High Stakes in Rhodesia

Salisbury, South Rhodesia His massive, prizefighter’s shoulders hunched over the long table in his office, Sir Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, spelled out to me the African reality. “You can’t talk democracy to people in the sense we understand when they are living on a standard well below what an American would spend to keep a dog.”

Sir Roy’s problem is how to keep the Federation alive when the British government is determined to give Northern Rhodesia an overdose of democracy that could be fatal. In his effort todosohe has dissolved parliament and called new elections later this month.

Salisbury, South Rhodesia His massive, prizefighter’s shoulders hunched over the long table in his office, Sir Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, spelled out to me the African reality. “You can’t talk democracy to people in the sense we understand when they are living on a standard well below what an American would spend to keep a dog.”

Sir Roy’s problem is how to keep the Federation alive when the British government is determined to give Northern Rhodesia an overdose of democracy that could be fatal. In his effort todosohe has dissolved parliament and called new elections later this month.