Voices of the People

As he took off from his capital city of Salisbury in his old Royal Rhodesia Air Force Dakota, burly Sir Roy Walensky, 51, onetime boxing champion and locomotive engineer and now Prime Minister of the Central African Federation, seemed every inch the bwana of good will. He was bound on a 2,500-mile mission to carry the message of federation to the most remote tribes of Northern Rhodesia.

For his stop at the jungle village of Mongu, capital of the protectorate of Barotseland, he had loaded his plane with special offerings. In response to an SOS from Barotseland's 354 whites, he brought along a sack of potatoes and six crates of beer. For the protectorate's 280,000 blacks, he brought his most friendly manner. But in Barotseland, where 900 people were arrested for witchcraft last year and a cow can fetch -L-12 while a bride brings only -L-5, the natives have some stubborn ideas. "They have a habit," a local British official had warned, "of continually expressing surprise that so much goes on in the world without their Paramount Chief's being consulted."

"Tell Sir Roy . . ." On hand to meet Sir Roy were the members of the Saasikalo Kuta (hereditary Barotse national council) and Paramount Chief Mwanawina III, wearing instead of his usual ceremonial admiral's uniform a natty business suit. "Tell Sir Roy," prompted the British resident commissioner, "what is in your hearts." The protectorate's Ngambela (Prime Minister) dropped to his knees, and clapping his hands softly, shuffled over to the Paramount Chief to ask permission to speak. "Amazing," murmured Sir Roy. "Pity I can't introduce something like that in the federal house."

The Barotse leaders, it seemed, disliked federation, not because it brought too little freedom to their people, but because it might bring too much. The Ngambela objected especially to Sir Roy's new franchise act, which, by slowly spreading the vote among Africans, threatened to undermine the hereditary powers of both council and chief. "We object to this act," said the Barotse, "because it did not come to us through our Paramount Chief, or even through the resident commissioner. It blew into the territory like a piece of waste paper."

Up in Flames. Next day at Lusaka, Sir Roy faced a more familiar sort of opposition. Outside the hotel where he was attending a tea party, six members of the black-supremacist African National Congress paraded up and down with signs reading, WE DEMAND ONE MAN, ONE VOTE, and REMOVE THE COLOR BAR ON RAILWAYS. Urban Negro politicians believe that Sir Roy's go-slow policy on racial equality is his way of forever postponing the promised racial partnership. As Sir Roy flew home, Northern Rhodesian Negroes were astir over the latest plan to increase African representation in the Northern Rhodesia Legislative Council, while keeping it safely dominated by Europeans. As mobs cheered and sang God Bless Africa, copies of the plan were heaped upon funeral pyres in village after village, and went up in flames.

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