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Page 279 for the electoral roll before the qualifications were recently raised. The Govern ment, under Huggins, has steadily pressed for, and often secured, better treatment for the Africans than they would otherwise have got. For example, the Government is overcoming the resistance of towns (and Trade Unions) against African drivers and conductors for buses. The Government would like to break down or weaken the ban on African building workers. Against a good deal of criticism a maternity home for Africans was opened recently in Salisbury that is more modern and better than the home for Europeans and this at a time when the European maternity home is greatly overcrowded. Huggins is thinking of starting a University for Africans before one for Europeans. Of course, the social provision for Europeans is beyond comparison better than for Africans; I doubt if any Government has a better record in the provision of schools including many State-financed boarding schools.

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most debatable question concerns the franchise. There is a common electoral roll open to all who meet certain qualifications. These qualifications have recently been raised, the property qualification from £150 to £500 and the annual income qualification from £100 to £240. There is also a simple English language test. This will undoubtedly postpone the day when Africans can play a significant part in elections and still further the day when any of them can hope to be elected to Parliament. On the other hand, only 800 out of the 4,000 already qualified ever actually put themselves on the roll. Moreover, the English language test will exclude a number of undesirable Afrikaners. The qualifications have been fairly administered and Europeans are excluded as well as Africans. Huggins had considerable difficulty in resisting pressure to exclude Africans altogether. He has preserved the essential principle of a single electorate and avoided the blind-alley of separate communal electorates. Constituencies, though immense in area, have very small electorates, and if Africans show a greater keenness to get on to the roll they should in less than a decade be able to play an important part in some constituencies. In about 25 years there should be African M.Ps.

10. The gravest Southern Rhodesian problem concerns the pull towards South Africa. This problem is as old as Southern Rhodesia itself: when in 1922 there was a plebiscite on whether Southern Rhodesia should join the Union or become an independent self-governing colony the voting was no more than 8 to 5 in favour of independence.

I discussed this question with a number of leading people and was surprised to find how considerable is still the readiness and desire to join the Union. Those who hold this view have many and mixed motives. Some want it for economic reasons; some to strengthen the pro-British element in South Africa; some out of genuine approval of the Union; some from dislike of what nearly everyone in Southern Rhodesia calls "Colonial Office policy." Perhaps as many as a third would vote for incorporation to-day. But the two-thirds on the other side would be very determined and adamant. The general sentiment in Southern Rhodesia is very powerfully in favour of the British connexion. There is no immediate danger of any change of loyalty. Present policies in the Union have weakened what feeling there is in favour of incorporation.

11. Sir Godfrey Huggins is outstandingly the ablest man in Southern Rhodesia and it is hard to see who can take over when he goes. The second man in the Cabinet is Davenport, Minister of Mines, Transport and Education, who is solid and reasonable, but lacking in personality. Whitehead, the Minister of Finance, is the cleverest member of the Government, but he is deaf and half-blind and an aloof man, not at all popular. Nor is his political judgment sound. The best man after Huggins is, I think, Greenfield, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Justice. He is new in the Government and will need some years to develop. (Incidentally he told me that he had always been in favour of the incorporation of Southern Rhodesia in the Union and had only changed when Malan had come into power.)

(ii) High Commission Territories

12. I was greatly impressed by what I saw of developments in our three High Commission Territories: the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Basutoland and Swazi- land. The High Commissioner, Sir Evelyn Baring, has in his seven years of office done a magnificent job. In the past these Territories were sadly neglected on the ground that it was not worth spending money on Territories thatpwould one day7 go to the Union. From all accounts relations between the Africans, the Europeans

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