ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

79 TURBULENT YEARS

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:37:56 -0400

What is the foundation of the independence which the country took in 1965 and which it may confirm within the next few weeks?

What are the origins of that self confidence which promoted UDI?

THIS IS HOW IT BEGAN .......

A COUNTRY BETWEEN TWO FLAGS - Part 1

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:56:39 -0400

A QUESTION OF LOYALTIES. The period of time between the raising of the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury on 13th September, 1890, and the adoption of Rhodesia's new green and white standard on 11th November, 1968 has seen the painful growth of a nation. The embattled Union Jack at Fort Charter symbolizes Rhodesia's allegiances during the first seven decades of her file, Is a scene that was repeated whenever an Imperial call to arms was made.

One of the young country's major tests of loyalty was the Union Issue of the early 'twenties.. Winston Churchill insisted In 1923 that the people of Rhodesia themselves had to decide their own future. The choice: Responsible Government, or absorption by South Africa. General Jan Smuts stumped the country, offering the colonists some very attractive terms.

ON A SUNNY Saturday -i t was September 13, 1890 - the 860 men of Cecil Rhodes's. Pioneer Column pulled up the Union Jack in what is now Cecil Square in Salisbury. They had arrived on a bare patch of veld the previous day and had needed time in which to wash and brush-up after the 1,000-mile journey.

On a gusty, clouded Monday-it was November 11, 1968-the Rhodesian Government pulled down the Union Jack and hoisted an Independence flag of controversial design.
The Rhodesians had waited 78 years in which to decide that Britain's policy in South-Central Africa was no basement bargain and that the standards she had laid down were unacceptable.

A COUNTRY BETWEEN TWO FLAGS - Part 2

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:55:51 -0400

For protection, the civilians had 500 men of the newly-formed BSA Company Police. In overall command was Lieutenant-Colonel E. G. Pennefather, a Regular Army officer. The equipping and supplying of the Column was brilliantly done by. a young man, Major Frank Johnson (he commanded the Corps), who in 1944 was to die in Norfolk after living through the German occupation of the Channel Islands in World War Two. (His son, "Budge," died in Salisbury in 1967; his grand-daughter, Maureen, is a news reporter in the same city). .

In the 33 years during which it administered Rhodesia, the BSA Company never paid a penny dividend to its shareholders. And the British Government never put a penny's investment into the young country, although it offered much advice on how the Company should run it.

Self-reliance was no new characteristic in any pioneer country, but it explains how the Rhodesian outlook was fashioned, developed and hardened.
The quota of rogues and misfits was small in the early Salisbury and Bulawayo,. and the influx of undesireabIes hardly noticeable. Many of the "characters" were comic rather than evil, and the hard living and working conditions soon sorted the men from the boys, frightening away the weaklings and deterring the indolent newcomers.

THE TURN of the century marked a testing time for Rhodesia. After j the Matabele and Mashona rebellions in 1893 and 1896 came the rinderpest to decimate the cattle herds.
The Anglo-Boer War took its toll of the volunteer soldiers who had left their farms and mines and businesses to fight alongside the British in South Africa.

A COUNTRY BETWEEN TWO FLAGS - Part 3

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:50:33 -0400

In 1932 the Government, lacking funds in the world depression, tried to chop expenses by cutting the salaries 0(, among others, Civil Servants. Mr. Huggins, whose constituency of Salisbury North was predominantly Civil Service, exploded.

To save the Rhodesian Party Government from defeat in the confidence vote (which would have meant a general election, and one was due the next year, anyway), he voted for his party, then crossed the floor the next day-and became Leader of the Reform Party Opposition.

It was the first step that was to take him to the office of Prime
Minister for 20 years, until on September 7, 1953, he became the First Prime Minister of the Federation. He retired on October 31, 1956, after setting a record for the longest continuous service of any Prime Minister in the history of the British Commonwealth. His nearest rivals had been William Pitt' and Mackenzie King of Canada.

A former politician.farmer, the late Luke Green, once asked: "What would have happened had Huggins not steered the country for 20 years? Coghlan died suddenly in 1927. H. U.
Moffat was a man of much integrity but a little mild as Premier of a young and vigorous country. He grew weary and he probably knew that he wasn't a popular Premier. When he resigned in 1933, his Minister of Mines, George Mitchell, became Prime Minister. for a few months before the general election.

"And this was Huggins's chance.

"He didn't' want to go into politics, but once he had been talked round he became a vigorous campaigner, and his Reform Party won with a small majority. After a spell of party dissensions Huggins combined his right wing elements with the Opposition Rhodesian Party to form the United Party-and he won the next election hands down.

"Huggins was the best man Rhodesia could have had in her developing stages. He made mistakes but he was man enough to admit them and to adjust his thinking to changing circumstances.

"Had we lost Huggins to a succession of Prime MInisters with differing outlooks, history might well have been changed."
(It was about this time that Luke Green said: "I broke my neck in a car crash before an election and I never returned to politics. It's a pastime I would recommend for some British politicians to-day")..

This is not the place for evaluation of the merits and demerits of Mr. G. M. Huggins (later Sir Godfrey and now Lord Malvern), as surgeon or Prime Minister, but he undoubtedly gave Rhodesia a shot in the arm and set a breezy example of confidence in the country which Inspired many
people. If his critics jeered, "Rhodesia' is run by Huggie and the omnipotent African nannies," at least it was run successfully.

A COUNTRY BETWEEN TWO FLAGS - Part 4

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:42:13 -0400

SEVERAL PLANS for a consolidation of the natural and economic resources in the British territories of South-Central Africa had been formulated, examined and discarded long before the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was created after many years of preparatory work on the spot and in Britain.

The failure of the Federation after 10 years is now so much water under the bridge, but at the time its creation was hailed as a magnificent experiment in multi-racialism and a possible blueprint for co-operation between white and non-white beyond the borders of the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland.

In 1960 a London publisher wrote: ... “. . . The Federation is one of the most important countries in Africa south of the Sahara. . . its economic potential is unlimited, while the social development of its seven million African people, many of whom are only now emerging from the primitive outlook and living conditions, is being watched with considerable interest in most civilised countries in the world".

The whole had been greater than the sum of its parts; the fragments meant very little.

It is too soon to forecast accurately the evils-or the possible benefits?which the Federation's dissolution could still bring to Zambia aQd Nyasaland-two countries of widely different economic structure, being led along divergent paths by dictators.

They worked hard to break the Federation and they succeeded. They forgot however, the African saying that "a three-legged pot cannot stand on two legs," and they may one day regret the destruction of that unit, which brought economic stability and a better life to many people.