Changing Wind

As visiting Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his way through the Union of South Africa, allowed to meet none of the blacks (who make up 67% of the population), he could sense the mood of the country from the headlines. The three-year-old "treason trial" of 30 political prisoners droned on. Police rounded up 30 Africans to try for the drunken explosion of violence that recently killed nine policemen in Cato Manor, a Negro ghetto. "Cato Manor," wrote one reader to the editor, "should make the white population of South Africa realize that they are surrounded by savages who are not fit for political rights." South Africa's Parliament solemnly passed a new law to extend segregation on bathing beaches to three miles out to sea so that colored swimmers could not get closer than the sharks to white waters.

Teacup Serenade. It was the touchiest point in Macmillan's Africa tour. So far, he had been saying amiable nothings (TIME, Feb. 8). Now he hardly dared be rude to a "Commonwealth Club" member, even though it had just proclaimed its intention of becoming a republic (no longer recognizing Queen Elizabeth as its sovereign). If he spoke too sharply, he might increase South Africa's harsh feeling of isolation without changing its policies. His hosts had serenaded him with a rattle of teacups and surrounded him with politicians, businessmen and plain folks, all of them white.

On the seventh of his nine days, Macmillan's Rolls-Royce swept past a few dozen whites waving Union Jacks and crying "Good old Mac," and a cluster of grim blacks holding up antigovernment placards, and up to Parliament to address a joint session. His speech had been drafted long ago in London to be the major effort of his trip. In the parliamentary dining room sat his expectant hearers, most of them bulky, stolid-looking Afrikaners.

Slowly, sonorously, without a hint of smile, he set forth, first with courtesies, then with his message. "The wind of change is blowing through this continent," said Macmillan. "Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact, and we must come to terms with it." South Africa had a right to its own policies, but, said Macmillan, "in this shrinking world, the internal policies of one nation may have effects outside it," and the old saying, "mind your own business" now needs amendment to "mind your own business, but mind how it affects my business, too." Pounding the table for emphasis, he told the white supremacists that "we reject the idea of any inherent superiority of one race over another." He knew South Africa's problems, but "I hope you won't mind my saying frankly that there are some aspects of your poli cies which make it impossible for us to support you without being false to our own deep convictions about the political destinies of free men."

As he sat down, two thirds of the audience applauded perfunctorily, and the other third, including his host Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, applauded not at all. Rising to reply, in a manner that was not as hostile as his words, Verwoerd declared: "We have problems enough in South Africa without your coming to add to them. We do not see eye to eye" on racial matters, he went on; what is most necessary today is "to be just to the white man of Africa." This time, the applause was loud and clear.

Next day, speaking to reporters in Cape Town, Harold Macmillan remarked: "Twenty years ago one spoke of guaranteeing rights of natives. Now it appears to be a question of guaranteeing the rights of Europeans." In London, Macmillan's Colonial Secretary Iain Macleod grappled with the problem as it affects Kenya colony. Meeting privately with European, African, Asian and Arab delegates from Kenya, he laid down two elements of British policy: 1) the system "I hope to see flourish in Kenya" is the "Westminster model" of parliamentary institutions, rather than a strong executive; 2) "as . time goes on, Africans, and I use the term in the commonly accepted sense [i.e., blacks], will be in the majority position, and their voice will be the predominant voice." White settler representatives were shocked as they left the meeting; African Leader Tom Mboya unhappily complained that Macleod's intricate system of reserved parliamentary seats for whites was still far from the one-man, one-vote system he is demanding.'But Macleod had made a major British commitment to the "wind of change" blowing through Africa.

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