Putting Darkness Behind

With words to match the splendor of his navy blue uniform trimmed with gold braid and epaulets, the Governor of Kenya rose in Nairobi's Legislative Council to deliver his maiden address. "There is a new government in England with a new Colonial Secretary, and a new Governor of Kenya," said Sir Patrick Renison. "In a glowing spirit of challenge and adventure, let us put the darkness behind us and look bravely to the future."

With that he declared to Legco the imminent end of the official state of emergency under which Kenya has been ruled since the days of 1952, when the bloody Mau Mau uprising gripped the East African colony. For the revolt-infected tribes--the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru--it would mean the end of the passbook system that rigidly limited their travel, and the end of forced communal labor and mandatory residence in villages. For 3,000 prisoners still behind bars or barbed wire for revolutionary activity, it would mean freedom under a sweeping amnesty program; only a few score of the toughest terrorists, including Mau Mau Founder Jomo Kenyatta, would remain imprisoned.

Though the emergency would officially be over, some key temporary powers would be transferred onto Kenya's regular statute books, including permits for political meetings and restrictions on forming African political parties. Said Sir Patrick: "I hope experience will show me that I do not need the use of these controls."

Though one Kenya African leader grumped that his people would never be satisfied until Jomo Kenyatta is free, and some white settlers were alarmed at the impending release of hundreds of Mau Mau murderers, Harold Macmillan's new Colonial Secretary, bright, ambitious Iain Macleod, intends a bolder, more liberal approach to Britain's colonial problems in Africa. As one indication of the new trend in British colonial policy, Prime Minister Macmillan himself drove out to London Airport last week to welcome one of the most outspoken of new African leaders, President Sekou Toure of newly independent Guinea, on his way home after a visit to the U.S. That night Macmillan gave Toure a white-tie state banquet at No. 10 Downing Street.

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