TORY MACMILLAN GET OUT! (Africans Reject Premier and Welensky)

Macmillan's whistle-stop tour of Africa is turning out one big flop. In Nigeria students greeted him with 'Mac the butcher, get out.' In Salisbury, Africans boycotted his meeting because it was held in a cinema normally restricted to Europeans.

Highlight of the tour is the public squabbles between Macmillan and Federation boss, Sir Roy Welensky.

The brushes with Welensky arise because of Macmillan's support of the interests of big business as opposed to the needs of Welensky's backers—the white settlers.

Big business dominates

Rhodesia and Nyasaland's economic lives are dominated by the big four companies—Rhodesian Selection Trust, Rhodesian Anglo-American, Imperial Tobacco Company and the British South African Company.

These firms control the copper, coal, lead, zinc mining and tobacco processing industries. They own forests, ranches, citrus estates, merchant banks and newspapers.

Sir Ronald Prain of the Rhodesian Selection Trust previously annoyed white settlers when he spoke in favour of African representation in the Legislature.

This prompted Humphrey Wightwick, a Dominion Party M.P., to warn that 'the sinister hand of big business should be kept out of Rhodesian politics.'

Warning the white settlers of the growth of native opposition Prain said: 'The Europeans deceive themselves if they close their eyes to what is happening in the rest of Africa.'

Compromise with moderates

Anxious to maintain a steady supply of cheap labour, worried lest the Dominion Party's policies lead to a native revolt the big business men would like to reach a compromise with the moderate African leaders. Their aim is to buy off a few 'Uncle Toms' and use them to keep the African masses in line.

These are the men Macmillan supports. His differences with Welensky are tactical. Hence his statement: 'I should like to make it plain that the function of the Monckton Commission is not to destroy the Federation. . . . It is to advise how best the Federation can go forward.'