Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T19:26:24.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Accommodating Imperialism: the Compromise of the Settler State in Southern Rhodesia, 1923–1929

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Ian Phimister
Ian Phimister
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although Southern Rhodesia's settler minority won responsible government from Britain in 1923, it was on terms circumscribed by the interests of metropolitan accumulation. As the dependent partner, Southern Rhodesia was obliged to accept constitutional provisions seeking to guard against initiatives which might disturb that process. Consequently, the settler state found itself hamstrung when it tried to gain some say over how the railway system operated. It was even less successful when it turned its attention to base mineral mining, where a handful of large companies did pretty much as they pleased. Efforts to find overseas markets for cattle and tobacco were also unsatisfactory. Neither the state nor settler producers could obtain the terms they wanted. Accumulation proceeded on terrain designed and dominated by imperialism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 1984 , pp. 279 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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.)

References

1 Loney, M., Rhodesia: White Racism and Imperial Response (Harmondsworth, 1975).Google Scholar

2 Utete, C., The Road to Zimbabwe: The Political Economy of Settler Colonialism, National Liberation and Foreign Intervention (Washington, 1979), 3.Google Scholar See the similar conclusions by McBride, R., ‘Race, class and national liberation in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa: a review of recent studies’, Insurgent Sociologist, X, ii (1980), 105Google Scholar; and Astrow, A., Zimbabwe: A Revolution that lost its way? (London, 1983), 6.Google Scholar

3 Murray, D.J., The Governmental System in Southern Rhodesia (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar; Mosley, P., The Settler Economies: Studies in the Economic History of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia 1900–1963 (Cambridge, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Arrighi, G., The Political Economy of Rhodesia (The Hague, 1967), 30.Google Scholar

5 Lee, E., ‘Politics and pressure groups in Southern Rhodesia, 1898–1923’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1974), 232–234.Google Scholar

6 H. Mss. FY 4/1/1, ‘Memorandum re the new political situation in Southern Rhodesia’, by Macdonald, J. G., 20 July 1923.Google Scholar All manuscript and file references are to the National Archives, Zimbabwe.

7 Lee, , ‘Politics and pressure groups’, 244.Google Scholar

8 Murray, , Governmental System, 207, 125.Google Scholar

9 Palley, C., The Constitutional History and Law of Southern Rhodesia, 1888–1965 (Oxford, 1966), 236–237.Google Scholar

10 Murray, , Governmental System, 3.Google Scholar

11 Ibid. 4; Palley, , Constitutional History and Law of Southern Rhodesia, 224–225.Google Scholar

12 Wallis, J. P., One Man's Hand (London, 1950), 200.Google Scholar

13 Southern Rhodesia Legislative Council Debates, 25 May 1922Google Scholar, col. 771.

14 Gann, L. H. and Gelfand, M., Huggins of Rhodesia (London, 1964), 62.Google Scholar

15 Ibid. 68.

16 Round Table, December 1923.Google Scholar

17 Paragraph based on S881/277/947, ‘Principal shareholders: Wankie Colliery Co. Ltd’, 15 Dec. 1925; A3/17/10, Edmund Davis to Secretary, BSAC, London, 11 Feb. 1915; Phimister, I. R., ‘The structure and development of the Southern Rhodesian base mineral industry, 1907–Great Depression’, Rhodesian Journal of Economics, IX, ii (1975), 79–88Google Scholar; S881/1353, ‘Rhodesian ranching developments’, 15 July 1926Google Scholar; Potter, E., The Press as Opposition: The Political Role of South African Newspapers (London, 1975), 38–39Google Scholar; and Gale, W. D., The Rhodesian Press (Salisbury, 1962), 129.Google Scholar See also Lee, , ‘Politics and pressure groups’, Appendix III, ‘The Rhodesian press’.Google Scholar

18 Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 14 Mar. 1935Google Scholar, col. 91.

19 Murray, , Governmental System, 138.Google Scholar

20 East Africa and Rhodesia, 23 Feb. 1939.Google Scholar See also Galbraith, J. S., Crown and Charter (Berkeley, 1974), 48–86.Google Scholar

21 Murray, , Governmental System, 138.Google Scholar

22 Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 21 Mar. 1930Google Scholar, col. 144.

23 See Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 30 May 1924Google Scholar, col. 8, and related debates in subsequent years.

24 The Reform Movement in Rhodesia (Salisbury, 1903), 47–48.Google Scholar

25 Southern Rhodesia Legislative Council Debates, 26 May 1921Google Scholar, col. 1190.

26 Report by Brigadier-General F. D. Hammond… on the Railway System of Southern Rhodesia, 1926, 3 vols.Google Scholar For Coghlan's threat of ‘war to the knife between the Government and the Railways’, see H. MSS NE 1/1/1, Coghlan to Newton, 13 Dec. 1924. See also Hummel, H. C., ‘Sir Charles Coghlan: the premiership, 1923–1927’, Historical Association of Zimbabwe Local Series 35 (Salisbury, 1979), 14–16.Google Scholar

27 H. MSS NE 1/1/1, ‘Rhodesian Railways Bill. Explanatory Memorandum’, n.d.

28 Gibbons, E. G., ‘The background to the Rhodesian Railway Act 1926’ (unpub. M.A. thesis, University of Rhodesia, 1975), 60–66.Google Scholar

29 See H. MSS LE 3/1/1, ‘Hammond Report’, Downie to Moffat, II Jan. 1926.

30 New Rhodesia, 26 Nov. 1932.Google Scholar For wider discussion see Phimister, I. R., ‘Towards a history of Zimbabwe's Rhodesia Railways: an essay review’, Zimbabwean HistoryGoogle Scholar (forthcoming).

31 Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 5 June 1929Google Scholar, col. 1636.

32 Ibid., 24 Mar. 1937, col. 542.

33 H. MSS NE 1/1/2, Downie to Newton, 25 Nov. 1928.

34 H. MSS LE 3/1/1, ‘For discussion at Cabinet Meeting’, Minister of Mines and Public Works, to the Hon. the Premier, II Jan. 1929.

35 Paragraph based on A 3/17/12/1, B.S.A. Company, London, to Wankie Colliery Company, 26 Apr. 1923; S 881/277/947, ‘Principal shareholders: Wankie Colliery Co. Ltd’, 15 Dec. 1925; ZCB 2/2/1, ‘Capital history of the Wankie Colliery Company Ltd from 1899 to 1948’, 29 Mar. 1949; Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 25 May 1938Google Scholar, col. 1167 onwards. The colliery also signed a price-fixing agreement in 1923 with the railways and mines, in both of which the B.S.A. Company was more or less interested; see Thompson, C. H. and Woodruff, H. W., Economic Development in Rhodesia and Nyasaland (London, 1954), 115.Google Scholar

36 A 3/17/18, Chairman, Charterland and General Exploration and Finance Company Ltd to H. U. Moffat, 27 Mar. 1917.

37 Hadley, A. E., Willoughby's Consolidated Co. Ltd: 1894–1944 (London, n.d.), 17Google Scholar; Report of the Secretary, Department of Mines and Public Works, on Mines, for the year 1926, 3.

38 Paragraph, including direct quotation, drawn from Rhodesian Mining Journal, Dec. 1931, 707–709Google Scholar; H. MSS LE 3/1/1, E. Davis to H. U. Moffat, 21 Jan. 1925; and Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 24 Apr. 1930Google Scholar, col. 1281. See also S 254, E. Davis to J. W. Downie, 8 June 1931.

39 M 3/3/91, Secretary, Bechuanaland Exploration Company, to Secretary, B.S.A. Company, 1 June 1906.

40 A 3/17/10, E. Davis to Secretary, B.S.A. Company, II Feb. 1915.

41 A 3/17/8.

42 For further discussion, see Phimister, , ‘Southern Rhodesian base mineral industry’ (cited in n. 17).Google Scholar

43 Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 17 Apr. 1931Google Scholar, col. 737.

44 For sources used and wider discussion of the theme treated in the following section, see Phimister, I. R., ‘Meat and monopolies: beef cattle in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1938’, J. Afr. Hist., XIX, iii (1978), 391–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Quoted ibid., 402.

46 Quoted ibid., 402.

47 Quoted ibid., 413.

48 Quoted ibid., 408.

49 Rey, Sir Charles, ‘“Monarch of all I survey”: Bechuanaland Diaries 1929–1937’, ed. Parsons, Q. N. (unpublished).Google Scholar

50 Rhodesia Agr. J., XXII (1925), 40.Google Scholar

51 Clements, F. and Harben, E., Leaf of Gold (London, 1962), 96–97.Google Scholar

52 H. MSS NE 1/1/6, Leggate to Newton, 18 June 1926.

53 Clements, and Harben, , Leaf of Gold, 98Google Scholar; S 1180/4 (14), Imperial Economic Committee, Tobacco Enquiry, 9 May 1928, Summary of Discussion on the Marketing of Southern Rhodesian Tobacco.

54 Clements, and Harben, , Leaf of Gold, 102.Google Scholar

55 Report of the Secretary, Department of Agriculture, for the year 1927, 41.Google Scholar

56 S 881/663/3379, ‘Report as the result of a visit of Mr O. Siemssen and Mr A. V. Maunder’, 9 Aug. 1928.Google Scholar

57 H. MSS NE 1/1/7, Downie to Moffat, 19 June 1928; S 1180/4 (8), H. Hopkins to Minister for Mines and Public Works, 5 Sept. 1928, and attached reports. See also Clements, and Harben, , Leaf of Gold, 100–108.Google Scholar

58 S 1180/4 (8) (2), H. Hopkins, Report No. 14, 4 Jan. 1929.

59 Clements, and Harben, , Leaf of Gold, 101.Google Scholar

60 Davies, W. T., Fifty Years of Progress: An Account of the African Organisation of the Imperial Tobacco Company 1907–1957 (London, n.d.), 9–10.Google Scholar

61 Corina, M., Trust in Tobacco: The Anglo-American Struggle for Power (London, 1975)Google Scholar, chapters 7 and 8.

62 Paragraph, including direct quotation, based on S 1180/4(1), ‘Copy of telegram from the United Tobacco Company, Cape Town, to the Hon. Leggate, Minister of Agriculture, Salisbury’, and attached correspondence. See also S 1193/T 3, Leggate to Downie, 3 Nov. 1926; and Clements, and Harben, , Leaf of Gold, 66–96.Google Scholar

63 H. MSS NE 1/1/2, Downie to Newton, 24 Oct. 1927.

64 H. MSS NE 7/1/1, Moffat to Newton, 12 Dec. 1927.

65 H. MSS NE 1/1/7, Downie to Moffat, 19 June 1928.

66 Ibid.

67 H. MSS NE 7/1/1, Moffat to Newton, 5 Dec. 1927.

68 S 1180/7 (19A), Fletcher to Kemp, 13 Dec. 1929.

69 Ibid.

70 Lonsdale, J. and Berman, B., ‘Coping with the contradictions: the development of the colonial state in Kenya, 1895–1914’, J. Afr. Hist., XX, iv (1979), 487–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar