ABSTRACT
The art of government and the art of international diplomacy and international relations depend on the ability to forsee and anticipate the “winds of change”. The Government’s concession in 1961 to the population of European origin in Northern Rhodesia would only have delayed for a short time an African majority. The path to independence in territories containing significant numbers of settlers of European descent has been strewn with pitfalls. It would seem that the difficulties of psychological adjustment to the revolution in international relations tend to vary inversely with distance from the colonial territories. The colonial powers have held responsibilities for the well-being of all the peoples in the territories which they governed directly or indirectly. Reconciliation and co-existence between the Moslem population and the population of European origin was the only alternative to partition or to exodus of the latter and return of the Algerians in France, either of which was fraught with economic dangers.
