CO537-6046 — Page 193

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(a) Zanzibar

3. Mr. Ingrams emphasised that, although there were

factors in Zanzibar potentially capable of causing trouble,

factors, indeed, which, in other countries did lead to

difficulties, Zanzibar was a happy community and inter-racial

clashes had never occurred. Replying to a question as to

whether this might be due to the fact that the external

trappings of authority rested on the Sultan, Mr. Ingrams

said he did not think Bo: .In his time there was no strag

strake

nationalist feeling in Zanzibar, although there was a far

higher percentage of British officials and British control

than in a country such as Trans-Jordan and this large number

of British officials constituted a heavy burden on the

island especially in view of the present difficulties in

the clove industry on which the Colony was dependent.

thought that municipal forms of local government with rating

powers should be developed, and that there was also room for a

Legislative Council. with elected members. Certain subjects,

including foreign relations, must be reserved for control by

His Majesty's Government, but, in his view, more would be

achieved by persuasion than by providing the Resident with

over-ruling powers in local matters which might, in time,

be challenging to local self-respect. He envisaged

development on the lines of a constitutional monarch and a

supreme law-making body apart from these few special

subjects to be reserved.

He

4. It was suggested that Zanzibar might become another

Tonga, but it was pointed out that this might mean the loss

of financial help from Great Britain such as was given under

the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts. Two further

possible difficulties were mentioned (a) Britain was not

free to surrender jurisdiction without the consent of certain

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