Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T05:21:31.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - The Overseas Food Corporation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

Get access

Summary

As work in Africa under the Managing Agents fell further and further behind, in London John Strachey determined to speed up the transfer of the scheme's management to the public corporation which Cabinet had agreed should be established to run it. This was no mean task, requiring the passage of the necessary implementing legislation through Parliament, and the selection of a suitably qualified management team. Both reveal much about how the post-war Labour Government, and John Strachey personally, worked.

Above all, it forced the Labour Government to come face to face with the question of what exactly they were trying to do in developing Britain's colonial territories, and where the balance lay between benefit to the imperial power and benefit to the African people. Naturally, as we have seen, the Government asserted that it would benefit both. But to assert that something is true does not necessarily make it so. Then, as now, putting something into legislation tends to pinpoint the ambiguities that politicians so often prefer to slide over.

The Overseas Resources Development Act: development or exploitation?

Strachey's objective was to get legislation establishing a public corporation to run the Groundnut Scheme through Parliament as swiftly as possible, but it immediately raised both wider questions of principle that needed to be resolved first, and became entangled with the Colonial Office's ambition to create their own corporation to pursue more commercial forms of colonial development than were permitted under the Colonial Development and Welfare (CD&W) Act of 1940.

For some time the Colonial Office had been dissatisfied with the limitations imposed on their efforts to develop the African territories by the CD&W Act. They wanted something that would be more flexible, less bound by Treasury rules, and able to mobilise larger sums of money. The CD&W funds were being spent predominantly on the provision of basic social services, and public works and utilities, not on what would be considered ‘productive’ projects to increase the supply of foodstuffs, raw materials and other commodities, nor to initiate genuine industrial development.

Type
Chapter
Information
Imperialism and Development
The East African Groundnut Scheme and its Legacy
, pp. 114 - 131
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×