The Political Economy of Postwar Southern Rhodesia

Abstract

This article focuses on the events of 1949 in the Southern Rhodesia tobacco industry. In that year, the Southern Rhodesian government under Godfrey Huggins unilaterally announced the imposition of an export tax on the colony’s tobacco industry. This triggered opposition and resistance among various economic interest groups in the colony in what later became known as the 1949 Tobacco Tax Crisis. By tracing how the crisis unfolded, the article contributes to the literature on white settler politics and taxation in Southern Rhodesia, opening a new frontier towards understanding fiscal policy framing and interest group politics in Africa. At the same time, the article agrees with recent scholarship that goes beyond the role of the colonial state in the settler colonial economy to cast light on how white settler economic interest groups charted their course. The article draws on archival data from the National Archives of Zimbabwe, newspaper reports, and parliamentary debates to make its case.