Rhodesia

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30930, 10 December 1965, Page 16

Rhodesia

Sir, —Loyalty, like honesty, to poor stuff if it rests on a foundation of law; these abstractions have no force unless they spring from love. British people everywhere are on sure ground when they sympathise with their kinsmen in Rhodesia; these are like ourselves. Those of us who have proved our loyalty in the past deplore the legalised slander against our people in peril in Africg, abandoned to the ferocity of black nationalism because the British Government prefers appeasement to justice, and expediency to statesmanship. We become “the ignorant accomplice of purposes abhorred" if we join the chorus of our enemies; and how, in the name of common sense, can this be classed as loyalty?—Yours, etc., HARRY H. FRANKLIN. ■ December 7, 1965.

Sir, —What a pleasant contrast to read the wellreasoned letter from “Rebel if You Like” (who has lived in Salisbuiy) after the 111infonned tirade from “British Liberal." What the Liberal to trying to express must not be regarded as United Kingdom Liberal policy. Premature self-determination is likely to be shown in the fulness of time to have been a mistake. The average African is not yet ready to control his own destiny, in spite of the dedicated effects of generations of British Civil Servants. We must never regard the African as being in any way similar to the Maori. He just isn’t Some of the most savage brutality I have seen has been that inflicted on his fellows by the African given petty authority. Nor should we forget comparatively recent visits to Africa by the Russian and Chinese leaders. Subversion to rife. Smith to no traitor; nor to he disposed towards Ku Klux Klan.—Yours, etc., ANOTHER BRITISH LIBERAL. December 9, 1965.