points out that continued immigration has had an impact on Mang'anja identity. Contrasting the Nsanje administrative district, where the Mang'anja account for only about 25 percent of the population, with the Chikwawa district where the comparable figure is close to 50 percent, he shows how being a sociological minority has led to a more rigid pattern of identification among the Nsanje Mang'anja.

13.Henry Rowley, The Story of the Universities: Mission to Central Africa. 2nd edition (London, 1867), 152-153, 406.

14.Lovell Proctor, The Central African Journal of Lovell J. Proctor, 1860-1864, edited by Norman R. Bennett and Marguerite Ylvisaker (Boston, 1971), 107, 144.

15.Bishop Mackenzie's Journal, 29 September 1961, U.M.C.A., I. Al (B), United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, London. A.W.R. Duly, "The Lower Shire District, Notes on Land Tenure and Individual Rights," Nyasaland Journal, I (July 1948), 23. Ian Linden, Catholics, Peasants, and Chewa Resistance in Nyasatand, 1889-1939 (London, 1974), 22.

16.Mitchell, The Yao Village, 25.

17. David Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambeai and Its Tributaries; and of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864, (London, 1865), 497.

18.A.E.M. Anderson-Morsehead, The History of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, 1859-1909, 5th ed. (London, 1909), 21-22.

l9. Matthew Schoffeleers, "Livingstone and the Mang'anja Chiefs," in Bridglal Pachai, editor, Livingstone: Man of Africa. Memorial Essays 1873-1973 (London, 1973), 114.

20.Mitchell, The Yao Village, 25.

21.Horace Waller Papers, vol. V, 16 December 1861, Rhodes House, Oxford.

22.U.M.C.A., Al. II, Rowley to Bishop of Capetown, 22 January 1863, in South African Advertiser and Mail, 2 June 1863. Rowley, Story, 366.

23.Proctor, Central African Journal, 188-259. Rowley, Story, 152-153. U.M.C.A., Al. II, Scudamore to Mother, 17 March 1861. U.M.C.A., Al. II, Rowley to Rev. Mr. Glover, I May 1862.

24.Lovell Proctor wrote in his Journal in December 1862, 380: Kainka (Kawinga) & the Machinga have come down in force from Chikala and destroyed Chinsunzis and Kankamba's places, and ... Bawi and Chigunda have ended by following Sotchi's example and uniting themselves with the Achawa for safety. It only remains for us to try to get a footing among the new Possessors of the country.

25.Waller Papers, vol. V, 29 April 1863.

26. Ibid., 1 June 1863.

31 Ian Linden

27 Rowley, Story, 128.

28 proctor, Central African Journal, 103.

29 Livingstone, Narrative , 361 and 496. This conclusion is confirmed in Kings M.G. Phiri, "The Pre-Colonial History of Southern Malawi: An Interpretive Essay," Journal of Social Science, 8 (1980/81) 36.

30 Edward A. Alpers, "The Yao in Malawi: The Importance of Local Research," in Bridglal Pachai, editor, The Early History of Malawi (London, 1972), 169.

31.Edward A. Alpers, "The Role of the Yao in the Development of Trade in East-Central Africa, 1698-c. 1850" (D. Phil. Thesis, University of London, June 1966).

32 Linden, Catholics, 22. Hugh Stannus, "The Wayao of Nyasaland," Harvard African Studies, Varia Africana II. Cambridge, 1922, 344.

33 Abdallah, The Yaos, 28.

34 Lance J. Klass, "The Amachinga Yao of Malawi: Field Research Papers." Unpublished papers based on field research in Nyambi area, November 1968-1970. In possession of Dr. E.A. Alpers, U.C.L.A.

35 Alpers, Ivory and Slaves, 246.

36 Mitchell, The Yao Village, 71.

37 Ibid., 73. The importance of clan names may have been more generalized among the Yao and the Mang'anja. Audrey Lawson suggests that villages were tied together by cross-cousin marriages and that these ties may have been based on affinities between pairs of clans which treated each other as relatives, cousins for the purpose of marriage. See Lawson, "An Outline of the Relationship System of the Nyanja and Yao Tribes in South Nyasaland," African Studies VIII, 4 (December 1949) 190. Most recently the significance of shared clan names has been pointed out by Megan Vaughan, "Which Family?: Problem in the Reconstruction of the History of the Familyas an Economic and Cultural Unit," Journal of African History, XXIV, 2 (1983), 179.

38 Mitchell, "Outline," 21.

39 Mitchell, The Yao Village, 73.

40.A.C.O. Hodgson, "Notes on the Achewa and Angoni of the Dowa District of the Nyasaland Protectorate," The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, LXIII (1933), 143-144. Abdallah, The Yaos, 40, states, however, that Makanjira was a Chewa by birth.

41.Alpers, "The Role of the Yao," 62. Macdonald, Africana I, 74-75, states that Yao legends "state that the Wayao, Anyasa, Angulu, Awisa and others sprang from a common stock, and explain how these tribes separated through one going to one side of the country and another, another. The chief cause of such separations is said to be war."

42 S.S. Murray, editor, A Handbook for Nyasaland(London: Crown Agents for the Colonies for the Government of Nyasaland, 1932), 81, 86. M.G. Marwick, "History and Tradition in East Central Africa, Through the Eyes of the Northern Rhodesian Cewa," Journal of African History, IV, 3 (1963), 378.

43 Macdonald, Africana I, 199.

44 Ibid., I, 70 and 141.

45 Douglas, Peoples, 45.

46 Lucy Mair, Primitive Government (Baltimore: 1966) 121-122.

47Macdonald, Africana, I, 198; Rowley, Story, 277; H.H. Johnston, British Central Africa (London, 1887), 6, Douglas, Peoples, 36.

e, David, The Zambesi Expedition of David Livingstone, 1858-1863, edited by J.P.R. Wallis, vol. II (London, 1956), 225.

48,Livingstone

49 Livingstone, Narrative, 388.

50Proctor, Central African Journal, 216, 259; 15 March 1862: "According to Makololo customs, the fact of anyone possessing a goat near them is sufficient to bring 2 or 3 of them down to seize it."

51Waller Papers, vol. V, 21 June 1862.

52Livingstone, Narrative, 299.

53. National Library of Scotland, Records of Established Church and Free Church of Scotland, MS. 10715, 1 January 1862 and March 1863.

54.Monica Wilson, "Changes in Social Structure in Southern Africa: The Relevance of Kinship Studies to the Historian," in Leonard Thompson, ed., African Societies in Southern Africa (London, 1969), 76.

55.Livingstone, The Zambesi Expedition, II, 230.

56.Rowley, Story, 168.

58 W.H.J. Rangeley, "The Makololo of Dr. Livingstone," Nyasaland Journal XII, 1 (January 1959), 97. It should be noted that it was not the Lozi ("BaRotse') who were matrilineal, but many of their subjects.

59.aller Papers, vol. V, 17 November 1862.

60.Livingstone, The Zambesi Expedition, II, 236.

61Waller Papers, Vol. I, 19 August 1863, N.L.S., MS. 10715, Livingstone to Waller, March 1863, Proctor, Central African Journal, 373.

62.Edward Young, "Report of the Livingstone Search Expeditions," The Journal the of Royal Geographical Society, XXXVIII (1868), 112.

North Nyasa District And The War (1914-18)

2011-06-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

The first intimation received in the North Nyasa District regarding the war was the following telegram which reached Karonga about 5 p.m. on the afternoon of 30th July, 1914 :-

"From : C. in C. A.T.T. Coy. To: Resident,

Blantyre. Karonga.

Please note Karonga office is being kept open all night tonight and until further notice at request of Governor."

This telegram naturally caused a certain amount of uneasiness and suspicions were confirmed when a further telegram arrived on August the 5th announcing that war had broken out between Great Britain and Germany. The Europeans residing at Karonga and Vua assembled at Karonga where the situation was discussed and it was decided to endeavour to remain at Karonga pending the arrival of the Field Force which was on its way up from Zomba, and meanwhile to obtain all possible information regarding the movements of the German East African Forces. Mr. Griffiths, Veterinary Officer, who had travelled overland from Zomba arrived at Karonga on August the 10th to take charge of the Intelligence work. Correspondence as under ensued between the District Officer (the Bezirksamtmann), Neulangenburg and the Resident, Karonga-

Neulangenburg, 15 August, l 914.

Dank Ihrer Liebenswurdigkeit mit der Sie die Depeschenbeforderung in unsere Kolonie sperren, bin ich nicht klar daruber ob England sich im Krieg mit Deutschland befindet. Aber ich sehe dass Sie Ihre verfugbaren Truppen sammeln und an die Eingeborenen an unserer Grenze sogar Hinterlader verteilen. Wenn Sic damit bezwecken in unser Gebiet einfallen zu wollen, so darf ich Sie ergebenst darauf aufmerksam machen dass wir gerustet sind Ihnen unfreundlich zu begegnen. Die Lager erfordert zweifellos eine Klarung und darum bitte ich ebenso ergebenst wie dringend mir eine klare Antwort zu kommen wollen zu lassen.

Mit vorzuglicher Hochachtung zeichne ich als

Ihr sehr ergebener,

(sgd.) Dr. Stier

Kaiserlicher Bezirksamtmann.

den Herrn Residenten

Karonga

Translation:

Thanks to your great kindness in preventing the forwarding of dispatches into our colony I am not clear whether England is at war with Germany or not. However, I understand you are mobilising your available forces and are distributing breechloaders to the natives on our border. Should you intend to invade our territory may I respectfully point out that we are prepared to give you an unfriendly reception. Undoubtedly the position requires clarification and therefore I respectfully request you urgently to let me have a clear reply.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your obedient servant,

(sgd.) Dr. Stier.

Imperial Administrator.

Government Offices Karonga.

18th August, 1914.

Sir,

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 15th inst. which reached me yesterday.

I am directed by H.E. The Governor to reply as follows:—

War has broken out between Great Britain and Germany. Our natives on the frontier are not being armed as alleged and H.M.'s Government would deprecate in the circumstances of the African Colonies the employment of any other than disciplined troops.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

You obedient servant,

(sgd.) F. Webb.

Resident.

Ngara in December, 1914 and, on those premises being required for troops, the Civil Station was again moved to Vua (Mr. Harvey's estate) in January, 1915. As far as possible normal District work has been carried on except in those parts of the District where our military operations and those of the enemy have made it impossible. It is satisfactory to know that, in spite of the trying circumstances and real hardships inseparable from war, the natives have remained loyal: as a whole they have assisted the Government to the best of their ability, carriers when required have been forthcoming and work has been done willingly and cheerfully.

Reinforcements have recently arrived in the District from South Africa. Some 260 men arrived in September and October, 1915. A contingent of 130 men who passed through the District for Fife, Northern Rhodesia, requiring nearly 1000 carriers which the District supplied, and a further contigent of 1000 men and a mountain battery from South Africa has now begun to arrive at Vua.

The above is a brief resume of what has occurred from the outbreak of hostilities to date in the North Nyasa District. For more detailed information regarding the events dealt with above I would refer the reader to the official reports and telegrams which will be found on the Station Files.

F. Webb.

15th November, 1915.

(Civil H.Q. returned to Karonga May, 1916).

(The following is an entry from the "Shooting Diary" kept by the late Lt./Col. G. L. Baxter (Cameron Highlanders) who commanded the 1st/ 1st (Ny.) Bn. K.A.R. during the German East African campaign in the First world War. After the war he planted cotton with W. A. Maxwell and others in the Nyungwe area of the former North Nyasa (now Karonga) District.

On 29th July, the Governor, Sir George Smith received a cable from home ordering an immediate mobilization of the troops, in view of the unsettled condition of matters in Europe.

Our Colonel (R. H. Baldwin, D.S.O.) was at home on leave and the senior officer was Captain C. W. Barton, D.s.o. We called up the Reserve and certain Protectorate civil officials who were given commissions, also the European Volunteer Force.

I, as adjutant 1st K.A.R., became Staff Officer to the Nyasaland Field Force which post I held until Nov. 1915 when I was appointed 2nd in Command 1st K.A.R. with rank of Major and later Lt.-Col. in command of the lst/lst K.A.R. We captured the German steamer "Hermann von Wissmann" which gave us command of the Lake and then transferred our force to Karonga to guard our frontier. In September 1914 we fought and utterly routed the local German troops. Under orders from home we did not advance into German territory until May 1916 but remained concentrated at Karonga and no action of importance took place though there were constant patrol affairs.

In 1915 Col. Hawthorn D.S.O. arrived and took over command and early in 1916 Brig. General Northey C.B. came from home to assume command of the Rhodesian and Nyasaland troops and of the S. African units detailed to that front. This force became known as the Nyasaland Rhodesia Field Force which played its part worthily in the long drawn out and arduous and in a sense unsatisfactory campaign which ended in the conquest of German East Africa.

Col. Hawthorn, until he succeeded Gen. Northey as brigadier General, was in command of the 1st K.A.R. column in the Field and won the whole hearted devotion of all ranks. A fine soldier, a strong man and a very perfect gentleman under whom it was a privilege to serve.

The natives of Nyasaland, Yao, Atonga, Angoni, Anguru, Mpotola, Nyanja and other tribes enlisted freely and in a quarrel which was none of theirs fought gallantly and well. Nyasaland provided the 1st and 2nd regiments of K.A.R., each regiment consisting of 4 Bns. of 1000 strong in addition to the 2 depots. In Somaliland, on the West coast of Africa at Ashanti, in East Africa and local campaigns the Nyasaland native had already established a very good name for himself as a soldier; in this long war against a trained enemy armed with artillery, maxims and the modern rifle he enhanced his reputation. The German Commander, General von Lettow-Vorbeck, stated that the Nyasaland regiments were the best of the K.A. Rifles and he had plenty of opportunity to judge as he encountered them all. The 2nd regiment saw most of the serious fighting and their casualties were very heavy, and the 1st regiment also lost many men.

I saw many instances of great gallantry, in the worst of circumstances the enemy was never able to dislodge from its position a Nyasaland battalion and the devotion to duty and above all the constant cheerfulness of the Nyasaland askati even when worn out and half starving won for them the respect and affection of their officers. Cold and wet and shortage of rations depress all men and especially natives but cold and wet and hungry though they might be they were always ready to laugh and to look at things from the most cheerful point of view. My old hunter Mdala an old soldier who had retired after 12 years exemplary service, re-enlisted when war broke out and went with me as my orderly. He was killed by my side at Malangali in German East Africa in July 1916 and I lost a faithful servant and the best hunter I have ever had.

Early in 1915, the members of the Church of Christ Mission, took it upon themselves to rise against us, thinking that the troops were well occupied with the Germans and that they would have things all their own way. They were in communication through Portuguese East Africa with the Germans who naturally encouraged them to rise. The rising took place between Zomba and Blantyre and as a start they murdered 3 Europeans on the Magomero Estate of Major Livingstone Bruce. The rising was quickly suppressed and was practically over before the double company sent from Karonga arrived on the scene. The rising, however, would not have eventuated had the natives not been allowed to possess modern firearms; so apart from the damage done to game consequent on the permission granted to natives to possess breech loading rifles we were subjected to a disturbance in the heart of Nyasaland at a critical time and lives were unnecessarily lost

FOOTNOTE. Col. Baxter, both as a soldier and hunter, felt very strongly about the possession of modern weapons by Africans in those days, and in his first entry in 1914 comments as follows:—

"It appears that the natives during the past season have been availing themselves very largely of the permission to take out £2 licences. Especially the educated natives round Blantyre and Zomba. Many of i tem have .303 rifles for which each man is allowed to buy 50 rounds per annum, the natural result has followed, when the 50 rounds are finished the native steals ammunition from Europeans or buys stolen ammunitition which is said to cost about 6d per round There is a big trade in meat going on, an Eland brings in £3, a Sable about £2 and so on, and therefore one big animal pays for the licence. I ant toll that the Liwonde and Mpimbi districts are practically shot out and that the splendid herd of buffalo at Chiromo is spread to the four winds It is a most damnable shame from all points of view and the men who are responsible for this slaughter are the lateGovernor Sir William Manning and the late Deputy Governor Major Pearce who allowed natives to use breech loading rifles and take out the £2 licence".

Memories of Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda By A Close Scottish Friend

2011-06-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Kamuzu Banda In 1977

MEMORIES OF DR. BANDA

by Professor Emeritus George Shepperson, C.B.E.

(An address given after the annual lunch of the Friends of Malawi, East of England, at the Haycock Hotel, Wansford, U.K., on Wednesday, 27th of May, 1998).

It seems to me that anyone who partakes of a formal lunch, especially when properly lubricated, is entitled to expect of the post-luncheon speaker a little humour from time to time. I am afraid that I am going to disappoint you. Any humour which emerges in my remarks will be quite unintentional. I have been asked to share with you some memories of Dr. Banda, most of them mine but a few from others; and the former Life President of Malawi is surely no subject for laughter?

The face of John Chilembwe has now replaced that of the Life President on some Malawi banknotes. During my three years of war service with Nyasaland battalions of the King's African Rifles in Africa and Asia, I heard of John Chilembwe but never of Dr. Banda.

I did not become aware of his existence until 1948 when, having completed my studies at Cambridge University, I was appointed to a Lectureship in Imperial and American History at Edinburgh University. Because of my interest in Nyasaland and Scottish influences upon it, I sought out anyone who could tell me more about these. I was particularly fortunate to meet, in my first year in Edinburgh, a gentleman who was ideally equipped for this purpose: the Reverend T. Cullen Young, formerly of the Livingstonia Mission and, in the 1940's, living in retirement in Scotland. Dr. Hastings K. Banda was one of the first Malawians he mentioned to me. Indeed, Cullen Young was a figure of fundamental importance in Banda's life.

The story of their association is indicated in a book, published in 1946, called Our African Way of Life. which was translated and edited by Cullen Young and Hastings Banda. I was fortunate enough to be given a copy of this now very rare volume by Dr. Banda when I visited him at his house in London on 18th. of September 1952. Let Cullen Young and Hastings Banda themselves now tell the story of their long association, quoting from the preface to their jointly edited book:-

"It is, we think," they said, "fortunate that in the translation of these Essays from the Chewa people of Nyasaland, there has been available a partnership between a European [Cullen Young] who has had the chance to know something of these people, and one who is himself a Chewa. That partnership has an interesting story behind it."¹That, indeed, was putting it mildly!

"In the year 1915," continued Young and Banda, "an examination was due for teachers in one of the districts under the Livingstonia Mission in Northern Nyasaland of the then United Free Church of Scotland. Selection of men to go to the training centre for the course leading to full certification was the purpose of the examination, and there presented himself a very youthful pupil-teacher [Hastings Banda], small also in stature. He was not more than thirteen years old" - we will not argue now about that - " but [Young and Banda continued] from the age of about ten he had passed all tests open to him. At the other end of the scale, as it were, was a European [Cullen Young] who happened to be available for the conduct of the examination, though not attached to the District and therefore not intimate with the teacher personnel. The number of examinees was large, the examination hall - actually the Station Church - was small, but the unlucky small pupil-teacher [Hastings Banda] found himself in a distant seat, too far from the blackboard easily to see the questions thereon written. At one point he stood up in order to see more clearly over the shoulder of the man in front of him. The European [Cullen Young] misconstrued the action and debarred the boy from further participation in the examination."

And so began the forty-three years odyssey away from Malawi of Hastings Kamuzu Banda. As Young and Banda, in their preface to their 1946 book put it, "Three weeks later a youthful figure [the young Kamuzu] crossed the Zambezi, heading, as he hoped, for Lovedale in South Africa... Years went by and then there arrived in Edinburgh a young African....who exhibited a full Federal Diploma of Medicine qualifying him for practice in any state of the U.S.A. But his face now being set towards the land of his mother's folk, he [Kamuzu Banda] had come to take the British degree at the Edinburgh School of Medicine in order to qualify in a British territory." But, continued Cullen Young and Banda, "By what we call 'chance' he met in Edinburgh the ex-missionary who had brought down about his ears, twenty years earlier, the house of his dreams. He recognised the European, but the latter only saw in him one of those whose land and people were well remembered... Thus again, although still in complete ignorance of the older contact, the European was in touch with the African whose career he had so profoundly but unconsciously influenced."

Indeed, Cullen Young did not become aware of his part in the expulsion of Hastings Banda from the 1915 examination and its consequences until Dr. Banda told him about it when they were working together in 1946 on their book, Our African Way of Life. What course, one wonders, would the history of Malawi have taken if Cullen Young had not exercised old-fashioned, Scottish pedagogic discipline and expelled the youthful Kamuzu from this examination?

The Reverend Cullen Young and Dr. Banda told me of this remarkable conjunction of their lives. They came together a second time in 1939 when Chief Mwase Kasungu arrived in London to help the School of Oriental and African Studies with an analysis of the Nyanja language. Cullen Young recommended that Dr. Banda, then almost a fully qualified medical general practitioner in Britain, should become Mwase Kasungu's adviser: an experience which reinforced the turning of Banda's attention towards Nyasaland and its problems on the eve of the Second World War. Even more, it must have reinforced his growing obsession with his Chewa identity.

I had an unusual experience of this when, in the summer of 1959, I visited the African American Howard University in Washington, D.C. In search of material on black American contacts with Africa, I called on Professor Mark Hanna Watkins of Howard's Anthropology Department. He had published in 1937 A Grammar of Chichewa which was based on his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago. This Chichewa grammar, probably the first of its kind so-named, contained the statement that, "A lithe information was obtained from Kamuzu Banda, a native Chewa, while he was in attendance at the University of Chicago from 1930 to 1932."²

Because so little material on Banda's reactions to American, particularly black American society was - indeed, alas, still is available - I asked Mark Hanna Watkins what Banda was like when he knew him in Chicago in the early 1930's. Watkins' reply came immediately, in a staccato statement which I have never forgotten. Banda, Watkins said quickly, was "very tribal, very tribal." I asked Watkins what he meant by this. He gave me an anecdote to illustrate what he meant by calling Banda in Chicago "very tribal". Watkins used to visit Banda in his Chicago lodgings to get information from him on the Chewa language for his doctoral thesis. At lunch time, one day, Watkins took up a couple of what Americans call "brown-bag lunches": one for himself and one for Banda. Watkins started on his own lunch and began putting linguistic questions to Banda. Banda replied; but Watkins noted that he was not eating his lunch. Watkins asked him why not, several times; until Banda finally asserted, "The Chewa do not eat with strangers."

Further evidence from Chicago in the 1930's of Banda's consciousness of his Chewa identity is provided by four Chewa songs which were included in the massive Negro anthology made by Nancy Cunard, the Afrophile daughter of the shipping family, in 1934. Banda had recorded these four Chewa songs in Chicago in 1932, "together with others."³ Where are these recordings now, I wonder? If properly processed, they would be invaluable evidence not only for the neglected study of folklore in Malawi but also for the growth of Banda's belief in his African identity.

There is an interesting letter about this by Hastings Banda in the W. H. J. Rangeley Papers in the library of the Society of Malawi. On the 18th. of November, 1951. from his London address. discussing Chewa history, Banda wrote to Provincial Commissioner Rangeley. "I am in a position to know and remember more of my own customs and institutions than the younger men that you meet now at home. who were born in the later twenties or even the thirties.... It so happens that I was already old enough to know most of these customs before I went to school. Also, fortunately for me, before I could forget all of them. I entered the University of Chicago which cured me of my tendency to be ashamed of my past. The result is that. in many cases, really, I know more of our customs than most of our people, now at home. When it comes to the language," continued Banda to Rangely "I think this is even more true. For the average youngster [in Nyasaland] now simply uses what the European uses, without realising that the European is using the word incorrectly. Instead of correcting the European, he uses the word wrongly, himself, in order to affect civilisation, modernity or even urbanity."⁴

This seems to me to be a highly interesting miniature historical essay from Banda. I can, incidentally, certify that his grades from the History Department at the University of Chicago were very respectable ones, because I was given a list of them many years ago, by my old friend, the late Professor Walter Johnson, former Chairman of Chicago University's History Department.

On Banda's knowledge of the older forms of his language, I can supply a personal anecdote which may be relevant. In the 1970's, after a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting in London, Dr. Banda and his entourage went up to Scotland, to Gleneagles Hotel, for a few days. I was then a member of the Edinburgh University Southern African Scholarship Committee. Banda had already given a few hundred pounds to its funds. But, from Gleneagles he invited the Chairman of ourthere. He presented us with a cheque for £3,000 for our Scholarship Appeal. This occasion gave me the opportunity to tell Dr. Banda that Mark Hanna Watkins had died in America. Dr. Banda was sad at this news. He asked about Watkins' wife. Was she still alive? If so, he would like to invite her to visit Malawi. I said that she was; and that I would let Dr. Banda have her address "posachedwa". "No, no," he replied, "I want it msanga, msanga'."

Banda's part in the renaming of Nyasaland as Malawi is fundamental. It appears for example, in the Cullen Young - Hastings Banda book of 1946: "It is practically certain that aMaravi [Malawi] ought to be the shared name of all these peoples: this carrying with it recognition of the Chewa motherland group as representing the parent stock of the Nyanja-speaking peoples."⁵ Was this pan-Chewa sentiment all Banda's or had he derived it largely from the influence of Cullen Young? My old friend and collaborator, the great Central African linguist Thomas Price, thought the latter. But looking to Banda's Chewa consciousness as it developed in Chicago, I am by no means sure of this.

Before Dr. Banda went back home in 1958, some of the young leaders of the Nyasaland African Congress had discussed the question of a new name for their country when it became independent. The Gold Coast had become Ghana on achieving independence. What should Nyasaland be called?

Orton Chirwa, whom I had known since the 1950's when he was studying for the Bar in London, told me that Dunduzu Chizisa, Secretary General of the Nyasaland African Congress and later of the Malawi Congress Party, who died tragically in a car accident in 1962, had suggested a new name for Nyasaland but he (Orton Chirwa) had forgotten what it was. However, when I interviewed Henry Masauko Chipembere, in exile in California, in the early 1970's, he remembered that Dunduzu Chisiza had noticed a name on old maps of Africa adjacent to Nyasaland and he thought that this would be satisfactory for the post-colonial nomenclature of their country, Chipembere spelled this name out to me as "Moene muji": "M.O.E.N.E.M.U.J.I.". I suggested that this was one of those misleading expressions, given by a hasty African informant to a European or Arab explorer, such as "Phiri Hill" or "Lake Nyasa" which are not really proper names; and that "moenemuji- probably meant something like "the owner of the village (or small town).- Chipembere agreed with me. This curious name occurs in a variety of spellings in old maps of Africa. On mine of 1782 it is "Monde mugi." But, whatever may prevailed and that the have been its origin, one must surely be glad that Dr. Banda's opinion euphonious and exact name of "Malawi" was given to the Land of the Lake and not "Moenemuji."

Let me now say a word or two about my meetings with Dr. Banda before he went home in 1958. The reasons for them were twofold: first, my interest in central African history, which was the consequence of my war-time experience with the K.A.R., notably the Chilembwe movement of 1915 and the role of emigrant Clements Kadalie in the growth of black trade unionism in South Africa; and secondly my opposition to the inclusion of Nyasaland in a political union with the two Rhodesias.

I first met Dr. Banda in 1950, I think it was, when he came to Edinburgh to speak to an anti-Central African Federation meeting. I had obtained his London address either from the Reverend Cullen Young or from Orton Chirwa. I invited Dr. Banda to tea in the staff common room of the Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh, to which he was no stranger. When Banda was studying for his L.R.C.P. and L.R.C.S. in Edinburgh, he knew this traditional area of Edinburgh University very well. Indeed, according to the distinguished surgeon, the late Sir Hugh Robson, Principal of the University in the early 1970's, Hastings Banda was an habitué of the Students Union, where he was often to be seen playing bridge. This, I must admit, is the only piece of evidence which I have seen about Banda the bridge player; and I would be interested to learn of other testimonies about his pastimes.

When Banda and I met over tea in the Old College, he was in a jovial and lively mood. He pledged his opposition to federation, and he reinforced his points by frequently slapping his own knees - and, occasionally, mine as well. This meeting led to others with him, the most notable of which were two at his house at 8, Aylestone Avenue, London, N. W.6. I have mentioned the meeting of the 18th. of September, 1952, when Dr. Banda gave me a signed copy of Our African Way of Life. He also pushed upon me several copies of Federation in Central Africa, a blue-covered pamphlet which he had written with the Northern Rhodesian leader, Harry Nkumbula, and which Banda had published at his own expense in 1951.

My other meeting at his house was also in the summer of 1952 when I was researching into early British Central African documents in the Public Record Office.

Both these meetings were very pleasant social occasions as well as opportunities for us to tap each other's brains on the history of Nyasaland. Banda was then living in a substantial and well-kept villa in Harlesden with his friend, Mrs. French, and her young son, Peter. The atmosphere was very cosy indeed; and the four of us sat around the table to two excellent high teas prepared by Mrs. French. The sitting room was very comfortable and surrounded by a large collection, all neatly shelved, of Dr. Banda's books and literature from the local Labour Party, to which he belonged, and from the Fabian Colonial Bureau to which he subscribed.

Dr. Banda was anxious to discuss with me all aspects of the history of Nyasaland. He seemed to believe that the expression "Nyasaland Protectorate" committed the British Government specifically to protecting its African inhabitants. He was anxious to have copies of any treaties which I discovered in the Public Record Office which might endorse this view. I sent him some. But, as most of these were on the Jumbes of Kota Kota (then my current interest) 1 think he was disappointed.

We discussed John Chilembwe. But Dr. Banda knew little about his movement. What, however, became clear in these discussions, was that the year 1915 was - indeed, is - something of a turning-point in Malawi's history. Banda, as we have seen, left home in 1915 for South Africa, America and, ultimately, Britain. 1915 was also the year of Chilembwe's Rising and Clements Kadalie's move to South Africa to start the I.C.U., the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa, the first powerful black trade union in South Africa.

Dr. Banda was well aware of Clements Kadalie; and he suggested that I should visit George Padmore, the radical journalist from Trinidad, then living in London, who later became Kwame Nkrumah's adviser in Ghana. Banda gave me Padmore's address; and he did indeed prove helpful, lending me the then unpublished typescript autobiography of Clements Kadalie from Livingstonia.

Dr. Banda's association with George Padmore was typical of his knowledge of and, in many cases , friendship with African political leaders in London, to many of whom he acted as a personal physician. He was looking after the pregnant wife of one of them while I was in Dr. Banda's house. This - if my mid-septuagenarian memory does not betray me - was Kojo Botsio, the first secretary of Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party in the Gold Coast: a most pleasant person who ran after me into the street to hand me some papers which I had left, by mistake, in Dr. Banda's sitting-room.

Perhaps I should add here that when, after one of my visits to his London home, Dr. Banda was driving me back to the local tube station, I sought his medical advice. I told him that I was finding pains in my shoulders most irritating. "Oh, that's all right," he said, "It's just a touch of fibrositis."

And, with that, he put me down at the tube station. I believe that was the first time that I had heard the word "fibrositis" which, according to the British Medical Association encyclopaedia, "is not a medical term, and some doctors refuse to recognise the condition."⁶

Perhaps my most significant encounters with Dr. Banda were not through meetings with him but through correspondence. A fascinating aspect of this was his habit of sending Christmas cards. I had a whole sequence of these from him, in Britain and in Malawi, which lasted until a few years ago when, presumably, I was struck off the official Christmas card list because of my support for Orton Chirwa, then under sentence of death, and for the release from prison of Jack Mapanje, the Malawi academic and poet.

Of all Dr. Banda's Christmas cards, the one which I cherish was posted on the 10th. of December, 1959, from Gwelo in Southern Rhodesia where the leaders of the Nyasaland African Congress were in prison. It was a home-made Christmas card, with the greetings "During Christmas-tide, we shall be wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year." It was signed by Dr. Banda himself, by Yatuta K. Chisiza (who attempted, eight years later, a coup d' etat against Dr. Banda and was shot in the field in October 1967), by his brother Dunduzu Chisiza (who, as we have noted, was killed in a car crash in 1962) and by Henry Masauko Chipembere ( who died in exile in California in September 1975). It is very sad for me to-day to look at this Christmas card from Gwelo: sent at a time when these four men shared common hopes and were not to know that their lives were to be so disastrously and savagely torn apart.

Until the late 1980's, I received occasional letters from Dr. Banda in Malawi. Some were simple requests for service such as the showing around Edinburgh of a Malawi nursing sister, Lucie Kadzamira, who had been seconded for a short period to an Edinburgh hospital. This my wife and I did with great pleasure.

During my sixteen years as Chairman of the Commonwealth Institute in Edinburgh, we often gave hospitality to delegations from Malawi. On one such occasion, we put on an exhibition of Malawiana in Edinburgh, the star item of which was a chiefs stool that had been presented to John (Mandala) Moir of the African Lakes Company. I had been given this interesting object (sometimes claimed to be the stool of the Yao chief, Kapeni) by John Moir's Edinburgh-based daughter with whom I had maintained a close acquaintance over many years. This seemed a suitable time to send the stool back to Malawi. Therefore, the Director of the Commonwealth Institute in Scotland and I packed up Kapeni's stool and sent it back with the delegation to Dr. Banda. We included in the package a copy of a short article which Dr. Banda had written in the late 1930's in the Church of Scotland's missionary magazine, Other Lands, about the death of John Moir whose funeral he had attended.

A letter came back immediately from Dr. Banda. He was delighted with the chiefs stool. It would be put in a museum in Malawi - has it been, I wonder? Dr. Banda then said he had been operated on in Edinburgh for thrombosis by John Moir's son. I have not seen elsewhere a reference to this serious operation. Was Dr. Banda, in his old age, confusing this operation with one for an appendix which is mentioned in Philip Short's biography of him? Philip Short states that Dr. Banda stayed with John Moir's nephew in Edinburgh while convalescing after his appendix operation. It seems, however, unlikely that Dr. Banda, as a medical man with many years in practice, would confuse thrombosis with appendicitis.

The most important letter which I received from Dr. Banda came to me when I was in Uganda in the summer of 1962. Not having been able to visit Uganda, when I was with the K.A.R. in wartime East Africa, I took the opportunity that was offered to me to teach at Makerere College in Kampala. The first term of its academic year fitted very conveniently into Edinburgh University's Long Vacation. At the end of my term at Makerere, I had arranged to visit Zanzibar, calling in, en route, I hoped, to see our old student, Julius Nyerere, in Dar es Salaam. And then came the letter from Dr. Banda.

He wanted me to serve on a Commission which was to be set up to consider the establishment of a University in Malawi: and then, intriguingly, he suggested that I might like to be its first Vice-Chancellor. I cancelled my trip to Zanzibar - alas, I shall not see this beautiful island now - and went back to Scotland. Dr. Banda's academic schemes for me seem to have crashed on the Scylla and Charybdis of British and American officialdom. But I am very glad to say that a far, far better Vice-Chancellor than I would have been for the new University of Malawi was appointed: that admirable gentleman, Dr. Ian Michael, who saw the fledgling Central African University through many difficult days.

I was, however, at Dr. Banda's new University in the summer of 1965 when, as Chancellor, clad in a magnificent new academic gown, he delivered what was called his Inaugural Lecture. It was a remarkable two hours of dour deliberation, delivered in increasingly cold weather before a large, mixed audience, in uncomfortable chairs, in the grounds ofthe former Asian Girls School at Limbe which was the temporary headquarters of the University that was the fulfilment of Dr. Banda's long cherished dream. His Inaugural Lecture is the most remarkable, indeed bizarre, academic occasion that I have ever attended. It consisted of a complete outline of English grammar! Dr. Banda introduced it by saying that, since he had been back home, he had found that no one could write a decent letter in reasonable English - therefore, he would give them the basis of this language. I have some sympathy with his idiosyncratic approach because, as an academic, I have had the sad experience of witnessing the declining standards of spoken and written English in my own country. But I cannot help wishing that Dr. Banda had started by distributing free copies of the very useful pamphlet of English grammar for Malawi schools by Thomas Price's wife, Patricia, thereby giving himself time to speak of his vision for a University in an emerging Central African nation.

I visited his University several times after this, usually as an external examiner in history; and I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Banda speak at the University when it had moved to Zomba, at the Kamuzu Stadium and at Ryall's and Mount Soche Hotels. The length of his discourses grew longer and longer. I began to think that he was incapable of giving a short speech. I had had an inkling of this when I sat on the platform with him in the 1950's at an anti-Federation meeting in the Central Hall, Tollcross, Edinburgh. I could then observe him at close quarters, whipping up his energy and launching into lengthy, vociferous discourse. Yet I also witnessed that, when diplomacy required it, he could make a remarkably short speech of only a few minutes. I saw this, in particular, at an official luncheon which I attended in, I believe, Lancaster House, London, which - if my memory is not at fault - was chaired by Lord Home. And the shortness of Dr. Banda's speech was even more marked at a State Dinner in Edinburgh Castle on Saturday, the 20th. of April, 1985, at which my wife and I were guests, on the occasion of a visit to Scotland by Dr. Banda.

Long or short, Dr. Banda's speeches form the greater part of his published works. He never published a book of his own. But in the early euphoric days of African independence and the burgeoning of African studies, he was given the opportunity, by at least one distinguished press, to do this. Cambridge University Press, at that time, was publishing a series of works by African leaders; and it asked me if I would get into touch with Dr. Banda in the hope that he would write a book for it. His reply to me was a polite "no". But he added to this negative response, I think significantly, that he intended one day to write his autobiography. Alas, this never materialised.

And so we must depend upon future biographers. There have been already at least two; and, no doubt, there are more to come.

That concludes my selection of memories about this long-lived and controversial figure. I can offer no conclusion other than, perhaps, an interim one. It occurs to me that Dr. Banda, when he was asked whom he admired most in history, replied "Julius Ceasar." Two lines from Shakespeare's play of that name, spoken by Marcus Antonius over the dead body of Ceasar, may not be inapplicable to Dr. Banda's long existence:

The evil that men do lives after them:

The good is oft interred with their bones.

I pray that, in the case of Kamuzu from Kasungu, the very opposite of these sentiments will prevail.

References

This quotation and those in the following two paragraphs are taken from Our African Way of Life by John Kambalame, E. P.Chidzalo, J. W Chadangalara: Essays presented under the Prize Scheme of the International African Institute for the period 1943-1944, translated and edited with preface by Cullen Young and Hastings Banda (London: United Society for Christian Literature, Lutterworth Press, 1946), pp. 25,27.
Mark Hanna Watkins, A Grammar of Chichewa: A Bantu Language of British Central Africa. Language Dissertations Supplement to Language, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, Number 24 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1937).
George Herzog (Department of Anthropology, Yale University) "African Songs of the Chewa Tribe in British East Africa-, in Nancy Cunard, Negro: an anthology made by Nancy Cunard, 1931-1933 (London: Nancy Cunard at Wishart & Co., 1934; New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969, reprint), p.413.
This letter of 18 November 1951 by Banda to Rangeley was in answer to a letter from Rangeley, a copy of which was not included in the Rangeley Papers file in the Society of Malawi Library when I examined it.
Young and Banda, op. cit., p.10.
Dr. Tony Smith, editor, The British Medical Association Complete Family Health Encyclopedia (London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995), p.44