The Ormsby-Gore Commission was a Parliamentary Commission, with the official title The East Africa Commission. Its chairman, William Ormsby-Gore, later the fourth Baron Harlech, was appointed in June 1924 together with two other Member of Parliament as commissioners. The terms of reference for the commission, which was appointed by the short-lived First MacDonald ministry, included to report on measures to accelerate economic development, to improve the social conditions of African residents, to investigate employment practices and to secure closer cooperation between the five British dependencies in East and Central Africa.
The commission recommended that transport and other infrastructure should be improved as a precondition of possible later administrative union. It expressed concern over issues of land ownership and the conditions of Africans living on European owned estates, and suggested that promoting commercial agriculture by Africans could be a solution to the problem of labour migration. By the time the commission reported in April 1925, the MacDonald ministry had lost power and, although Ormsby-Gore had become Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the new government, little action was taken on its proposals. In 1926, the Hilton Young Commission on Closer Union of the Dependencies of East and Central Africa was appointed. Its report in 1929 re-examined and supported the closer union of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, but this was not acted on owing to financial constraints.
Background
Following the indecisive general election of December 1923, which created a hung parliament, the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin remained in office until January 1924 and was then replaced by the Labour government of June to November 1924. J. H. Thomas, the Secretary of State for the Colonies created an East Africa Committee, also known as the Southborough Committee, composed of sixteen members including parliamentarians and business representatives, to promote economic development and African advancement in that area.
Only a minority of East Africa Committee members represented the interests of Africans and, after it appointed the Ormsby-Gore Commission, and following the resignation of the First MacDonald ministry and the publication of that Commission's report, the Southborough Committee was disbanded in June 1925 as being no longer required. Baldwin's Conservative government which replaced MacDonald's ministry took little action on the Ormsby-Gore Commission's report, but appointed the Hilton Young Commission in 1926 to look into the possible closer union of the British territories in East and Central Africa. The later commission placed less emphasis on African advancement and more on a possible closer union of the British colonies and protectorates.
The commission
In June 1924, the Parliamentary Commission officially named "The East Africa Commission" was appointed with the mandate:-
"To visit Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Tanganyika Territory, Uganda, and Kenya with a view to obtaining as much information as possible in the time available on all subjects covered by the terms of reference to the East Africa Committee, and to report to the Secretary of State on any facts which they may consider have a bearing upon the above matters."
The terms of reference to the East Africa Committee were:—
"To consider and report:—
(a) on the measures to be taken to accelerate the general economic development of the British East African Dependencies and the means of securing closer co-ordination of policy on such important matters as transportation, cotton-growing, and the control of human, animal, and plant diseases;
(b) on the steps necessary to ameliorate the social condition of the natives of East Africa, including improvement of health and economic development;
(c) on the economic relation between natives and non-natives with special reference to labour contracts, care of labourers, certificates of identification, employment of women and children;
(d) on the taxation of natives and the provision for services directed to their moral and material improvement".
The commission visited the Africa territories named in its mandate between August and December 1924. However, it reported that, owing to transport difficulties, its visits to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were short, and it was unable to visit any of North-Eastern Rhodesia, northern Nyasaland, southern Tanganyika or the Lake Tanganyika area. Two members of the Commission also visited Zanzibar, although this was not within its original terms of reference.