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7. After the change of Government in the United Kingdom ment|| Wad gead2 in fadament on the 21st Rogeber, 1920&t
His Majesty's Government were in full agreement with the Victoria Falls communiqué, and that they favoured a scheme of federation on the general lines recommended in the officials' report. They believed that such a scheme would be in the best interests of the African as well as the other inhabitants of the Territories. The statement specifically endorsed the assurances set out in the Victoria Falls communiqué regarding African interests, and undertook to ensure that they should be formally embodied in a federal constitution. His Majesty's Government promised to further the discussions and con- sultations contemplated in the communiqué.
8. As part of these consultations there were informal talks in London in January, 1952, with the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia and the Governors of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
His Majesty's Government reaffirmed at this time that they could not agree to the amalgamation of the three Territories. They made a formal statement to the other Governments concerned in the following terms :-
"Southern Rhodesia is a self-governing colony. Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland are protectorates. If the three Territories were to be amal- gamated, they would all become merged in the new self-governing state. Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland would thus lose their separate identity (which they would retain in a Federation); and this would mean that His Majesty's Government would have to disregard obligations which, by virtue of treaty and otherwise, they have assumed towards the two northern Territories. This they cannot do."
9. After these talks it was announced that the Conference would be reconvened in April, in London, to formulate a draft scheme of federation. It was announced in the House of Commons on the 4th March, 1952, that the detailed scheme to be prepared at the April Conference would be published and that Her Majesty's Government proposed to convene a further Conference, to be held later in 1952, to consider the detailed scheme before the question of ratification or abandonment was finally put to the Governments concerned.
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II. THE APRIL CONFERENCE
10. The reconvened Conference met at Lancaster House on the 23rd April, 1952, under the joint chairmanship of the Most Hon. the Marquess of Salisbury (Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations) and the Rt. Hon. Oliver Lyttelton, M.P. (Secretary of State for the Colonies). The Southern Rhodesian delegation was led by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey Huggins; the Northern Rhodesian delegation by the Governor, Sir Gilbert Rennie; and the Nyasaland delegation by the Governor, Sir Geoffrey Colby. The full membership of the various delegations is given in Annex I.
11. The Secretary of State for the Colonies had invited the African Representative Council of Northern Rhodesia and the African Pro- tectorate Council of Nyasaland to send representatives to London for informal discussions with him and to take part in the Conference. These representatives duly came to London and had informal talks
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