Zambezia (2000), XXVII 00-"SOME ARE MORE WHITE THAN OTHERS": RACIAL CHAUVINISM ASA FACTOR IN RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICY, 1890 TO 1963ALOIS S. MLAMBOEconomic History Department, University of ZimbabweAbstractThis article analyses the role of ethnic chauvinism in determining thepatterns and trends of white immigration into Rhodesia from the country'soccupation in 1890 to the Second World War. It argues that, while scholarshave rightly emphasised white settler racism and discrimination against theAfrican majority, and have tended to treat settler white society as ahomogenous entity which shared a common identity, a closer examinationof the racial dynamics within white colonial society reveals that strongcurrents of ethnic chauvinism maintained sharp divisions within the whitesettler society, even though settlers presented a united front when protectingtheir collective interests in the face of the perceived African threat. Thisarticle focuses specifically on racial and cultural chauvinism emanatingfrom settlers of British stock which, among other things, determined thepace, volume and nature of white immigration into the country andcontributed, together with other factors, to the fact that fewer white immigrantsentered the country than had originally been envisaged by Cecil JohnRhodes. Thus, while Rhodes had dreamt of creating Rhodesia as a whiteman's country, this dream remained unfulfilled because of the dominantBritish settler community's reluctance to admit whites of non-British stock. Itis argued, therefore, that, throughout the period under study, British colonialsettlers continued to regard themselves as "more white than others" withrespect to other non-British races.INTRODUCTIONStudies of Rhodesian colonial society have often emphasised theprevalence of white settler racism and discrimination against Africansand how this attitude shaped the development of the country, culminatingin the growth and development of African protest and resistance. With afew notable exceptions, the settler community, known generically incolonial language as "Europeans", were erroneously perceived as a unitedentity which shared a common identity deriving from its whiteness". AsRichard Hodder Williams notes, scholars tended to base their analyseson "the simple, but all too simple, hypothesis about Rhodesia [that]suggests overwhelming pressures to ensure the unity of the white-skinnedimmigrant minority against the black skinned majority". He maintains,139140 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYhowever, that, while Rhodesian white groups lived together and were notviolently antagonistic, they lived prejudiced lives and were suspicious ofeach other, although they remained united "in their defence of propertyand political advantage".1It is equally the contention of this article that, despite the outwardsemblance of unity, the white Rhodesian community was deeply dividedby, among other factors, racism and cultural chauvinism which emanated,mostly, from the settlers of British stock, evoking equally strong reactionsfrom other white groups in the country such as Afrikaners. The racistattitudes of the politically, economically and numerically dominant Britishsettlers were clearly evident in Rhodesia's immigration policy up to theFederation which frustrated the efforts of thousands of would-be non-British white settlers to enter and settle in the country. As a result, theRhodesian white population remained small throughout the period underreview.2As shown in my recent publication,3 while the original colonisers andtheir governments cherished the dream of building Rhodesia as a whiteman's country, the dream was never fulfilled because of Rhodesia's failureto attract large numbers of white settlers. A full 50 years after the Britishoccupied Zimbabwe, there were only 68 954 whites in the colony! Inanother study, I have argued that, contributing to the lack of growth inthe numbers of white Rhodesian settlers were several factors, includingthe general ignorance of the country in Britain, the prevalence of negativeperceptions of the country abroad which saw Rhodesia as a smalldangerous country somewhere in the heart of darkest Africa whosesavages and wild beasts roamed the countryside and where strange andterrible diseases prevailed, the country's land-locked position, the costof travel to the country, the high capital requirements imposed by theRhodesian authorities on would-be immigrants and the Rhodesianauthorities' reluctance to admit large numbers of people of non-Britishstock.41 Richard Hodder-Williams, "Afrikaners in Rhodesia: A partial portrait", in African SocialResearch, 18 (December 1974). Notable exceptions to this simplistic approach includeamong others, Frank Clements, Rhodesia: The Course to Collision (London, Pall MaliPress, 1969); Barry M. Schutz, "European population patterns, cultural persistence andpolitical change in Rhodesia", Canadian Journal of African Studies. 7. (t) (1973). 3-26; andDane Kennedy, Islands of White: Settler Society and Social Control in Southern Rhodesia1830-1939 (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1987).2 Although the focus of this article is on the racism of the British settlers in Rhodesia, it isrecognised that the British were not a homogenous group as it included immigrants fromEngland, Ireland, Scotland and various British possessions worldwide. It is acknowledgedthat class and cultural tensions existed within the British settler community. Thissubject will, however, not be tackled here but will be the subject of a separate article3 A. S. Mlambo, -"Building a white man's country: Aspects of white immigration intnRhodesia up to World War H", Zambezia, (1998), XXV (ii). 123-146.4 A. S. Mlambo, "Whitening Rhodesia, 1890-1940: The Dream and the Reality". papepresented to the Southern African History and Politics Seminar at Oxford UniversityEngland, January 25,1999.A. S. MLAMBO 141The reluctance stemmed from the Rhodesian authorities' obsessionwith maintaining what were referred to as "European standards" byadmitting only the "right type" of immigrant.5 This class of immigrant wasconceived of as possessing a stipulated amount of capital6 and, moreimportantly, being of British stock. Evidence shows that the latter, ratherthan the former, was the more important criterion, for as will be shown,several financially well-endowed individuals and groups were deniedentry into the country, mainly because they were non-British. Therefore,all official pronouncements about the need for more white immigrationnotwithstanding, what mattered most in deciding whether an applicantwould be admitted into the country or not was where his father was bornrather than the individual's skills or current station in life.The British cultural chauvinism and exclusiveness can, perhaps, b/estbe understood within the "fragment" concept pioneered by Louis Hartzin The Founding of New Societies, published in 1964. Hartz argued thatsocieties founded abroad by European emigrants displayed certainpeculiar characteristics which suggested the operation of a certaindynamic which was consistent with what he called fragment type ofsociety. Such fragment societies were derived from parent or homesocieties and retained some of the parent/home societies' culturalattributes but were not exact replicas of such societies. The citizens ofthe fragment society brought some "cultural baggage" with them fromthe home country. This "cultural baggage" was then gradually adapted toand reshaped by the new social context in which they found themselves,producing a society which still shared some of the cultural characteristicsof the old but which was no longer directly compatible with the parentsociety.7In the specific context of Rhodesia, it has been argued that thesituation was made more complex by the fact that the Colony was, in fact,This often used term "standards" was never defined. As Clements put it, "Never at anystage of... Rhodesia's continuing history was anyone able to define satisfactorily whatEuropean standards were: though it was always assumed that all who could pass forwhite automatically had them and that anyone black must somehow prove that he had".Clements, Course to Collision, 114. Equally, the term "European" was also never defined.Again, according to Clements, whether Individuals were considered to be European ornot "depended on what they asserted themselves to be and the habits they chose toadopt, provided of course that skin colour passed the swift arbitrary, but normally quitegenerous, scrutiny of a lavatory attendant, barman or headmaster". Clements, Course toCollision, 72.For instance, in a memo dated 1/1925, a government official listed the type of settlerpreferred as follows: "(1) Without money Š not specially desired; (2) With S500 - £1 000,knowledgeable men, farmers, artisans, workers Š Most desirable; (3) With S2 000 andupwards Š Very desirable. They require but little government aid." See National Archivesof Zimbabwe (Hereafter called NAZ), S2371/1/1, Land Settlement Policy, 1902-1903; 1925-1936, Memo, 1/1925.Louis Hartz, The Founding of New Societies (New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964).142 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICY"a fragment of a fragment" in that, most of the British settlers did notcome directly from Britain but via a prolonged sojourn in South Africaand thus "carried the attitudes and expectations of British South Africansrather than those of residential British nationals into their newsettlement".8 Thus, to the racial and cultural chauvinist baggage originallycarried from Britain was added racist attitudes and world views adoptedin South Africa and shaped by South African conditions and experiences.It was this "baggage" which predisposed them to be disdainful of andhostile to non-British peoples, White and Black. Rhodesia's fragment-of-a-fragment society thus became acutely, indeed obsessively, consciousof its Britishness and remained determined to preserve its corporateidentity than those who had remained in the homeland. This is partlywhat Gann and Duignan meant when they wrote: "White Rhodesian societyin some ways retained a curiously archaic quality: the values of EdwardianEngland survived as in a kind of sociological museum".9Such an interpretation is consistent with several scholarlyexplanations of the Rhodesian settlers' racism or cultural chauvinismwhich have emphasised the importance of the Rhodesians' perceptionthat Rhodesia was established by the British for the British and in theface of opposition from foreigners. In Kosmin's view, the guiding principlefor Rhodesian settlers was that Rhodesia had been "won by British armsin 1893 and 1896-7 and run by the British for the benefit of the Britishliving and unborn". Furthermore, it had been "acquired against the designsof 'foreigners', the Boers and the Portuguese". In addition, the Britishsettlers saw themselves as a frontier line of defence against "the forces offoreign (Afrikaner) nationalism which they fought in 1899-1902 and fearedfrom then on". Their "first line of defence... was the Immigration laws".1"Unlike in other British fragment societies such as Australia, NewZealand and Canada where local conditions and distance from the homecountry gradually shaped an independent consciousness in which theoriginal migrants grew to see themselves as separate societies withdifferent identities from those who remained behind in Britain, in8 Schutz, "European Population Patterns", 9.9 L. H. Gann and P. Duignan, (eds.), Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960 Volume Two: TheHistory and Politics of Colonialism, 1914-1960 (London. Cambridge University Pr««1970). s'10 B. A. Kosmin, "Ethnic groups and the qualified franchise in Southern Rhodesia lsgo.1922", in Rhodesian History, (1977), VIII, 33-70. An Interesting aspect of Rhodesia^discrimination against non-British immigration is the fact that Rhodesian Immigrationlaw never, at any time during this period, specifically barred non-British immigrants byrace. Exclusion was effected mainly by Government administrators who simply declinedapplications from groups they regarded as undesirable even though, by Rhodesianimmigration law requirements, they qualified for admission into the country.A. S. MLAMBO 143Rhodesia, distance from the mother country tended to strengthen ratherthan loosen the sense of Britishness. As Frank Clements points out,Rhodesian consciousness was born "not from a weakening of attachmentto Britain but from a desire to assert and strengthen it. It was not acreation against 'Home' or the kith and kin of the British Isles but adefence against the strangers and foreign ways of the expansionist"South".Rhodesian nationalism was, thus, partially a result of "xenophobiagenerally directed against the Dutch-speaking South Africans".11 In thewords of Shutz, "Rhodesian-ness" tended, generally, "to express itselfnegatively" as "reactions to Africans, Afrikaners and Non-BritishEuropeans".12Given the above, this article seeks to trace and analyse the natureand role of white-upon-white racism in the development andimplementation of Rhodesian immigration policy up to the Federation,particularly as it affected select non-British white groups such as Poles,Afrikaners, Jews, Greeks13 and others. It will attempt to demonstrate thatthe dominant British-born settlers, who retained economic, political andsocial control throughout the period under study, developed a knee-jerkreaction against any entry into the country by white people of non-Britishstock. This attitude to the so-called aliens differed remarkably from thatof the colony's founder, Cecil John Rhodes.According to Kosmin, although Cecil Rhodes believed implicitly inthe superiority of British culture and civilisation, he never stereotypedother white individuals on the basis of their origins or nationality andclearly appreciated talent wherever it existed regardless of the individual'sorigins. Testimony to this is the fact that he worked closely and wasfriends with people of Jewish extraction such as Barney Barnato andAlfred Beit. Kosmin recounts how, on his first visit to Salisbury in 1891,Cecil Rhodes was visibly disappointed by the backwater that was Salisburythen until he saw a synagogue, upon which he is reported to haveexclaimed: "My country is all right if the Jews come. My country is all11 Clements, Course to Collision, 43.12 Schutz, "European Population Patterns", 9.13 This article has benefited a great deal from various authoritative studies by Barry A.Kosmin who has written extensively on the history of Jews and Greeks in Rhodesia.Among his writings are the following: Barry A. Kosmin, "A Comparative HistoricalPopulation Study: The Development of Southern Rhodesian Jewry, 1890-1936", HendersonSeminar Paper, No. 17, University of Zimbabwe, November, 1971; Barry A. Kosmin, "Theimmigration factor in the post-war demography of Rhodesian Jewry", in U. O. Schemes etal (eds.), Papers in Jewish Demography 1973 (Jerusalem, The Hebrew University, 1977);Barry A. Kosmin, "Ethnic groups and the qualified franchise in Southern Rhodesia, 1898-1922", in Rhodesian History, (1977), VIII, 35-70; Barry A. Kosmin, Majuta: A History of theJewish Community in Zimbabwe (Gweru, Mambo Press, 1980). Use has also been made ofthe excellent study of Afrikaners in Rhodesia in Richard Hodder-Williams, "Afrikaners inRhodesia: A partial portrait", in African Social Research, XVIII (December 1974).144 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYright!"14 Rhodes further demonstrated his willingness to work with othernon-British whites when he deliberately included Afrikaners and Jews inhis Pioneer Column which occupied Rhodesia in 1890. This was inaccordance with his motto of "equal rights for all civilised men".15Unfortunately for Rhodes' dream that his colony would be denselyoccupied by "homes, more homes" for whites so that it developed as atruly white man's country, the country's administrators, from the earlydays of colonialism to the end of Federation, did not share his liberalattitude to non-British whites but believed, instead, in special privilegesfor whites of British stock and in keeping Rhodesia British at whatevercost.RHODESIA FOR THE BRITISHThe discriminatory nature of Rhodesian immigration policy was revealedclearly as early as 1903 when the Rhodesian Surveyor General wrote thathe was opposed to Rhodesian land being made available indiscriminatelyto anyone who could afford paying for it as this might attract "a numberof undesirables like the 'bywoner' class, who would form a compact,bigoted and non-progressive class". He argued that, in the best interestsof the Empire and of Rhodesia and the Chartered Company, the RhodesianGovernment should enlist the assistance of the Imperial Government toensure that only people of "a good class" from the British Isles and thecolonies entered the country. Only such type of immigrants, he maintained,could best develop the country and ensure the "defence of South Africaas a whole and... prevent the British element being eventually voted outof this country."16The determination to keep Rhodesia as British a colony as possiblewas repeatedly stated by both official spokesmen and ordinary Rhodesiansettlers throughout the period under review as the following statementsfrom different periods of the half century under review reveal. For instancewriting in the 1920s, E. Tawse Jollie, the only female member of theSouthern Rhodesia Legislative Council, noted that the "average-bornRhodesian feels that this is essentially a British country, pioneeredbought and developed by British people, and he wants to keep it so".1'On his part, C. Harding of the Department of Internal Affairs gave theofficial government position on immigration in 1939 as follows:14 Kosmin, "A Comparative Population Study".15 Ibid.16 NAZ, S2371/1/1, Land Settlement Policy, 1902-1903; 1925-1936; Surveyor General"Attracting Bona Fide Settlers", 22 January, 1903.17 E. Tawse Jollie, "Southern Rhodesia", in South African Quarterly (1921). 111. 10-12.A. S. MU\MBO 145The policy of the government in regard to immigrants is to maintain apreponderance of British subjects in about the same proportions aslast year when the total number of immigrants was about 3 500, ofwhom 3 000 were British subjects and 500 aliens i.e. 6 to I.18Even more outspoken was a contributor to the Rhodesian journalThe New Rhodesia in 1946 whose views are quoted extensively as theycapture the thinking among settlers of British origin at the time. Signinghimself "Gardenia", the writer noted that a great deal had been writtenlately about the need to absorb aliens into Rhodesian society, especiallysince these aliens would make "desirable permanent Rhodesian residents".While he conceded that Rhodesia needed "a very much greater whitepopulation", he argued, however, that "many Rhodesians feel that theywant this immigration to come from the United Kingdom". He added:First and foremost, we want Britishers in Rhodesia, and not until everyBritish man, woman and child who wants to come out here and settlehas arrived, do we feel like considering the question of permanentsettlement for aliens, however desirable they may be, or howevermuch they may desire to acquire British nationality.In the common manner of most racists who punctuate their racistdiatribes with the words "some of my best friends are Blacks/Jews etc.",the writer felt it necessary to declare: "I am not biased against aliens" but,as regards the immigration into and settlement of white people inRhodesia, the inhabitants of the United Kingdom and the British Empiremust come first . . . Until (those who would like to emigrate fromBritain) have been given priority and a chance to emigrate out here ...many Rhodesians feel that it is too early to discuss absorbing aliens,however desirable, into this country.19Lastly, the 1957 Report on Immigration Policy by an EconomicAdvisory Council appointed by the Federal authorities in the 1950s notedthat the current policy was highly selective of immigrants and gavepriority to persons from the United Kingdom "because of the importanceof preserving the British way of life". The Council endorsed this selectivepolicy, stating: "We agree that the present emphasis on immigration fromthe United Kingdom is proper, in the interests of maintaining the Britishway of life and of building up a stable European population".20 As Gann18 NAZ S1801/5450 Immigration, 1935-1939. C. H. Harding, Acting Secretary, Department ofInternal Affairs to Chief Immigration Officer, Bulawayo, 6th April, 1939. The result of sucha discriminatory immigration policy was that, between 1930 and 1950, for instance, noless than 95.3% of all immigrants into the country were of British nationality.19 "The fascination of the thriller: Our alien problem", by 'Gardenia', in The New Rhodesia,August 16, 1946.20 NAZ F170/18, Report on Immigration Policy by the Economic Advisory Council, 1957.146 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYand Gelfand correctly noted, in the post-Second World War period, asindeed was true in the earlier years, "After dinner speakers would extol'white Rhodesia' but agreed that white aliens should not be allowed tooverrun the country but must only be assimilated in penny packets".21The obsession with preserving the British way of life and the determinationto exclude, or, at least, limit the numbers of alien whites was evident inRhodesia's immigration policies towards a number of would-be non-British immigrant groups as shown below.AFRIKANERSAs noted earlier, Afrikaners were members of the Pioneer Column thatentered Rhodesia in 1890. Thereafter, there were a number of AfrikanerTrek parties that entered and settledin Rhodesia, the most well-known ofwhich was the Moodie Trek which settled in th*e Melsetter District in theeastern part of the country in 1892. According to one source, relationsbetween the British and Afrikaner settlers "began on a consciouslyamicable footing" and remained amicable in the early years of the country'sexistence.22 However, relations between them suffered a heavy and lastingblow from which it did not recover for a long time with the Jameson Raidand the Anglo-Boer War at the turn of the century. These two conflictsdirectly pitted Afrikaner against Briton and sowed seeds of hostility andmutual suspicion that were to influence Rhodesian authorities' attitudesfor decades to come. Not surprisingly, therefore, the attitude of BritishSouth African Company administrators towards Afrikaners in Rhodesia,in general, and Afrikaners applying to enter the country, in particular^became and remained decidedly and consistently hostile.23Hodder-Williams argues that the anti-Afrikaner attitude was shapedby political, cultural and class considerations. Politically, Rhodesiansettlers feared possible domination by Afrikaners if they were allowed toenter the country in large numbers. Having recently emerged from theAnglo-Boer War, which they saw as a conflict fought to prevent Afrikanerdomination of Britons in South Africa, they were suspicious that Afrikanerapplicants for entry into Rhodesia were being spurred on by Afrikanerleaders in South Africa so that Afrikaners would eventually dominate thecountry. Culturally, Rhodesian authorities saw Afrikaners as an inferior21 L. H. Gann and M, Gelfand, Huggins of Rhodesia: The Man and His Country (LondonGeorge Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1964), 181.22 Hodder-Williams, "Afrikaners in Rhodesia".23 The controversy surrounding the Amalgamation issue prior to the 1923 Referendumwhich led to Rhodesia being granted self-government status may also have re-inforcjjBritish settlers' suspicions about Afrikaners, many of whom openly supported Rhodesijvincorporation into South Africa.A. S. MLAMBO 147breed whose culture was way beneath their own. In Hodder-Williams'words, "few English speakers in the high noon of imperial confidencewere prepared to acknowledge the parity, let alone the superiority, ofanother culture".Lastly, there was the widespread belief that Afrikaners were of a lowclass who could not fulfil "the obligations to uphold and extend thosestandards of European civilisation which confident Victorians held sosacred". Hence a leading Company official R. C. Simmons could say withconfidence that "Dutchmen have no code of honour such as is understoodby Britishers" and that the only way to handle them was to "concedethem nothing".24 Similarly, a Rhodesian newspaper in 1922 discouragedAfrikaner immigration into the country because "such an influx wouldbring to the country persons of a poor and shiftless type, physicaldegenerates, sick and diseased".25More evidence of the British contempt for the "low class" Afrikanersis a report by one J. F. Renard in February 1925 that Afrikaners in theCharter District of Southern Rhodesia were upset by the Prime Minister'salleged statement when he had purportedly referred to Afrikaners as"low Dutch" people. He added:May I be permitted sir, to say that many Dutch and English "Britishers"emphatically endorse Sir Charles' description of the type found in thispart of Rhodesia. They are low in mentality and mode of existence, infact little removed from the native ... The ordinary Afrikander settler... erects a very temporary dwelling often of a primitive nature, rarelyerects a latrine and utterly lacks ambition.26The Rhodesian authorities' dislike of the Afrikaners was compoundedby their distrust of the loyalty of this particular group of aliens whomthey suspected to be anti-British and prone to ally with the enemies ofEngland. During the Anglo-Boer War, for instance, the authorities kept avery close watch on the local Afrikaner community for fear they mightlink up with their compatriots in South Africa against British forces. Infact, there were even suggestions that the Afrikaner community inRhodesia should be disarmed as a precautionary measure. Also duringthe First World War, Rhodesian officialdom remained anxious aboutpossible Afrikaner disloyalty and equally kept a close watch of the24 Simmons' views were cited in Hodder-Williams from NAZ LB2/1/8/3, R. C. Simmons to P.Inskipp , 23 June, 1909.25 The Independent, August 11, 1922.26 NAZ S482/249/39/1/1, Destitution, 1924-1936, J. F. Renard to J. W. Downie, 15 February,1925. The reference to "many Dutch" in the above quotation should be taken with adegree of scepticism since there is no evidence throughout this time that there were anyDutch groups that were likely to side with the Rhodesian authorities on this and othermatters.148 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYAfrikaner population in the country. The very evident reluctance of theRhodesian-based Afrikaners to enlist in the army for the defence of thecountry and the British Empire further antagonised the Rhodesianadministrators. For instance, in February 1917, an Assistant NativeCommissioner reported how the Afrikaner community in Melsetterspurned his efforts to recruit them into the Rhodesian army.He reported that the Afrikaners there told him that "the Governmentcould not expect the same enthusiasm [for military service] among theDutch population of this district as had been displayed by more Britishpopulations in other districts of Southern Rhodesia". In a bid to persuadethem, the Assistant Native Commissioner pointed out that the war "wasnot one of race but a world war". All his pleas fell on deaf ears, for as hestated:I regret to have to report that no one of the Dutch present spoke infavour of the young men joining the forces. Asked [about whetherGovernment was likely to resort to conscription], I replied that there isno reason to believe that this will be introduced into Southern Rhodesia.This was the only remark that raised any enthusiasm during themeeting.27In addition, the Afrikaners were resented and despised by the majorityBritish settlers for being rather clannish and exclusive, refusing toassimilate to the British way of life, being concentrated in particulargeographical areas and predominating in certain, normally "humbler andless skilled" occupations.28 Anti-Afrikaner sentiments were further stirredby the Nationalist Party victory in South Africa in 1948 which was followedby a large exodus of English-speaking South Africans who emigrated toRhodesia. When the new South African government under Dr. Malanproceeded to champion the cause of Rhodesian Afrikaners, especiallywith respect to the language issue, Rhodesian settlers were incensed andall their suspicions, fears and resentments were re-kindled.29The British settlers' hostility to the Afrikaners was most evident inthe Afrikaner language issue which peaked during the First World Waryears and demonstrated clearly that the Afrikaner community in Rhodesiafelt discriminated against and unwanted. Essentially, Afrikaners weredemanding that Afrikaans be taught in schools and that it be taught byAfrikaans speakers. This was in protest against the decision by theKhodesian authorities that English should be the medium of instruction2!U9n9/7'E' °'Lenthal1- Assistant Native Commissioner. Confidential Memo. Februarya £'ements. Course to Collision, 69.mis interpretation is based on Hodder-WiHWms- "Afrikaners in Rhodesia".A. S. MLAMBO 149in schools, even though a substantial minority of the white populationwas Afrikaans-speaking.In June 1918, a South African newspaper published an article whichreported that a leading Afrikaner Predikant based in the Melsetter area,Mr. Badenhorst, had visited South Africa with a view to raising funds forthe establishment of a boarding school for Afrikaner children in Chipingain order to cater for their interests which were being neglected inGovernment schools in the country. It pointed out that, despite theAfrikaner peoples' immense contribution to the prosperity of Rhodesia,"everything is being done to make them feel they are unwelcome".Badenhorst was further reported as saying that, although Afrikaners hadbeen promised equal rights (presumably by Rhodes), "still today Rhodesiais being considered by the Chartered Company and the English speakingpopulation as a British Reserve where Dutch speaking Africanders areconsidered as foreign interlopers". He complained bitterly that "thechildren of Dutch speaking parents must only learn English or, betterexpressed, they must be made into Englishmen. The words 'Dutch speakingAfricander' must not be known in Rhodesia".30The Afrikaners in Rhodesia mobilised support for their cause amongtheir friends in South Africa, resulting in a group known as the Ministersof the Federal Dutch Reformed Churches in the Union of South Africasending a petition to the Southern Rhodesia British South Africa CompanyAdministrator on June 21, 1917 lamenting the fact that "the language ofthe Dutch-speaking Africanders is not officially recognised" and requestingthat the Government of Rhodesia alter "the Code of Instruction ... inorder to provide for the needs and meet the wishes of the Dutch-speakingsection of the population".31The official response on this issue was very uncompromising. It waspointed out that Rhodesia was a British colony and any Afrikaners whocame into the country had to accept that fact. For instance, one officialwrote:We have never pretended that this is or ought to be a bilingual country,and if the Dutch people come up to live here, they come up wellknowing what the system is. The agitation of late has been conductedchiefly by the predikant at Melsetter whose name is Badenhorst. Thisman is a rabid Nationalist and racialist. I believe that not so long ago hewent so far as to preach a sermon at Melsetter in which he said it wasa disgraceful thing that any Dutchman should marry an English womanor any Dutch woman an English man.3230 NAZ A3/9/7, Extract from The Friend of the People, Bloemfontein, June 3, 1918.31 NAZ A3/9/7, Petition to the Administrator, June 21, 1917.32 NAZ CH8/2/2/12, Agitation Against Unilingual Education, 1917, Letter to Sir Lewis Mitchell,February 19, 1917.150 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYIn a confidential memo, the Director of Education expressed hisopposition to Afrikaans-language teaching, stating:I am convinced that if the concession of mother-tongue instructionwere allowed in the schools of Rhodesia, it would result at once inDutch districts in the teaching to the children of the characteristic anti-British and anti-Imperial principles of the Nationalist Party.33In a rather uncompromising reply to one Rev. P. S. van Heerden of theOrange Free State who had written complaining about the Rhodesianpolicy against the teaching of Afrikaans in schools, the Secretary to theAdministrator wrote that "the official language of Southern Rhodesia hasever since the occupation of the country been English and... no provisionexists in the legislation of the territory for the recognition of a secondofficial language".34In the light of the above, it is not surprising that Rhodesian authoritieswere not keen to encourage Afrikaner immigration and deliberately keptthe inflow to a minimum. Wherever possible, impediments were put inthe way of would-be Afrikaner immigrants, including harassment byimmigration officials at the Beit Bridge border, prompting an organisationknown as the "Internal Mission Commission" of the Dutch ReformedChurch of the Cape Province to protest in 1918 at thehumiliating treatment of Dutch-speaking Afrikanders by the ImmigrationOfficer when entering Rhodesia Š residents as well as visitors Š anddesires the government to give an explanation, also why respectableAfrikanders are kept out of the country.35Because of the deliberate Rhodesian policy of limiting Afrikanerimmigration, Afrikaners never accounted for more than 15% of thecountry's white population throughout the period under study. This istelling given the proximity of South Africa to Rhodesia and the ease withwhich Afrikaner emigrants could have relocated to Rhodesia had thedoors been opened widely to them.JEWSThe story of Jewish immigration has been ably told by B. Kosmin in hisnumerous writings and need not detain us here. What is important for thepurposes of this study are the attitudes of the Rhodesian officials toJewish immigration, particularly in the 1930s when thousands of Jewsfleeing Nazism in Europe were anxious to find a home in Rhodesia andhow those attitudes constrained the flow of Jewish immigrants and,arguably, retarded the growth of the Rhodesian White population in the33 NAZ A3/9/7, Director of Education to Administrator. May 11. HI 17.34 NAZ A3/9/7, J. Robertson, Secretary to the Administrator, to Rev P. S van Heerden. May1918.35 NAZ A3/9/7, Drummond Chaplin, Administrator to the Secretary. BSAC. 27 August, 19igA. S. MLAMBO 151period under study. According to Kosmin and others, there existed noclear-cut discriminatory legislation against Jewish immigration intoRhodesia, but, from the very beginning, their entry was carefully regulatedby the Administration in which the "virus of anti-Semitism seemed tohave found a niche".36While anti-Jewish sentiments may have been muted in the early yearsof settler colonialism, they were increasingly more evident in the 1930sas the problems associated with the rise of Nazism in Europe forcedmany Jews to seek asylum abroad, including Rhodesia. According toGann and Gelfand, Rhodesia under Huggins in the 1930s,suffered from a silent undercurrent of anti-Semitism which . . . wouldhave made large-scale Jewish immigration politically impossible . . .Huggins . . . shared the prevailing belief that the colony shouldconcentrate on men of British stock whose numbers should be no morethan supplemented by a "carefully regulated flow" of "assimilablealiens".37Evidence of the Rhodesians' opposition to immigration by the Jewsin the 1930s abounds. For instance, in November 1938, the AmalgamatedEngineering Union of Rhodesia wrote to the Minister of the Interior, PercyFlynn, conveying a resolution passed by one of its branches on the issueof Jewish immigration which protested, in particular, against the influx ofGerman Jews who were accused of having a dampening effect on whitewages. The resolution charged that these immigrants were taking jobsaway from local whites by "offering their services at a very low wage".38Rhodesian hostility to Jewish immigration manifested itself throughthe continued official determination to turn down any request for resettlingJews in Rhodesia, regardless of how financially well-endowed and skilfulsuch Jewish groups were. For instance, in 1936, one M. Wischnitzerrequested permission to organise Jewish emigration to Rhodesia, offeringto deposit £2 000 to be used to finance the Jewish immigrants andguaranteeing to finance the removal from Rhodesia of any immigrantsubsequently found unsuitable. The response from the Department ofInternal Affairs was uncompromising: "no prior approval can be given inrespect of any immigrant and his entry to this Colony will depend uponhis fulfilment of the requirements" of the country's immigrationregulations.3936 B. A. Kosmin, Majuta: A History of the Jewish Community in Zimbabwe (Gweru, MamboPress, 1980), 20.37 L. Gann and M. Gelfand, Huggins of Rhodesia, 126-127.38 NAZ S482/314/39, Refugees, 1936-1946, Secretary, Amalgamated Engineering Union toPercy Flynn, Minister of the Interior, November 28, 1938.39 NAZ S1801/5493, Immigration: Jewish Immigration from Germany, M. Wischnitzer toDepartment of Internal Affairs, 13/11/36.152 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYConcerned about the plight of Jews under areas of German control,white residents of Marandellas District sent a petition to the Governmentimploring it to assist in averting the potential human tragedy in Europe.Writing to the Prime Minister, one Fred B. Rea stated that a large meetingof residents of Marandellas had expressed its "profound distress" at theplight of the "Non-Aryan Refugees of Germany" and resolved to draw theattention of the Government to the fact that,At such a time, our country cannot be deaf to the call of humanity. Thenature and extent of the help which Southern Rhodesia is able to givewe do not presume to suggest, but we would respectfully urge theGovernment to give its immediate consideration to the matter and toindicate to the British Government its willingness to share in thesettlement of the refugees.40Despite the fact that there were, at that time, literally millions ofGerman Jews in danger from Nazi attacks and desperately in need ofrefuge, and despite the fact that Rhodesia was then clamouring for morewhite immigrants, the Rhodesian Prime Minister would not be swayed bythe petition. Indeed, barely two days after receiving the submission fromthe Marandellas residents, he was informing the Governor H. Stanley thatthe best the Rhodesian government could do was to allow only 20 familiesto enter. He added,the number of Jews whom we can absorb without creating a stronganti-Semitic opinion is distinctly limited ... We are probably moreinterested in this question than most countries because of the verylarge number of Jewish refugees who are now trying to enter the colonyand with whom we are finding it extremely difficult to deal.41Huggins and his government were finding Jewish refugees difficult todeal with not because there was not enough space in the country toaccommodate them or that there were not enough resources for them toexploit but because, as Sir Percy Flynn, the Minister of Internal Affairsadmitted, the many applications received from refugees were turneddown because "the government was keeping a watchful eye to ensurethat the entry is not excessive and that the right type was admitted"Moreover, the government "wished to maintain a proportion of at least80% British subjects" in the Colony.42Similarly, in January 1939, the well-known author, Thomas Mannwrote to the Secretary of State for Colonies informing him that he was the" ^S482/314/39' Refugees, 1936-1946, Fred B. Rea to the Prime Minister. December lg41 ^S482/314/39' Refugees, 1936-1946. Martin Huggins to Governor Stanley. 20 December42 NAZ MS698/5, Southern Rhodesia Government Immigration Committee. 1938-1939.A. S. MLAMBO 153head of a Czechoslovakian Organisation called the Thomas MannGesellschaft which sought to resettle a number of German and Austrianrefugees in Southern Rhodesia. He requested the authorities of theRhodesian government to allow such refugees into their country andemphasised the urgency of the matter since,the Nazi penetration of Czechoslovakia is proceeding with fearfulrapidity, and already the lives of people of Jewish extraction . .. are injeopardy and the prospects of the German and Austrian refugees [are]tragic and desperate.43Also in 1939, a group of 500 Czech Jews under the leadership ofRichard Feder applied for permission to settle in Rhodesia. In a letter tothe Rhodesian High Commissioner in London, the group proposed to setup an agricultural settlement which would enable them to be self-sufficientas well as to produce surplus agricultural commodities for sale. Therequest made it clear that, among the proposed immigrants, were"workmen, engineers of all branches, experienced farmers, architects,millers, physicians, veterinary surgeons, nurses, teachers as well asmerchants" and the group would "take along as much money and asmany machines, tools, linen and clothes" as they needed and would beloyal citizens to Rhodesia. To support their case, the group solicited andincluded in their application, five letters of recommendation from theConsistory of the Prince-Archbishop in Prague, the CzechoslovakianUnitarian Headquarters, the Evangelical Church Brethren, the CentralYMCA Committee and the Boy and Girl Scouts of Czechoslovakia. All therecommendations were highly complimentary, with the Prince-Archbishopdescribing the would-be emigrants as "diligent, prudent, economical,unpretending, good natured, honest people, mindful of their honour".44This group was, by any standards, one that most countries would havebeen more than happy to welcome as immigrants. Yet the Rhodesianauthorities turned them down.Yet another application was submitted by one George Bacher whowrote to the Rhodesian Prime Minister in 1939 conveying the messagethat he had been approached by the Czechoslovak Minister of ForeignAffairs to help his government resettle thousands of refugees displacedby the German annexation of Czechoslovakian territory that Hitlerreferred to as the Sudetenland. Quoting the Czech official, Bacherpointed out that, as a result of recent events, Czechoslovakia had lostapproximately 30% of its territory. As a result, the country was floodedwith thousands of refugees from the annexed territories and was anxiousto find homes for these abroad as the country could no longer cope43 NAZ S482/314/39, Refugees, 1936-1946, Thomas Mann to Macdonald, 10 January, 1939.44 NAZ S482/314/39, Refugees, 1936-1946, Richard Feder to High Commissioner for SouthernRhodesia, May 10, 1939.154 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYwith the needs of this additional population. The group which needed ahome abroad included highly qualified individuals such as miners,mechanics, physicians, engineers and large-scale farmers. Bacherenquired whether the Rhodesian authorities would be willing to acceptsome of these people as immigrants.45Here then were potential immigrants who would have brought inmany needed skills and who were the very type of immigrants Rhodesianauthorities had always claimed to be looking for. Yet, rather than jump atthe chance of increasing both the size of the white population and wideningits skills and production base, the Rhodesian authorities respondedsomewhat rudely: "In the present state of the development of this colony,the number of alien immigrants who could be absorbed here is definitelylimited ... mass immigration is out of the question".46A similarly dismissive response was given to one O. D. Phillips of theRhodesia Travel Bureau in London who, in January 1939, drew theRhodesian authorities' attention to the growing interest in emigrating toRhodesia by a large number of "Germans, Hungarians, Czechs andAustrians (not necessarily all Jews) ... all people of means (with) fundsvarying between SI 000 and £8 000 per person ... Between them, it wouldbe possible for them to raise as much as S200 000". Despite the fact thatthis group's capital assets were much higher than the minimum requiredunder Rhodesian immigration law and therefore should have easilyqualified on that score for admittance to the country, the response was,predictably, "mass immigration is out of the question".47 So anxious werethe Rhodesian authorities to forestall any further efforts to send Europeanrefugees to settle in Rhodesia that the Department of Internal Affairs sentan urgent message to the Rhodesian High Commissioner in London torequest the British Foreign Office to "circularise Consul in Yugo Slavia(sic), Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Roumania, Latvia, Lithuania,Holland and Italy . . . that group refugee immigration cannot beentertained".48All claims that Rhodesia needed more white immigrantsnotwithstanding, the country's authorities were determined to keep theJews out as much as possible. As Gelfand pointed out,45 NAZ S246/4401, Immigration, 1933-1940, Letter from George Bacher to PM. SouthernRhodesia, 14/2/39.46 NAZ S246/4401, Secretary, Department of Internal Affairs to George Bacher, 24/2/1939.47 NAZ S246/4401, Immigration 1933-1940, 0. D. Philips, Rhodesia Travel Bureau, London toE. C. Anderson, Director of Publicity, Salisbury, 27/1/1939; and NAZ S246/4401, Ministerof Internal Affairs to R. D. Gilchrist, 28/3/39. Cited in A. S. Mlambo. "Building a whiteman's country: Aspects of white immigration into Rhodesia up to World War II", Zambezia(1998), XXV (ii), 123-146.48 NAZ A1801/5450, Immigration, 1935-1940, J. Blackwell, Secretary, Department of InternalAffairs, Salisbury to High Commissioner, London, 8/2/39. Cited in A. S. Mlambo, "Buildinga white man's country".A. S. MLAMBO 155In the thirties, immigrants had trickled in. Malvern had been satisfiedto take those with capital and a British background. Jews from Europe. . . were, on the whole, kept out. They would have altered the socialstructure and weakened the British character of the country.49Similarly, Clements noted that new settlers were welcomed as longas they were British. Only a handful of refugees from Nazi Germany wereallowed in "after careful scrutiny". This "reflected the anti-Semitism whichprevailed, but it also derived from a fear of losing Rhodesia's essentiallyBritish character".50Without belabouring the point, it is telling that, at a time whenthousands of Jews were fleeing Nazi Germany and seeking refuge in anycountry that would take them, Rhodesia accepted only 480 immigrantsfrom Germany and 292 from Lithuania, Poland, Latvia and other placesbetween 1933 and the outbreak of the war. Explaining why Rhodesia wasnot admitting larger numbers of European refugees, Huggins stated thatRhodesia was allowing in a certain number of foreigners provided theyhad sufficient capital, "but we are not increasing our normal ratio as wewish to preserve the character of the Colony". He added, rathershamelessly: "there might be some excuse for relaxing this if we could doanything which was likely to help in the solution of the major problem,which of course we cannot. We can only allow in a few as a gesture of goodwilP1 [emphasis added]. The fact that literally thousands of Jews werefacing the gas chambers in Europe and that granting asylum to the Jewswould have saved them from death and concentration camps was,apparently, not, in Huggins' view "likely to help in the solution to themajor problem" facing Jews in Nazi Europe!Lastly, the Rhodesian authorities remained unmoved by the plight of16 Jews who were seeking asylum in Rhodesia and whose desperateplight was clearly spelt out to the Rhodesian authorities by the BritishConsul General of Alexandria who pleaded with the Rhodesian governmentto take them in as immigrants. The Consul General pointed out that these16 "respectable German Jews" had sailed from Hamburg but had beendenied permission to land in Syria and Palestine. The Governor of Cyprushad offered them temporary asylum pending their finding a country totake them in. These refugees desperately needed asylum because "returnto Germany means concentration camp at best". He further pointed outthat the local Jewish Committee, which included several influential British49 M. Gelfand (ed.), Godfrey Huggins, Viscount Malvern, 1883-1971: His Life and Work(Salisbury, Central African Journal of Medicine, n. d.), 39.50 Clements, Course to Collision, 77.51 NAZ S482/314/39, Refugees, 1936-1946, Governor, Salisbury to Secretary of State, London,22/3/43, and M. Huggins to Colonel Bartley, 27/03/39.156 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYsubjects, would "provide finance if your Government will permitimmigration to Rhodesia . .. Committee entreat your assistance in thisplight".52 The predictable response from Rhodesia was a terse telegrammessage which read: "Government regret unable to accede to request forpermission to migrate to Colony of sixteen Jews. Capacity to absorbaliens definitely limited."53What is evident from the above, therefore, is that, had the Rhodesianauthorities opened their doors wide for all Jewish emigrants who wantedto enter the country, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, there wouldhave been such an influx that the white population could easily havegrown rapidly. As was shown, however, Jewish immigrants remainedanathema in Rhodesian official and civilian circles. The cause wasRhodesian anti-Semitism which was "as much part of the Rhodesianmental background as corrugated iron was of the physical". As onescholar has put it, "whatever else a man might be, if he was a Jew, thatwas the most meaningful thing about him and the quality of which the'British' Rhodesians would be most aware".54OTHER ALIENSThe hostility shown to the Jews and the Afrikaners was equally extendedto other "aliens" such as Poles, Greeks, Italians and Spaniards who soughtadmittance into Rhodesia during this period. There was a very heateddebate in 1946, for instance, over the question of admitting Poles to settlein the country. In a bid to persuade the authorities to accept Polesalready in the country as citizens, one Major F. J. Bagshawe reminded theRhodesian people in The New Rhodesia of December 13, 1946 that, whenwar broke out between Russia and Germany, many Poles had been allowedto escape and became scattered all over the world. One thousand fivehundred Polish refugees had been given temporary asylum in Rhodesia,while 15 000 had settled elsewhere in Africa. Bagshawe suggested thatRhodesia should consider accepting 400 of those already in the countryas citizens. He concluded, "no one but a fool would claim that we have noroom for them and many of us who know the Poles are convinced thatthey would make good settlers". Bagshawe further expressed his dismayat the fact that "Southern Rhodesia, though clamouring for more Europeanpopulation, and apparently willing to admit a great many of very doubtfulorigins, seems determined to have nothing to do with the Poles".5552 NAZ S482/314/39, Consul General, Alexandria to Governor, Southern Rhodesia, 4/3/39.53 NAZ S482/314/39, Department of Internal Affairs, "German Refugees", 8/3/39.54 Clements, Course to Collision, 71.55 NAZ S826/145/46, Settlement of Poles on Land in Southern Rhodesia. Major F. J. Bagshawe"God help the Poles" in The New Rhodesia, 13/12/46.A. S. MU\MBO 157Bagshawe's views were obviously not shared by his contemporariesas shown by the fact that, in the same issue of the journal appeared arabidly racist letter casting all manner of aspersions on Poles anddemanding that they all be deported from the country. The writer, C.Olley of Salisbury, challenged the argument put forward by those whowere sympathetic to the Polish cause that they would make good citizens,maintaining that the Poles were, in fact, a menace that would ruin thecountry. Evidence of this, he argued, was the fact that, after the FirstWorld War, aliens had poured into Britain and had undermined the localpopulation by "working for less money, charging less for goods,undercutting the smaller British industries and, above all, resorting toCommunistic propaganda". Olley claimed that the foreigners were alsoresponsible then for the "bulk of the major crimes in England".Consequently, Olley unapologetically endorsed an earlier Governmentdecision to refuse entry to Polish workers recruited by the Rhodesian-based Bata Shoe Company, asserting strongly that "when this firm wasallowed to commence operations in Rhodesia, it was on the understandingthat it should be a Rhodesian factory for Britishers. It was never intendedthat it would constitute an international settlement." He concluded: "Isay: send the Poles back to Poland."56 Similarly, in August of the sameyear, a writer calling himself "Gardenia", in the already quoted letter toThe New Rhodesia, expressed a view which was consistent with theofficial Rhodesian position that, while Rhodesia clearly needed morewhite immigrants, "many Rhodesians feel that they want this immigrationto come from the United Kingdom".57As with the Poles, the Rhodesian authorities were unenthusiasticabout Greek immigration, especially since Greeks were seen as beingincapable of upholding the desired "European standards". In an inter-governmental memo dated June 23, 1959 which encouraged thecontinuation of a policy adopted in 1956 of not accepting any more Greekimmigrants, it was stated that "our established Greek community isengaged largely in commerce, many of them in the Kaffir-truck and nativeeating-house lines, and we do not particularly wish to open the door tooreadily to this type of immigrant". The Minister of Home Affairs sharedthese sentiments as evidenced by his memo to the Under-Secretary of theMinistry of Home affairs in which he observed that, not only had Greeksand Cypriots shown themselves in the past to be anti-British and violent,but,56 NAZ S826/145/46, Settlement of Poles on Land in Southern Rhodesia, C. Olley, "Anotherview of Poles", in The New Rhodesia, 13/12/46.57 Gardenia, "The fascination of the thriller: Our alien problem", The New Rhodesia, August16, 1946.158 RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYthey are Southern Europeans, an influx of whom is not desirable.Generally, they are not a high standard of immigrant, since bothcountries are poor and industrially backward, and they engage in thedistributive trades; in particular they tend to specialise in native tradingand, to that extent, limit a field of African advancement.58The anti-Greek sentiments of the Rhodesian officials were shared byother government officials in the Federation Administration asdemonstrated by the following reports sent to the Rhodesian authoritiesby immigration officers in Northern Rhodesia.Mufulira: "Greeks, like Jews, do not normally work with their hands butmanage to live by their wits until they can open a squalid little businesssomewhere". Luanshya: "The Greeks are by far the largest aliencommunity and are very clannish . . . They mainly work as shopassistants at very low salaries and appear to be a very low class. I donot see the reason for permitting people to enter the Federation for thesole purpose of serving in African tea rooms or shops ... It must benoted here also that there are quite a lot of assaults between Greeksand Africans, as the Greek shop assistants are not, I am afraid, strictlyhonest in some of their transactions.59Even more racist was the letter from one P. M. Johnston to theCentral African Post in January 1956 which protested against theimportation of the Southern Mediterranean peoples who were describedas, "about the most decadent morally and physically in Europe".60Equally unacceptable as immigrants into the Federation were peopleof Spanish origin. Evidence is the fact that, on being informed that theSpanish Government had recently created a National Institute of Migrationfor the purposes of encouraging, assisting and protecting Spanishemigrants and that the Spanish authorities were enquiring about thepossibilities of sending some of their emigrants to the Federation, theFederal Secretary for Home Affairs replied: "I suggest our reply should bepolitely discouraging. We can point to quota difficulties, to the fact thatconditions in this country do not lend themselves to mass immigration.At the moment, we are getting all we need Š and more Š from traditionalsources." Providing a useful clue to the thinking behind the Secretary forHome affairs' reluctance to encourage Spanish immigration into theFederation is the fact that he ended his message with the words: "youmight be interested in the derogatory remarks on Spanish migrants in the58 NAZ F119/712/1MM2/5, Cypriot Immigrants Š Policy, 1956-1963: Marsh to Minister"Immigration Policy: Greeks and Cypriots", 23/6/59: and Minister of Home Affairs to E. QMarsh, 19/6/59.59 NAZ F119/712/1MM2/5, "Greeks", 25/7/56.60 The Central African Post, January 10, 1956, Letter to the Editor by P. M. Johnston ofBroken Hill, Northern Rhodesia.A. S. MLAMBO 159attached letter ... from Marks, Head of the Sydney Immigration Office inAustralia".61The letter referred to by the Secretary of Home Affairs containedperhaps some of the most racist views ever committed to paper byofficials of the British Empire. It read:Italians and Greeks are still in unlimited supply. The Ities are all fromthe poor provinces in the South and would not be any better than yournative labour. My experience is that they are about 90% illiterate andabout 0% skilled ... We have not been getting the number of British tokeep the balance of British which has always been our policy . . .(Meanwhile, two Australian officials) have recruited 500 Spaniards forthe cane fields in North Queensland. Fat lot of use they will be toanyone. We may as well have a bunch of "Gyppos" ... Blow me if thenthey didn't bring out 5 to 6 hundred Maltese for the sugar industry.Besides being the biggest liars on earth, they are dirty and lazy.62It was such racist attitudes that accounted for the consistentreluctance by Rhodesian authorities to allow the entry of non-Britishwhite immigrants even though, officially, they claimed that the future ofRhodesia lay in the steady influx of white people in order to preventAfrican domination. As Clements correctly argued, "Anti-Nazi and Fascist,Jew and Pole and Czech, all had only one essential disability in commonŠ they were foreigners just as Afrikaners were" and, therefore, wereunacceptable as immigrants.63The hostility to aliens, which had always been part of the Rhodesianway of life, undoubtedly influenced the attitude of Federation officialsduring the entire period 1953 to 1963. Evidence of this has already beenprovided with respect to Federal authorities' reaction to the proposedSpanish immigration as well as their views on Greek immigration. Federalauthorities kept alien immigration in check by operating a quota systemwhich allowed in only a small percentage of the total British immigrantsin any given period. So effectively applied was the quota system that, in1958, officials were congratulating themselves for having managed"consistently to keep alien immigration to only 12%" of total immigrationsince the Federation came into being.64NAZ F119/IMM/3, Immigration: Aliens Policy, Secretary for External Affairs to Secretaryfor Home affairs, 12/7/57 and Secretary for Home Affairs' pencilled in response, 18/7/57.NAZ F119/IMM/3, Letter from Marks, Sydney, to Bennie Goldberg, 1/7/57.Clements, Course to Collision, 77.NAZ F119/IMM/3, Immigration: Aliens Policy: Alien Immigration, 15 September, 1958.Federation Immigrant quotas were first introduced in 1954 as a measure to assist in theselection of immigrants and to encourage immigration from the United Kingdom. Thetotal immigrant quota was pegged at 2 200 per month, 1 900 of whom were British andonly 300 alien immigrants. For more on this policy, see NAZ Fl 70/18, Report on ImmigrationPolicy by the Economic Advisory Council, December, 1957. Scholarly evidence exists,160RACIAL CHAUVINISM AND RHODESIAN IMMIGRATION POLICYCONCLUSIONThis article has argued that, while white racism towards Africans was,undoubtedly, salient and crucial in shaping the trajectory of the country's
history in the colonial years, racism and cultural chauvinism also prevailedwithin the white community itself and deeply affected how white societyinteracted within its own circles. The majority British settlers were
consistently discriminatory against other whites who were looked down
upon and generally treated with hostility and contempt. It was this racismwhich shaped Rhodesia's white immigration policy and which helpsaccount for the smallness of the Rhodesian white population in theperiod under examination, despite public pronouncements concerningthe need to make Rhodesia a white man's country. While white peoplerallied together in the face of the greater threat of a possible futureAfrican domination, they remained divided along ethnic, racial and culturallines in a system in which some were, clearly, more white than others.however, to show that, while anti-alien sentiments were still strong influences in thedetermination of Federation immigration policy, barriers were breaking down between
the British settlers and those aliens who had earlier been admitted into the territory asthe non-Brltlsh settlers became economically more powerful and socially and politicallymore acceptable. It Is of great interest to note, for instance, that Roy Wellensky, theFederal Prime Minister, was of Jewish extraction, while, by 1960, five of the SouthernRhodesia Legislative Assembly's 30 members were Jews, while, at the Federal level satfour Jewish MPs. For the gradual change In attitude among the Rhodesian and Federalcommunities to resident aliens, see, B. A. Kosmin, "The Immigration Factor" and R.Hodder-Wllliams, "Afrikaners in Rhodesia".