by Ian Smith
I still found time for sport, mainly rugby and rowing. The rugby club was powerful, to the extent that we were represented by two first-league teams, one in the Town League, and one in the Country League. But the rowing club, as usual, was battling against tremendous odds, and so I dedicated myself to giving them as much support as possible. Sadly, we found ourselves without a coach, the previous incumbent having stood down because of other commitments, so, as the most experienced member of the club, I took on the task. As anyone who understands rowing will appreciate, to coach a crew from the stroke’s seat is to complicate an already difficult function. Moreover, we had a young freshman as cox, and he had to be taught from scratch.
In the end, though, it was all worthwhile. To succeed, to win, is a satisfying experience at any time. But to defy all the predictions and overcome almost insuperable odds is something special. As I said earlier, our victory in the Inter Varsity Boat Race was such an occasion. As a culmination, in the end-of-year awards, I was presented with an honours award, the highest in the university. It was in fact a tribute to the crew and the club; I was merely its recipient.
There was another minor incursion into sport during this final year at Rhodes. We created a ‘Gentlemen’s Cricket XI’ to play occasional games against teams from selected farming communities — always ‘away’ games, on a Saturday. These were happy occasions, played with one objective only: the love of the game. Discussion on whether we won or lost was not permitted, and there was a strict rule that no member of the team would partake of any practice, nets or otherwise.
In the final analysis my post-war year at Rhodes turned out to be a most worthwhile experience. At this stage of my life I had no intention of entering the political arena, but the year granted me valuable insight into the art and psychology of working with one’s fellow-men, and the benefits which flow from listening to both sides of an argument. I was to learn subsequently from my political life that, while there was often a need for committees, these could also be used for shelving a problem or passing the buck!
It had always been my view that a degree in economics was a good background for most avenues in life, and could only be of assistance in my career as a farmer. Little did I appreciate at that time how well it would also serve me during my political life. In the latter part of my first term in Parliament, I was appointed Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. Later on, my first cabinet portfolio was Minister of Finance, and following that, during our UDI years, I sat as Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Council, the body responsible for planning the overall strategy of our economic war. For the next fourteen years this was our greatest challenge. During my whole political career, stretching over forty years, the solid foundations in practical economics which were laid down at Rhodes gave me basic guidelines which were of real assistance in forming conclusions based on those sound economic principles which always remain constant.
Those long serving and faithful servants of the university, Professor David Lidell and Professor Hobart Houghton, with their honest and unaffected approach, made a lasting impression on those of us who passed through their faculties.
Settling Back Home
I: FARMING IN RHODESIA
And so back home — always a good feeling, but even better when one is a member of a close-knit family built around worthwhile traditions. It is worth repeating: great nations are built on the foundation of great families. There was also the advantage of being part of a small rural community, where people were interested in one another, and prepared to lend each other a helping hand. That communal spirit, turning out to support your local team, making your contribution to the social life of the community, is the bedrock of civilised life.
Once Christmas and the New Year festivities were over, I started to plan for the few remaining formalities necessary for my final demobilisation, things which had been left in abeyance in my rush to get back to university. There was the finalisation of my pay and gratuity, the search for my luggage, which had been sent back home from Cairo after I was shot down behind the lines and had gone astray, and a final medical examination. These were things of little consequence, but none the less time-consuming and necessitating visits to Salisbury. The medical examination was simply to ensure that all necessary medical attention had been received before discharge, and to ascertain whether any assistance was needed for those disabled.
My medical was the last item on my agenda. There were a chairman and three others sitting around the table. ‘We’ve had a look at your records and noted what happened to you. Have you any particular problems worrying you?’ said the chairman in a quiet, unemotional tone. His name was Dr Gelfand — I had never seen him before, but was going to see a great deal of him in my subsequent life. Once I started spending more time in Salisbury after my entry into politics, I consulted him on many occasions, and a great friendship grew out of these contacts. He eventually became Professor of Medicine at our Rhodesian University, and had to his credit a number of eminent books dealing with tropical diseases and other matters affecting our indigenous peoples. On one occasion, after I became Prime Minister, Gelfand arrived at my office with one of those people living in the Zambezi Valley who have only two large toes. Otherwise the African seemed perfectly normal, and when Mike Gelfand asked him if he knew who I was, without hesitating he replied: ‘The Prime Minister.’ He said this in spite of the fact that he lived in one of the most remote parts of the country, and had never previously visited any urban centre. Mike informed me that to the best of his knowledge these people occupied only one area of the valley, and numbered fewer than one hundred. This transformation was a phenomenon which had probably developed to assist in climbing trees in order to obtain food.
While in Salisbury I learned that short refresher agricultural courses were being held at Gwebi for returned servicemen. Gwebi was a very good government agricultural research station about half an hour’s drive north of Salisbury, and there were plans to turn it into an agricultural college. I applied and was accepted for a course a few months later.
Apart from working on a few local farms in a temporary capacity, my most pressing concern was whether or not to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship. My professor at Rhodes had promoted the idea, and there were attractions: the opportunity to broaden one’s horizons, continue the search for learning and acquire more qualifications, along with the possibility of a Blue at rugby or rowing. But there were also many counter-arguments. The war had taken up five years of a crucial period in my life, and those years had given me as much experience of life (and education) as I would have received in twenty years of normal life. So I talked and listened, but my mind was fairly well set before leaving Rhodes in the last year, that I did not want any more excursions giving me more theoretical experience of life, I wanted to start living it.
Gradually things started moving. I spent a couple of months on a tobacco farm in Mashonaland, learning a little about a branch of farming with which I was not familiar. Then I leased a piece of land near Selukwe which enabled me to commence building up my cattle herd. Fortunately I did not have to wait all that long for the opportunity to take over a farm with the option to purchase. And so over the period of one fateful month in my life, August 1948, I bought a farm — my own piece of land — became a Member of Parliament, and most important of all, married. Janet enjoyed the experience, if not unique, at least stimulating and fascinating, of spending part of her honeymoon helping to win votes for her husband in his election campaign. We succeeded in the election, as we did in the other two operations we undertook that August.
Janet was the third of the Watt sisters I had met — Helen was the first, also a teacher, whom I met during my pilot training days at Thornhill; Isabel was second and was now living with her husband on the Wanderer Mine in Selukwe. Janet was the last, and was a recent immigrant to Rhodesia — we had known one another for about a year. I suppose I had been fairly normal in my relations with girls; they were always there, and there were parties and dan
ces. However, other things, mainly sport, and the open-air life which Rhodesia offered, seemed more important to me and therefore received priority. Then the war had come. I met some wonderful girls, especially during my final year at Rhodes, but I had never previously met anyone quite like Janet. She had a fantastic personality, she was always smiling and helpful and interested in others, highly intelligent and ready to contribute to any conversation, and in addition was a talented sportswoman who had represented Western Province at hockey and played good tennis and golf. Probably the qualities I admired most in her, though, were her courage and honesty of purpose. She was opposed on principle to side-stepping or evading an issue, no matter how difficult the problem, and her tendency was to opt for a decision requiring courage, as opposed to taking the easy way out. At my stage of life I had the wisdom necessary to make a realistic assessment, devoid of emotion and immature fantasies, of our ability to live and work together. I could not think of anything I wanted more, and fortunately my feelings were reciprocated.
The farm was a piece of rough, undeveloped land, part of a big ranch owned by one of those international corporations which had as one of its principal objectives the opening up and development of the Dark Continent — in keeping with Rhodes’s dream. It was the Bechuanaland Exploration Company, which had its headquarters in London, and owned vast interests in Bechuanaland and Rhodesia.
My piece of land was known, according to the survey diagram, as ‘Remainder of Subdivision 4 of Aberfoyle Ranch’. It was bordered on the east by the Impali River, and on the west by the much larger Lundi River. Most important of all, the farm had a perennial stream running through it, with beautiful clear pools of water and a rich population of fish. We learned from the local people that the stream was called ‘Gwenoro’ — gwe meaning ‘the place’, and noro being the name of one of our most majestic and beautiful antelope, the kudu. ‘The Place of the Kudu’; it did not take Janet and I long to make up our minds, and ever since it has been known as ‘Gwenoro’ farm. Many years later, when the government established a dam on the Lundi River as the main water supply for the city of Gwelo, this was named ‘Gwenoro’ dam.
Our land had been utilised over decades as a squatting camp for workers on the main section of Aberfoyle Ranch. There had been indiscriminate ploughing without the necessary measures for soil protection, and uncontrolled wood cutting, not only for fuel, but — even more devastating — for building houses under the traditional ‘pole and dagga’ system. At least a hundred saplings are used for one small room. Unfortunately, because of termites and wood-borer, these shacks do not last, so replacement is an ongoing process. The reclamation work was considerable, requiring long-term dedication. To destroy, to hack down, is easy and swift. But to start from the bottom and build up again is a long-term process.
Fortunately, there were some areas in sound natural condition, and the important fact was that we were able to arrest further deterioration. Today, over forty years later, it is a different place and a joy to behold, but there is still much more to be done. We are not unique in this regard. All land requires dedicated people who believe in that well-known maxim that we do not inherit our land from our fathers, we borrow it from our great- great-grandchildren, and each generation is honour-bound to pass it on in better condition than it was in when received.
We were now faced with the complicating factor of Parliament, which we had not originally anticipated. Unexpectedly, in July 1948, Godfrey Huggins and his United Party (UP) had been beaten on a vote in Parliament, and he had decided to go to the country through a general election. The principal opposition was the Liberal Party, consisting in the main of farmers, miners and industrialists who believed that the UP were bogged down with over-conservative policies, that their edge had been dulled by being too long in power, and that the time had come for a new look with the emphasis on more development and free enterprise.
Some of the leading supporters of this party approached me and suggested that I should stand as their candidate in Selukwe. I thanked them but declined — I had my hands full trying to organise my future life, and in any case the thought of entering Parliament had not crossed my mind. The Liberal Party, however, were not to be put off: I was a local boy with a respectable record at school, university, and in the war. Moreover, my family’s record of dedicated service to the community and beyond was really outstanding. They spoke to my father, who simply advised them against trying any circuitous routes, as I was one of those people who made up my own mind, and they obtained an undertaking from him that he would not attempt to discourage me.
After a few days they returned and we had a long talk over a cup of tea on the desirability of good leadership, because without it there was not much hope even for the best country. We decided that what the British had done to Churchill and the South Africans to Smuts was the result of complacency among good people. I had shown that I was prepared to make sacrifices for what I believed in, as had many of my wartime colleagues. Was it not important to follow this up, because the danger of undesirables gaining control and destroying the good which had previously been achieved was ever present? Their appeal to me was to make a stand for those things we had fought for, and because I had shown the ability to lead, they hoped I would accept my responsibility as far as the future of our country was concerned; otherwise, our recent sacrifices, indeed the whole history of Rhodesia and everything that it stood for, would all have been in vain.
They were of course preaching to me my own beliefs and philosophy. How could any man of principle turn a deaf ear to an appeal to accept his responsibility? I pointed out that they did not have to convince me on the principle, that I was more concerned at this stage with the priorities of my life, establishing my base, and from there considering other moves. At the same time one had to concede the futility of striving and dedicating time to building a farm and a home and a family, if, in time, all was to be lost because of political incompetence and opportunism. I asked them to let me sleep on it, and assured them we would meet again in a few days’ time.
We had a long family discussion that evening, and as usual my parents offered sound, dispassionate advice. In the final analysis the decision clearly rested with me, my convictions and my heart, but if my inclination was in that direction they believed that the potential was there. I had the ability to reason and think clearly, to express myself in public, the will to stand my ground even against steep odds, and the willingness to work for a cause. If politics was going to be part of my life, there were many arguments to persuade me that sooner was better than later — there is, after all, a tide in the affairs of man …
Then, most important of all, I had to talk to Janet who, at that time, was teaching at a school in Gwelo, the capital of the Midlands Province, about half an hour’s drive from Selukwe. She simply replied: ‘What do you want to do?’ She had lived her life in an unusual political atmosphere, in a part of Cape Town which had so strongly supported Smuts and the United Party that no opposition had ever contested the seat, and there had never been an election. She had therefore never in her life voted politically or been part of any election campaign, so she told me there was little to be gained by relying on her help or advice.
It was not an easy decision. There was a challenge which always had a magnetic attraction to me, and any suggestion of shirking responsibility must be resisted — so the die was cast, and Janet gave me her full support. Thus, in addition to a farm and marriage, we threw in this parliamentary election thing! We spent our all too brief honeymoon at the Victoria Falls, then rushed back to get on with the election campaign.
II: EARLY DAYS IN POLITICS: THE FEDERAL ERA
Sadly, and contrary to many of the predictions, the Liberal Party were soundly beaten on 16 September 1948, losing six of their eleven seats. Thus they had five against Huggins’s twenty-four. The wily experience of Huggins and the United Party, assisted by the establishment, big business and finance, and the monopoly press, which successfully misrepresented the ca
se against the Liberal Party, together proved unbeatable.
However, Selukwe was constant and voted for Smith. For the first time in history a youngster, still in his twenties, was elected to the Rhodesian Parliament. At the conclusion of my first campaign meeting a few of the old-timers were talking in the local pub and one commented: ‘I remember Ian Smith in kindergarten at our school just up the road, and now I am being asked to accept him as my Member of Parliament?’ One of my supporters made the simple reply: ‘You were happy to accept that he should go away and fight for you in the war!’ The question was settled. From now on politics became first an adjunct to, but, with the passage of time, a dominant part of our lives.
We were a small country with a small population, and no problems of any consequence, hence Parliament normally had only two sittings during the year, covering overall a period of approximately three months, sitting in the afternoons, with a half-hour break for tea on the lawn. There were six cabinet ministers who ran the country. So I had time for my farming and family.
The parliamentary work was stimulating, and for someone with an enquiring mind, the opportunity to observe the inner workings of government was intensely absorbing. I seemed to have a facility to participate in the goings-on and some of my speeches attracted attention and support. After a few years I was elected to the position of chairman of the public accounts committee, probably the most important of all the parliamentary committees, the one which worked closely with the Auditor General in scrutinising all government expenditure, and that alone was an education.
However, there was one matter above all others which constantly returned to the forefront of our minds: our country’s political future, the gaining of our full independence. There were those who advocated the status quo, the easy way of just doing nothing. After all, we had ‘virtual’ independence. We governed the country as we thought right. Britain had no legal power to intervene in our affairs and had never attempted to do so. If we turned de facto independence into de jure independence the only difference would be that it would cost us more in foreign representation, a service which we now received free through British embassies.
