The Rt. Rev. Cecil Alderson
Anglican Bishop of Mashonaland reviews the Rhodesian scene and its effects on the Church in an interview with Keith Hindell

(See facing page)

'The basic trouble of this country, as in all southern Africa, is fear and therefore unwillingness to commit yourself to the other side'.
On a recent visit to Rhodesia I drove out to Bishop's Mount at Msasa on the outskirts of Salisbury to talk to the Anglican Bishop of Mashonaland the Rt. Rev. Cecil William Alderson. He worked in Central and South Africa for twenty-four years before becoming Bishop in 1957.
Since that time he has been a persistent moderate critic of successive Rhodesian governments. In 1964 he joined with five other leading clerics in warning against an illegal seizure of independence and three days after U.D.I. he made the first public repudiation of it in his own Cathedral: 'I respect the integrity of my fellow Christians, but I suspect deeply the basic motives of a great part of the community as a whole which led to this thing. I repudiate this illegal act.'
But he also rejects any suggestion that a solution should be imposed by Britain by force. Despite everything he still remains an optimist; he thinks that a negotiated settlement which would give justice to both white and black Rhodesians is still possible.
Keith Hindell