Minister Resigns In Rhodesia

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31783, 13 September 1968, Page 15

Minister Resigns In Rhodesia

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SALISBURY, September 12. The Prime Minister, Mr lan Smith, faced a new crisis within the ruling Rhodesian Front today with the resignation of his Defence and External Affairs Minister and signs of continuing rebellion by party members.

Lord Graham, a strong Right - wing opponent of Mr Smith’s plan for Rhodesia’s constitutional future, handed in his resignation yesterday after a clash of opinion over party policy.

His departure from the Government was a heavy blow to Mr Smith’s claims to party

solidarity after last week's divisive Rhodesian Front congress.

Mr Smith’s constitutional plan was approved by the congress by only a narrow 11-vote margin. Lord Graham, who is 61, the Seventh Duke of Montrose, and the senior Duke of Scotland, is the second man to leave the Smith Cabinet in two months.

The Minister who left before him the Internal Affairs Minister, Mr William Harper, who was dismissed

by Mr Smith—was an ally of Lord Graham.

But Lord Graham made it clear that he was not leaving the party or Parliament —as Mr Harper had. Observers said Lord Graham, who has his own more extreme apartheid-style plan for the country’s constitutional development could provide a rallying point within the front for legislators and party members opposed to Mr Smith’s ideas. In his i-esignation letter to Mr Smith, Lord Graham said: “I have become increasingly aware that in a number of matters our thinking is not as one.”

In his reply, Mr Smith agreed and said that Lord Graham was doing the honest thing by resigning.

Lord Graham’s decision to get out of the Cabinet—and become a free agent to criticise the Prime Minister as he wishes—was apparently induced by the result of the vote taken at last week’s congress on the Smith constitution.

Approval of the Smith plan —fiercely opposed by Right wingers in the party who saw in it the threat of a sell-out to Britain also caused a wave of defections from th* party.

Last night there were oth« significant resignations V two local party chairmen rural Gatooma. It is in ->atooma later this month that Mr Smith has to fight a byelection against the extreme Right-wing Rhodesian National Party.