The Bledisloe Commission was a Royal Commission appointed in 1937 to examine the possible closer union of the three British territories in Central Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. These territories were to some degree economically inter-dependent, and it was suggested that an association would promote their rapid development. In 1939, the majority of the Commission recommended a union of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, whose African populations would remain under British trusteeship. It also proposed that there would be strong economic between these united territories and Southern Rhodesia, but ruled-out any political amalgamation involving Southern Rhodesia unless its overtly racial policies were changed and there was some form of representation of African inte