WAR-EFFORT OF COLONIES

Southland Times, Issue 25737, 30 July 1945, Page 4

WAR-EFFORT OF COLONIES

VALUABLE AID GIVEN TO BRITAIN The contribution of the British colonies to the war effort of the Empne and the continuing social and economic development of these territories weie described by Sir Cosmo Parkinson, a former permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a broadcast address last night. Sir Cosmo has been visiting Fiji and other British Pacific islands as the personal representative of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and is now on his way home to Britain. . “When war came, the colonies rallied to our help,” he said. “The great issues at stake were appreciated and. there was a fixed determination to win this war against the King’s enemies. The Royal West African Frontier Force, recruited in West Africa, and the King’s African Rifles, recruited in East and Central Africa, grew from a few companies into brigades. They fought gallantly and victoriously in the Abyssinian campaign and have since been winning high praise in the bitter struggle with the Japanese in Burma. The Fijians in the Fiji Military Forces have made themselves a name by their exploits in the Solomon Islands, and Fiji is justly proud of them. But every colony has had its own military forces —from Bermuda and the West Indies to the Falkland Islands, from. Gibraltar to Hongkong. Pioneers and labour battalions were raised in territories as widely separated as Cyprus, Basutoland and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Naval units were raised in Ceylon, Kenya, Trinidad, Fiji and other colonies and volunteers came from all over the Colonial Empire to join the Royal Air Force.” WAR MATERIALS PROVIDED

On the economic side the colonies had played a significant part, said Sir Cosmo. Vital war materials—copper, tin, bauxite, industrial diamonds, rubber, palm-nuts, copra and pyrethrum—and essential food supplies had been provided. The colonies had made generous financial contributions to Britain’s war expenditure, and large sums had been raised to buy fighter planes and to provide ambulances and mobile canteens for the blitzed cities. Emphasizing the strategic value of the colonies, Sir Cosmo stated: “It is no exaggeration to say that without our colonies the war would have been greatly prolonged, if indeed it could have been won at all. West Africa, Gambia, the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Ascension Island, gave us the air routes for the Middle East, and Freetown in Sierra Leone was an invaluable naval base. Ceylon was a bulwark against Japan and with Aden procured our vital communications in the Indian Ocean. And how would we have fared in the Mediterranean without Malta?” POLITICAL REFORMS

In spite of the war other activities had not come to a standstill in the colonies. Political reforms were introduced in Trinidad in 1941 and later in British Guiana. In Jamaica a new constitution, based on adult suffrage, which brought the island much nearer selfgovernment, had been granted. At the present time a Royal Commission was reporting on the means by which a further political advance in Ceylon could be achieved. “On the economic and social side, he said, “a great step forward was taken by the British Government in 1940, when £5,500,000 a year for ten years was voted for colonial development and welfare and research. This year that Act has been amended so that the sum voted is increased to £120,000,000 over a period of 10 years. Briefly, the purpose is to help colonies to develop their resources and to raise their standards of life, so that ultimately they will be able to maintain those standards from their own resources—an essential condition for the fulfilment of the colonial policy of the British Government, which is the maximum of self-government within the British Empire in the shortest practicable time. Shortage of manpower and shortage of materials have inevitably slowed things down. Put even so, especially in the West Indies, where help was urgently needed, schemes involving the expenditure of many millions have been set going.”