“FATEFUL CHOICE”

Press, Volume CI, Issue 30008, 18 December 1962, Page 15

“FATEFUL CHOICE”

S. Rhodesia Election (N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, December 17. Mr Winston Field's Rhodesian Front Party in Southern Rhodesia was pledged to “white supremacy, but not much else,” “The Times” said today. Commenting on the weekend elections, won by the Rhodesian Front, the newspaper said editorially that the white electors of Southern Rhodesia had made “a fateful choice.” “It is easier to see what they voted against than what they voted for,” it said. The newspaper said the electors’ real decision had been to cry halt to Sir Edgar Whitehead’s policy of liberal change. The Rhodesian Front had been voted in “to the wild applause of African nationalists.”

The newspaper said the African nationalists assumed Mr Field would join them in disposing of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

They believed that later his standfast policies, especially about land, would generate enough unrest to enable them to dispose of him and of white supremacy. In a news report, “The Times” said experienced political observers believed Southern Rhodesian whites had progressively become more concerned about their own fate as they watched the working out of British and French policies of transferring control to the indigenous people. The newspaper said Rhodesian Front election propaganda had often been “a naked appeal to race prejudice.” “The major issues in many white voters’ minds were who would buy the house next door if the Land Apportionment Act were repealed, or who would sit next to one’s child at school or use the public convenience down the road,” it added.