BIG SANCTIONS FARCE

by already feeble British economy of the decision to apply UN sanctions are not merely temporary.

weakening still further Britain's world position, it makes the dependence of the pound on the dollar still more abject and permanent.

The crisis of British imperialism means also a crisis of all the mic sanctions I sanitions mo date imposed Nations is no answer to the Smith regime. It will be used, especially by the African nationalists, as a means of evading a real struggle to overthrow white domination in Rhodesia.

The white settlers, whose rol n Rhodesia has been to lool after British investments there, are fighting for the privileges this has brought them against the threat of African advancement. The middle-class African nationalists, on the other hand, have shown themselves powerless to lead a movement to overthrow Smith.

Rivals

The white settlers and African nationalists are, as it were, rivals for the position of protectors of imperialist investment against the revolt of the African masses.

In the years of boom relatively peaceful transfer of power into the hands of men like Kenyatta and Obote could be arranged. But in this period of crisis such moves present great dangers for the imperialists.

In the mock-heroic meeting on the Tiger, both sides were doomed from the start. Wilson bent over backwards to give the racialist Smith every possible chance to save his regime. He knew that the alternative to agreement spelt ruin for his imperialist masters.

But Smith, faced by the wild men of his Rhodesian Front, could not accept. There can be no future for white-settler domination in Rhodesia except by ruthlessly oppressing the African people.

Even if Wilson and Smith had cooked up some magical formula which had been accepted in Salisbury and London, it would WILSON: Bent backwards