Britain and Kenya’s Constitutions, 1950–1960 By Robert Maxon

set out goals and guidelines for constitutional development and laid down a path along which such development should move.

Initial Decolonization Proposals: 1942–1943

The dominant European position in Kenya’s political system, and the British official perception of it, was reflected in the first decolonization proposals to be seriously considered for Kenya. These emerged during World War II. Although the debate surrounding these proposals took place completely outside the public realm, it is very important to consider them as an introduction to constitution making and the issue of decolonization. This is because the factors that presented officials in London and Nairobi with the necessity to consider a scheme for decolonization continued to have an impact. Just as significant, those officials began, for the first time, to grapple with the constitutional means for achieving the ends they wished to attain through decolonization. In the proposals both for decolonization and for the constitutional means to that end, race was central to the discourse.

The initial decolonization proposals arose out of the challenges and changes World War II presented to the British rulers of East Africa. Kenya’s governor, Sir Henry Monck-Mason Moore, and officials at the CO—notably assistant undersecretary of state Sir Arthur Dawe—were convinced that the needs of war provided a powerful reason for revisiting the issue of closer union. Uniting Britain’s mainland East African territories under a single administration would present many advantages in meeting the demands for raw materials and manpower that Britain placed on her East African empire. Achieving a union of the territories would provide a unity of purpose and greater coordination of effort in responding to the demands of wartime. In addition, Dawe and others at the CO were concerned that the war had produced such significant changes in East Africa that colonial rule in Kenya and elsewhere would come under attack from various quarters in the postwar world.

It was to deal with both these difficulties that officials in London and Nairobi came to consider closer union and a scheme for decolonization.