T HE critical sector of labor relations in Northern Rhodesia has been its copper mining area. Recent developments there may radically affect the future of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, of which Northern Rhodesia is a part. The population of the Federation is about 7,000,000, of whom 235,000 are Europeans and the rest Africans with a sprinkling of people of Asiatic and mixed origins. The territories that joined in 1953 to form the Federation were the protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, in which the Africans were the wards of the British government, and Southern Rhodesia, a partly independent country in which the Africans were subject to the local white settlers' government. The Articles of Federation offered concessions to allay misgivings in England and African opposition in the protectorates. They provided for an African Affairs Board which may appeal to the British government against legislation deemed discriminatory. In the thirty-five man Federal Assembly, in addition to three European members representing African interests, six places were given to Africans, an innovation startling to Southern Rhodesian whites. And the Articles state that the Federation is to work toward a partnership between the European and the African.