Abstract

Natives and the Land

A test of first importance to Empire policy is about to be put to British Secretary of States, Baron Passfield, the decision upon which must be an historic turning-point in British colonial policy. The matter arises out of the fifteen-year struggle for Rhodesian land, and the issue must be presented to the new Secretary for the Colonies in an application for his sanction to a bill which purports to make final division of Rhodesian lands between whites and natives. The test question is whether or not a principle is to be abandoned which British Statesman Winston Churchill deliberately inserted in the Rhodesian Constitution in 1921-22, under which natives, equally with other subjects of the Crown, may purchase or lease lands in their own country.