Word: commonwealth
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Tories and then under Labour, offered to hand over independence if the colonists would guarantee "unimpeded progress toward majority rule." The British then promised strict economic sanctions if Rhodesia went ahead with its unilateral declaration. A freezing of Rhodesian funds in British banks, coupled with a loss of Commonwealth preferences on tobacco and sugar, could have crushing effects on the Rhodesian economy. But since the crops are already sold for this year, and since Rhodesia can expect financial support from racist South Africa, the effects of economic sanctions would be slow in making themselves felt. Still worse, France (which...
...Would Be Mad." While Smith and his ministers talked on through the week, government radio and television stations were firing up the fervor for U.D.I, to a white heat. When Harold Wilson came up with a last-ditch proposal to send in a peace-keeping mission of "senior Commonwealth Prime Ministers," Smith's answer was that some of them might be black and that "we would be mad" to listen to "this sort of people." As telegrams from thousands of supporters poured in, there was little doubt that the overwhelming majority of Rhodesia's 250,000 whites wanted...
...outsider, the 250,000 whites of Rhodesia would seem to have little need to declare independence from Britain. They seem happy enough as they are. The climate is marvelous, the soil fertile, the servants plentiful and the commerce thriving-thanks largely to Commonwealth tariff protection for their goods. Moreover, since Britain has allowed them a free hand in governing themselves since 1923, Rhodesians have no trouble whatsoever in keeping firm control over the colony's 4,000,000 blacks, only 60,000 of whom are even eligible to vote...
...this is not enough. With independent black nations swarming into the U.N. and the Commonwealth, and the possibility of racial unrest spreading southward across the Zambezi, Rhodesia's whites have become increasingly militant. They are concerned that some time or other, Britain will make them live up to their colonial constitution-which, in theory at least, guarantees eventual African majority rule. Their new militancy is personified by Prime Minister Ian Smith, who came to power 18 months ago on a platform of "no African rule in my lifetime." Ever since, he has claimed that to protect this principle Rhodesia...
...British public opinion would protest the use of tommies to put down an Anglo-Saxon insurrection (Britain has not gone in for that sort of thing since 1776). Instead, what seemed to lie ahead was economic reprisals: the freezing of Rhodesia's sterling deposits, ejection from the Commonwealth and its tariff protection, trade boycotts or embargoes. All of which did not seem to bother former Finance Minister Smith. Indeed, despite the vulnerability of Rhodesia's $50-million-a-year tobacco trade with Britain, it was an open question as to how successful sanctions would be, though both...