Rhodesia: While Salisbury Bustles

To all outward appearances, Rhodesia has remained unperturbed by six months of United Nations economic sanctions. The bustling capital of Salisbury is alive with fashion-conscious white shoppers. As before, parking is a problem. Car owners have had ample supplies of fuel furnished by the kindred regime of South Africa. And new factories, created since the crisis to take up the slack in imports, are producing more of everything from ballpoint pens to refrigerators. Now, however, a government announcement indicates that Rhodesia has, in fact, some very real troubles.

Tobacco, the country's leading export, is not finding a market. Reason: Britain absorbed 60% of the value of crops in the pre-sanction days, but since then the leaves have had to be stashed in warehouses. Sales have plummeted to 120 million pounds, 140 million less than a year earlier, and no buyers have been found to take the surplus. Recently, the heavy-smoking French assured London that none of the tobacco would enter that country.

Earlier this month, Rhodesia's 3,000 tobacco farmers, who have been the staunchest supporters of the white supremacist regime, heard their government's dictated solution. Next year's harvest must be cut by 34%, which means that some 600 of the country's farmers will either have to grow other commodities or get out of the business.

Last week, only a few days after Rhodesia announced its crop crisis, Britain sent an emissary to see if the Ian Smith regime was ready to talk. London's Financial Times was not optimistic: "Recent events must have confirmed the white Rhodesians in their view that the British balance of payments is in a worse state than their own, and that it is from the British side that concessions are likely to come first." Nevertheless, Britain's policy appears to have dour long-range implications for the Rhodesian economy. Because of sanctions, general exports from Rhodesia in 1966 dropped by about $168 million. If this trend continues, the country will have to live on borrowed money, which it is seeking in ever-increasing amounts.