CENTRAL AFRICA: Home Truths from Muncie

The Central African Federation was created this year to unite the Rhodesias (and neighboring Nyasaland) into one big, economically sound nation, a kind of British barrier against South Africa's Boer oppression. The whites like the idea fine, but the blacks (who outnumber the whites 35 to 1) claim the federation is designed to keep them in their place. The founders also hope to preserve what they call "the British way." To define it, they staged the Cecil Rhodes Centennial Exhibition at Bulawayo. For weeks they have been importing such staples as Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother (by jet), the Sadler's Wells Ballet, the Hallé Orchestra and the Covent Garden Opera (187 members, 1,500 costumes).

Last week the U.S. sent a Minister Plenipotentiary to the exhibition: William H. Ball, of the fruit-jar and rubber-products family of Muncie, Ind. In his honor, protocol demanded that The Star-Spangled Banner be played. Unable to find a score in all Rhodesia, the sponsors finally discovered a fellow who makes a hobby of collecting records of national anthems. From an old recording of his, copyists worked out an arrangement in time for a gala performance of Aïda. The colonials also raised the Stars & Stripes over the exhibition grounds. But their enthusiasm soon faded a little. Minister Ball volunteered the information that at Ball Bros. Co., Inc., in Muncie, Negroes get the same pay as whites for the same work and can even belong to the same union.