Europeans In Central Africa “Let Down”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30157, 14 June 1963, Page 10

Europeans In Central Africa “Let Down”

All the European residents in Central African countries which had been granted independence by Britain were a bit bitter about being let down by the British Government. said Mr R. W. Sutcliffe. who has come to live in Christchurch after 15 years in Northern Rhodesia, in an interview yesterday. “What the British Government could have done about it no-one rightly knows, but we feel we were jagged along by London for years even though plans had been made well ahead to hand over these countries to the black man. There should be a lesson in that tor New Zealand. We think we were misled." he said.

Mr Sutcliffe had an insurance brokerage business with headquarters in Ndola. Northern Rhodesia, and branches tn Nyasaland and Tanganyika. He had had to close this business, he said, and he bad had to leave his house and 100 acres of land, for they were worth nothing, though in 1950 the property was worth £15.000. Similar things were happening in aH walks of life.

“A lot of us won't go back to England, for we fed we were let down.” be said. •Several Northern Rhodesians have come to New Zealand. TTiey and I are among the lucky ones in having to get out of Africa ” Mr Sutcliffe said that when he was in Nyasaland last year be found it fairly well controlled and the Africans full of enthusiasm tor their new inheritance. But his opinion was that it would not be long before- the Africans proved their inability and incapacity. A dictatorship was then being organised rapidly. This would be good so far as control of the population was concerned and the best substitute for colonial rule in that sense, but as far as business was concerned it would be useless. He could not see any happiness or stability in the future of Nyasaland. So long as there were a few Europeans running these countries they could impose certain standards. but when control paused out of the

hands of these Europeans their successors showed no desire to maintain them, Mr Sutcliffe said. It was true that the African had been ‘‘pushed around” by the white, even though it might have been for the African’s good. Now that the African had taken over, his attitude was thr t it was his turn to push the white man round. “That is understandable, but it gets one nowhere,” said Mr Sutcliffe. He said it was difficult tor the African to have standards of business, for he just did not understand it The impact of it all was that everyone in business was retrenching. The small businesses were closing, and their owners were leaving the country. It was happening in Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika. Nyasaland, and Northern Rhodesia. They were examples of bow much depended on an orderly and well-conducted society. When the Europeans all left there would not be an orderly society.