Nyasaland was banned in 1958 was re-formed as the Malawi Congress Party in 1959. After the emergency, a commission headed by Lord Devlin exposed the failings of the Nyasaland administration. The Commission 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. It rejected the existence of any "murder plot", but noted: The report concluded that the Nyasaland administration had lost the support of Nyasaland's African people, noting their
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