Devlin was vindicated and approached for advice on constitutional change, but Armitage was seen as an obstacle to progress and asked to leave Nyasaland prematurely.
[1] Africans who were resident on these estates were required to pay rent, normally satisfied by undertaking agricultural work for the owner under the system known as thangata, which later developed into a form of sharecropping.
Banda's strategy was to use these popular issues to mobilise Congress supporters into strikes, demonstrations, disobedience and protests that would disrupt the everyday operation of the colonial government.
Armitage was not opposed to limited constitutional development, envisaging autonomy for Nyasaland with the Federation, with African majority rule deferred to some distant future date, but Alan Lennox-Boyd, the Colonial Secretary, rejected any plan for the protectorate having local autonomy and, in early January 1959, the Colonial Office made it clear that, as the protectorate would not be allowed to leave the Federation, Banda and Congress would have to be neutralised.
Action by Congress supporters became more violent and, on 21 February, and, in the days immediately following, police or troops opened fire on rioters in several places, leading to four deaths.
He later claimed to have been influenced by reports of a meeting of Congress leaders (held in Banda's absence) on 25 January 1959, which approved a policy of strikes, retaliation against police violence, sabotage and defiance of the government.
Reports by police informers formed the basis for the claim by the Head of Special Branch that there were plans for the indiscriminate killing of Europeans, Asians and of those Africans opposed to Congress (the so-called "murder plot").
After consulting the Federal Prime Minister, Roy Welensky and the Southern Rhodesia Premier, Edgar Whitehead, and with the approval of the Colonial Office, over 1,000 European troops of the Rhodesia Regiment were flown into Nyasaland, the first arriving on 27 and 28 February[15][16] On 3 March 1959 Armitage, as governor of Nyasaland, declared a State of Emergency over the whole of the protectorate and arrested Dr. Banda, the Congress president, and other members of its executive committee as well as over a hundred local party officials.
The stated aim of these measures was to allow the Nyasaland government to restore law and order after the increasing lawlessness following Dr Banda's return.
This was denied by the government despite Welensky providing the troops that made declaring the Emergency possible and the Colonial Office plan to eliminate Congress.
[21] Macmillan, who was out of the country at the time, did not choose Devlin and later criticised his appointment on the basis that his Irish ancestry and Catholic upbringing made him too sympathetic to the Nyasaland African Congress.
It found that the declaration of a State of Emergency was necessary to restore order and prevent a descent into anarchy, but it criticised instances of the illegal use of force by the police and troops, including burning houses, destroying property and beatings.
At the end of May, Armitage thought the Commission was satisfied that the State of Emergency was necessary, but that it did not accept that there was a massacre plot, and that it had concentrated on the use of firearms and the burning of houses by government forces, ignoring events leading up to such incidents.
[26] In May and June 1959, a number of issues caused Armitage and the Colonial Office concerns, in case the Devlin Commission should take note of them in producing its report.
The government also minimised Devlin's criticisms of handcuffing and gagging prisoners, burning houses and other illegal acts on the grounds of necessity.
It made full use of the Armitage Report to support its attack, claiming it represented the considered views of Nyasaland-based officials with a better grasp if realities than a Commission that visited Nyasaland only briefly.
[30] The opposition rejected the claim that the government did not have to accept the conclusions of the Commission on the basis that it had set out the relevant facts objectively and that it made no recommendations.
Devlin's conclusion that there was no murder plot and that Banda, unlike other Congress leaders, was not involved in promoting violence opened the way for the British government to deal with him.