ABSTRACT
For the political scientist Rhodesia is not and never has been in any acceptable sense an outpost of colonial rule overshadowed by Whitehall supervision; although that is a description which could have been applied without hesitation to the two northern territories prior to the formation of the Central African federation (1951–63), from which all three countries have recently emerged. In Rhodesia—though it conformed to the pattern of Zambia and Malawi in withholding native affairs, including African education, from the federal area of government—internal matters have always, save when under constitutional review (as in 1961), been the province of minority political groups, invested with power on the spot. To talk of colonial rule is to misuse a borrowed idiom. Policy in native welfare adopted by the southern territory has often looked more generous, more practical, and in its short-term objectives more enlightened than could perhaps be found anywhere under the penurious rule of the Colonial Office. Self-government has existed since 1923; the electoral law has never recognized race distinctions, although, as we shall see, qualifications have been limited by wealth and degree of literacy.
