ABSTRACT
BEFORE 1918, policy applicable to the more settled older Commonwealth had seemed entirely inappropriate to Africa. After the war, the loyalty of the Commonwealth members, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and to a smaller extent perhaps, South Africa, captured the imagination of many in England. The Commonwealth as a collection of free peoples in voluntary association, and having common ties of language, religion, and institutions was in keeping with British traditions of freedom. And it had a tutorial aspect. The dominion idea had seemed to work in South Africa: why was it not equally appropriate to other areas where the European population had a permanent commitment?l
With the defeat of Germany and the establishment of a British mandate over Tanganyika, the possibility of an East and even an East and Central African dominion seemed feasible. In an appendix written by one of the members of the Economic Commission of the East Africa Protectorate which published its report in 1919, the following position is put:
"The East Africa Protectorate is an artificially defined territory without natural frontier (except on its seaboard). It constitutes one of the group of territories under the British Crown comprising (in addition to British East Africa) Uganda, the conquered territory German East Africa, N yasaland, and the Rhodesias. The territories of this group, which in this chapter will be referred to as Middle Africa, are to a very large extent homogeneous in character, forming together one predominantly agricultural domain of boundless richness and fertility. Middle Africa is, in fact, one of the world's great unopened storehouses ....
