‘Britain’s Wars are our Wars’: The Politics and Economics of Southern Rhodesia’s Support for Britain During the Second World War, 1939–1945

The Second World War (WWII) ushered new dynamics in imperial-settler colonial relations informed by a combination of diplomatic, political and socio-economic considerations. Immediately after the war broke out 1939, the pre-dominantly British-oriented White settler government was inclined to support the Imperial Government, a diplomatic and political decision that had considerable financial implications on the Rhodesian economy. Southern Rhodesia, a self-governing settler colony of Britain sought to strike the delicate balance between the politics and economics of financing Britain's war effort while simultaneously fostering local economic development. This article aims to examine the political and economic decisions that influenced expenditure and revenue collection policies in Southern Rhodesia during wartime. In doing so, it builds on the voluminous literature on the Second World War to examine the impact of the war on Southern Rhodesia's fiscal system with emphasis on its implications on the settler-colony's finances. The article further illuminates how the settler government's attempts to expand revenue streams within a short space of time through implementing aggressive wartime fiscal policies undermined the principle of consensual tax payment. This, in turn triggered considerable intra-White settler confrontations that played out in various fora, including in the Legislative Assembly. While acknowledging literature that emphasises the unprecedented opportunities availed by the Second World War for such sectors as secondary industries and agriculture, we argue that the war imposed a huge fiscal burden on the country that existing scholarship has scarcely explored. Against that background, we analyse Southern Rhodesia's commitment to the war effort and the financial demands this placed on its Treasury. We look at how Southern Rhodesia addressed the need for more revenue to finance its economic and war expenses by focusing on how its White settler government implemented a cocktail of tax collection measures leading to the achievement of a budget surplus by 1943.