‘Death Knell Of Majority Rule’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31986, 13 May 1969, Page 17

‘Death Knell Of Majority Rule’

(N.Z.P.A .-Reuter —Copy rig M) SALISBURY, May 12. Mr lan Smith, the Rhodesian Prime Minister, has now said unequivocally that Rhodesia’s vast African majority can never hope to rule the country.

He told a political rally last week that the constitution he planned for the country “will sound the death knell of the principle of majority rule.” This time there was no possibility of misinterpreting his views about the political future of Rhodesia’s four million Africans. Although Mr Smith’s views were known, he had never been so publicly explicit be-

fore, making clear that his Rhodesian Front Party was which swept it to unchallenged power at the election seven years ago.

> The Government’s campaign to drum up support for a “yes” vote for its new constitutional proposals at next month’s referendum is now under way and the cry is a familiar one: “Vote for us or the Africans will take over.” Mr Smith told a packed country hall in Sinoia on Wednesday the “electorate’s choice is straightforward. It is to help us bring in the new constitution to enable us to retain our Western civilisation.”

This was the main theme of his speech. Western civilisation had to be protected : and only the new constitution could do that.

Anything else—such as a “no” vote—would be a sellout to Rhodesia’s enemies, and to the whisperers and trouble-makers within who wanted to hand over power to the Africans.

He was bitter with his political opponents. In an ap-

parent reference to the prosettlement Centre Party, he said, “they see the way as appeasement and compromise.”

Since Mr Smith made a unilateral declaration of independence on November 11, 1965, neither talks with Britain nor economic sanctions imposed on Rhodesia have been successful in solving the independence dispute. Britain wants unimpeded progress towards majority rule in Rhodesia. There are estimated to be about 4,240,090 Africans and 225,000 whites in Rhodesia.

In his speech this week, Mr Smith admitted—as he has done many times before —that a settlement of the independence dispute with Britain would be the best thing for Rhodesia.

But he said the way to a settlement had been blocked. “It looks as though we are not getting much response from the other side. ... I don’t think it (a settlement) is a practical proposition any more.” Some observers have been suggesting that, with an eye to London and the troubles of the British Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson), Mr Smith might back-pedal in the hope that Mr Wilson might be unseated at an early General Election.

However, there was no hint in Mr Smith’s speech that he was thinking of putting the brakes on what appears to be an inexorable march towards a final break with the British Crown and the declaration of a republic. v