a history of southern rhodesiaby l. h. gann

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The Royal African Society A History of Southern Rhodesia by L. H. Gann Review by: Gilbert Rennie African Affairs, Vol. 65, No. 259 (Apr., 1966), pp. 178-180 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/720514 . Accessed: 18/06/2014 22:40 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Oxford University Press and The Royal African Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Affairs. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.126.25 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 22:40:25 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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The Royal African Society

A History of Southern Rhodesia by L. H. GannReview by: Gilbert RennieAfrican Affairs, Vol. 65, No. 259 (Apr., 1966), pp. 178-180Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/720514 .

Accessed: 18/06/2014 22:40

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Oxford University Press and The Royal African Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to African Affairs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.25 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 22:40:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

178 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

Only at one point, and late in the book, does Mr. Lemarchand refer to the "heterogenous character of Belgian national culture." And yet, my experience of Belgium and the Congo has led me to believe that the relation- ship of the Flemish colonial servant and missionary communities in the Congo with the indigenous African, and with Brussels, was from the start conditioned by the Flemish-Walloon relationship which colours all life in Belgium. Again, the performance and attitude of the settler community in Katanga, which were to play a significant role, were characterized by the same influences.

This is, of course, a book for the specialist. Even a specialist, however, requires to be told of the climate of political excitement that began to grip the African population of the Congo from early 1958, and of the style in which this emotionalism was exploited by the leading political figures. Equally, no one unfamiliar with the Congo could guess from Mr. Lemarchand's text what were the motives and the criteria of responsibility of those Congolese thrown up in the scrimmage as independence approached. Only the handful of illustrations recapture that febrile atmosphere of primordial group fear that pervaded the Congo for half a decade, and lingers still.

Mr. Lemarchand is uneasy with the English language. There is, in some fields of American scholarship, the tendency to delight in complexity not to say incomprehensibility, of language. Mr. Lemarchand is catching the disease. Take the sentence: "One may wonder if the discontinuities evidenced by these patterns of social mobility are not due in part to the limited extension of communication facilities offered to the African population." What does it mean ? I suggest: " These barriers between groups would have been eased if the Africans had been able to move about more."

Despite these reservations, this book will remain an invaluable contribution to the subject.

Tom Stacey

A History of Southern Rhodesia. By L. H. Gann. Chatts & Windus. 55s. At a time when Rhodesia is much in the news the publication of this

carefully written account of the country's early days up to 1934 is opportune. It shows how small was the impact made on Central Africa by explorers from European countries before the middle of the nineteenth century, and how western civilisation began to make its influence felt in Southern Rhodesia only after the grant of a Royal Charter to the British South Africa Company in 1889 and the arrival in Salisbury in 1890 of the Pioneer Column, sent from the south by Cecil John Rhodes to colonize the country.

Rhodes dominates these pages of history like a Colossus for thirty years. "Early Rhodesia was almost a monarchy and Cecil John Rhodes its uncrowned king ", Dr. Gann remarks, and his account of the achievements and influence of this towering figure enables us to understand why the name of Rhodes is still venerated by the white Rhodesians.

The reasons for the risings in 1893 and 1896 are clearly set out, and the

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BOOK REVIEWS 179

account of the fighting that ensued bears striking testimony to the courage and

fighting qualities of the white colonists, whose descendants later conducted themselves with similar bravery in the two World Wars.

The chapter headed "The Birth of Modem Politics" containing as it does an account of the conceptions and political manoeuvres that led up to the grant of responsible government in 1923 is of particular interest today. Dr. Gann sums up the effect of the new constitution, in part, as follows: - " The Colony thus remained closely tied to the Imperial connexion ; it controlled its own local defence forces but could not carry out an independent foreign policy. The Imperial Power retained a right of surveillance over all important legislation, London being consulted in detail before reserved bills went to the Legislature. Within these limits, however, the Colony now took full charge of its internal affairs."

Dealing with the development of Southern Rhodesia between 1890 and 1934, Dr. Gann remarks that the history of the country was in many ways a success story, and that since the institution of responsible government Southern Rhodesia had managed to make greater advances and to create better social services for its white and black people than did Northern Rhodesia under Colonial Office rule. These remarks very properly emphasize the splendid work done by Southern Rhodesia in the development of its natural resources and in the promotion of its agricultural, medical, educational, and other ser- vices for its people-both black and white-and all on the admirable basis of self-help.

When the Government of Southern Rhodesia is criticized these days for having done too little to develop secondary education among Africans, it is interesting to read why its predecessor some forty years ago decided, with the agreement, by and large, of the missionaries (who were doing most of the educational work), that African educational advance should take place on a broad front rather than on a narrow one. Many of the reasons were good then, and some of them are good today.

Dr. Gann gives a useful account of the conceptions and political activities that led up to the passing of the (now) much-maligned and poorly-understood Land Apportionment Act of 1930. He sums up, in part: - "The makers of the Act regarded their handiwork as an essay in trusteeship. The Act provided Africans with an area only slightly smaller than that of the whole of England. The indigenous folk, in terms of land, thus fared a great deal better than the Red Indians of North America, the Maori of New Zealand or the Arancanians of Chile." And again: "... the Land Apportionment Act allowed Africans for the first time to hold land on individual tenure and the law-makers considered themselves as liberators." Such were the conceptions behind the Act then ; some of its defects became apparent later.

The final chapter of the book, which deals with Southern Rhodesian society in the early thirties, is perhaps the most interesting, and it is particularly valuable to those who are trying to study the situation in Rhodesia today. The impact of the white man on the African is described in some detail, and

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180 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

the challenge of white Rhodesians of a racial awakening on the part of the Africans is foreshadowed.

To sum up, an interesting and informative book about a country which arouses strong emotions in many other countries today.

Gilbert Rennie

Development Finance. Planning and Control. By Ursula K. Hicks. Clarendon Press : O.U.P. 28s.

This book is concerned with the whole field of public finance and only partially with development finance. In the penultimate chapter, the author admits " So far we have only indirectly been concerned with paying for development ; in the next chapter it will be a major preoccupation (p. 154) " but the final chapter is again concerned with a general public finance subject -budgetary procedure-of which capital budgeting is a branch.

It would be equally open to criticism to treat development finance in isolation from recurrent finance, but one would have preferred to see the subject of development finance as the main target with occasional sorties into other fields of public finance as the subject demanded. Then more attention could have been given to the mechanisms of borrowing and repayment, the effects of foreign borrowing and aid programmes on the terms of trade and balance of payments and inflationary pressures and the labour market in relation to planning. A statement such as the following is obscure: " It would not be desirable, however, to control interest rates too exclusively in the interests of the budget. Countries where interest rates are not yet within the control of the authorities will be wise to exercise discretion in borrowing on short term especially for long term investment." (p. 164) This begs a whole lot of questions about the possible conflict between development credit and the price level, the functions of government short-term borrowing and the relationship between monetary policy-or the lack of it-and the plan, and the important effects of fast population growth in frustrating planning objec- tives which might have received more detailed treatment, even if at the expense of the treatment of general public finance matters such as classes of tax and federal fiscal systems.

Most of the examples are taken from the colonial situations and many con- clusions thus require modification for sovereign states ; in particular the discussion of planning and priorities. Although Mrs. Hicks style is somewhat patronising in tone, she does have a wide following amongst administrators and economists in less developed countries and I think one of the main reasons for this is her undoubted understanding and appreciation of the work that is being done "on the ground " in the countries themselves, particularly in the field of national income accounting ; which she sees as the proper framework for the plan and necessary projections, if the private sector is to be considered ; and of the techniques of cost benefit studies, which can be used to supplement feasibility reports and project studies, but may have less value that she attri-

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