Nyasaland almost universal rejection of Federation. Finally, it suggested that the British government should negotiate with African leaders on the country's constitutional future. The Devlin Commission's report is the only example of a British judge examining whether the actions of a colonial administration in suppressing dissent were appropriate. Devlin's conclusions that excessive force was used and that Nyasaland was a "police state" caused political uproar. His report was largely rejected and the state of emergency lasted until June 1960. At first, the British government tried to calm the situation by nominating additional African members (who were not Malawi Congress Party supporters)
Nyasaland of former Crown Lands were sold as freehold land or leased, and almost 400,000 acres more originally in Certificates of Claim were sold or leased in holdings whose average size was around 1,000 acres, many representing smaller farms of Europeans coming to Nyasaland after the First World War to grow tobacco. As late as 1920, a Land Commission set up by the Nyasaland authorities proposed further land alienation to promote the development of small to medium size European plantations from the 700,000 acres of Crown Land which it said were available after the present and future needs of the African