Name/Title
1966/Chalmers: "Life with UDI", tobacco cartoonsDescription
"Life with UDI: A cartoon history of independent Rhodesia" by Louis Bolze and Klaus Ravn. Second edition July 1966 (Louis W Bolze, Bulawayo).
Tobacco was such a major Rhodesian export that, as a sanctioned industry, it features several times in these collected cartoons. In 1965, before UDI, Rhodesian tobacco exports were worth £37 million per annum. ("A Matter of Weeks rather than Months" by J R T Wood, Trafford Publishers, 2012).
Tobacco exports had been targeted for sanctions (together with the much less valuable commodity, sugar) once UDI was declared in November 1965. The British prime minister, Harold Wilson, said that the tobacco farmers had a malign influence over events while tobacco was the core of the Rhodesian economy.
Andrew Chalmers was part of the extremely lucrative Rhodesian tobacco business. It had its own farms, and produced, sold, bought, and exported tobacco.
