Passfield Memorandum

Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield was appointed as Secretary of State for the Colonies in June 1929 by Ramsay MacDonald in the second Labour government. He called a Colonial Office Conference in June–July 1930 to discuss general colonial questions including the Colonial Development Fund, communication and transport, trade questions, films and colonial labour reform. As part of the proceedings of the conference, Passfield issued what was termed the Passfield Memorandum of 1930, officially the Memorandum on Native Policy in East Africa, which was a memorandum circulated to colonial governors in the British Empire. This was an emphatic reassertion of the principles of the paramountcy of native interests first set out in the Devonshire Declaration of 1923, and in its place advocated a policy of trusteeship, whereby the imperial state would protect the interests of Africans.[1]

Devonshire’s successor as Colonial Secretary from 1924 to 1929 Leo Amery, had sought to qualify this assurance, both during his 1927 tour of Southern Rhodesia, when he suggested that the colony could amalgamate with Northern Rhodesia regardless of the substantial African majority in the later and in a White paper on East Africa in the same year. Passfield stated his intention of re-establishing Devonshire's principle of trusteeship, and rejected settler wishes for self-government in Kenya or Northern Rhodesia.[2]

In Northern Rhodesia, one effect of the Passfield Memorandum was to lessen the support of settlers for self-government as a separate entity in favour of amalgamation with Southern Rhodesia. However, Passfield and his Colonial Office officials would only consider transferring a relatively small area north of the Zambezi which contained the majority of settler farms to Southern Rhodesia.[3]

After the fall of the Labour Government in August 1931, there was no immediate change in the policy stated in the memorandum, but the 1938 report of the Bledisloe Commission recommended closer cooperation the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland possibly leading to future amalgamation or a loser federation. This marked a rejection of Passfield’s policy.[4]

The memorandum also "introduced a new era in colonial labour policy. Trade unions were to be encouraged, even though subject to registration".[5]

References

  1. ↑ H. I Wetherell, (1979) Settler Expansionism in Central Africa: The Imperial Response of 1931 and Subsequent Implications. African Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 311, pp. 210-227 at p.217
  2. ↑ H. I Wetherell, (1979) Settler Expansionism in Central Africa pp. 213-4.
  3. ↑ H. I Wetherell, (1979) Settler Expansionism in Central Africa pp. 217-20.
  4. ↑ H. I Wetherell, (1979) Settler Expansionism in Central Africa pp. 222-3.
  5. ↑ D. I. Davies, 'The Politics of the TUC's Colonial Policy', The Political Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1. (1964), pp. 23-34
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.