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 Emergency 1959 Nyasaland through a lack of political judgement, including a failure to understand nationalism in either dependency. McCracken also considers Armitage had failed to control a political crisis in Cyprus, so was determined not to fail again in Nyasaland, and that, by October 1959, the contempt he expressed for African political aspirations, even in official correspondence, amounted to racial paranoia. McCracken also suggests that Baker's underlying aim was to “set the record straight” by restoring the reputation of Nyasaland's colonial officials of the 1950s and 1960s, while attacking African nationalists and their sympathisers. Like Macmillan, he notes Baker's reliance on official