Rhodesia
Mr Arthur Newens (Harlow)
The right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) has good reason to congratulate his right hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies). The right hon. Member for Knutsford made a speech which represented a major step towards the complete capitulation of the Opposition to their Rhodesia lobby. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that that lobby demands not only the recognition of the internal settlement and the rejection of the Patriotic Front but the lifting of sanctions on the terms indicated by the right hon. Member for Pavilion, on which the right hon. Member for Knutsford has attempted to face both ways.
The advocates of the Conservative case claim to be the protagonists of peaceful change and the opponents of violence. They claim to be the champions of the democratic ideal against dictatorship and the representatives of Western interests against those of the Soviet Union. If we were all stricken by amnesia, that case might be plausible, but knowing the record of the past 14 years we have good reason to be cynical, especially if we have supported, as most Labour Members have, majority rule throughout.
Today Mr. Sithole and Bishop Muzorewa have their doughty defenders on the Conservative Back Benches, but which of those defenders uttered one word of protest when Mr. Sithole was in detention? Which of them cheered Bishop Muzorewa when he opposed the Smith-Home proposals of 1971? We hear the voices of those who claim frequently to be the supreme upholders of law and order. Have they forgotten that Mr. Smith and his henchmen were responsible for the most flagrant rejection of law and order in Rhodesian history? When the possibility of oppression is raised, we should remember that the oppression and repression of one group by another were initiated by the white minority Government against those who dared to speak out for majority rule and democracy.
We need also to recall that violence was initiated by the white minority. That has taken the form not only of the use of arms on the battlefield but of the use of the noose. Even the claim that the internal settlement is designed to establish democracy and majority rule is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) observed, ill founded. My hon. Friend made it clear that 28 seats of the 100 in the Assembly are to be reserved for whites, including eight Members who, in future elections, will be elected from 16 candidates nominated beforehand by the 28 white Members of Parliament. In other words, the white population, which represents 4 per cent. of the total, will have 28 per cent. of the seats.