It took all of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s urbane skill at talkingthrough, past and around any subject to make his way through thecapitals of British Africa. He had from the first conceived his missionas a journey to “look and learn,” but people everywhere expected tohear something about their problems and prospects from the firstBritish Prime Minister ever to visit them. TheLondon Spectator, watching the P.M. straddle one controversial subjectafter another, began to call the Mr. Macwonder of yore by a newnickname, MacJanus.*
In three out of the four states he visited—Nigeria is virtuallyindependent, and Ghana and the Union of South Africa are wholly so—hecould be no more than a senior member of what he delights in calling”the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Club.” But London still exerts powerover the troubled Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Federal PrimeMinister Sir Roy Welensky hoped that Macmillan might promise moreindependence soon for his white-dominated government. The Africanswanted him to hold firm while encouraging them in their own search forindependence outside the federation.
What’s It All About? In his first public statement in the SouthernRhodesia capital of Salisbury, a busy modern city (pop. 260,000) thatboasts of racial “partnership” while practicing a segregation almost ascomplete as South Africa’s, Macmillan did a quick knee bend in thedirection of the Africans. Britain, he said, would not remove its”protection” until all the people had a chance to say whether theywanted federation or not. Sir Roy Welensky was visibly disgruntled. Butduring his entire stay in Southern Rhodesia, Macmillan did notinterview a single African leader.
By the time Macmillan got to Nyasaland, where the blacks outnumber thewhites 485 to 1, the Africans were getting disgruntled too. Macmillanmade no attempt to see, let alone to set free, the imprisoned black”Messiah,” Dr. Hastings Banda. Orton Chirwa, the territory’sonly black barrister, bluntly demanded to know why Britain was soafraid of Sir Roy. Macmillan testily replied: “Britain has neverbeen frightened of anyone — not even Hitler.” Finally, at theRyalls Hotel in Blantyre, Macmillan ran into his first hostile crowd.
Funny, Aren’t They? At a civic luncheon, he sought to discourage the nationalist’s desire to secede from the federation, while assuring allconcerned that he had deep sympathy for their “aspirations forself-government.” As loudspeakers carried his words outside, 2,000Africans bearing antifederation placards began to grow restless.Finally, a black policeman snatched one of the placards, and thetrouble began. It quickly became a scene out of Evelyn Waugh: below,the blacks screamed and police flailed; on the hotel veranda above,Europeans calmly went on sipping their gins and whiskies.
The correspondent of London Conservative Daily Mail melodramatically reported: “I watched a sickening spectacle.I watched a leading Blantyre policeman do these things to Africans whonever hit back: strike them across the stomachs with stout black canes,knee Africans who were pleading for symbolic arrest, strike women. . .” Added the London Daily Telegraph of the watching Europeans:”I heard one remark, ‘Funny little monkeys, aren’t they?’ “”
Think of It!” True to his original premise that the realfact finding in the federation would have to be done later by a specialcommission headed by Lord Monckton, Macmillan departed from athoroughly confused Nyasaland for the Union of South Africa, where afew Africans in the streets tried to attract his attention withhomemade placards: MONTY CLOSED HIS EYES OPEN YOURS, MAC! Askedwhether he would see any “non-white leaders,” he blandlydeclared that this would be up to “my hosts.” Finally, at areception given by the mayor of Johannesburg, Macmillan foundsomething to say that fitted in with what he considered a properdiscretion. Looking out over a park filled with 1,000 white guests toward the looming skyline of the city (pop. 884,000), Supermac intoned: “The great romance of this city! Thinkof it! Only 73 years ago — nothing. And now — all this.Think how it was made — we two races, the British and the Dutch!”
* The Mac nicknames began with Supermac, coined by CartoonistVicky. Macmillan has since become known in times of budget cutting asMac the Knife, during the trouble in Cyprus as Macblunder, and during ahighway fuss as Macadam. For the great fur cap he wore to Moscow andodd gear he favors on other occasions, he also became Macmilliner.