The idea of conscription ran contrary to British political tradition, but the sheer scale of the Western Front led to its institution in Britain in January 1916. The "Rhodesia Herald" and "Bulawayo Chronicle" newspapers broadcast the news in special editions. While some settlers supported the extension of the same system to white Southern Rhodesians, it was also opposed in many quarters. The British South Africa Company feared that the loss of skilled white workers might jeopardise its mining operations, crucial to the colonial economy, while the Rhodesian Agricultural Union contended that white farmers had to stay on the land for similar reasons. Some, mindful of John Chilembwe's anticolonial uprising in Nyasaland in early 1915, felt that it was necessary to keep a core of male settlers in the colony to guard against a repeat of the Mashona and Matabele rebellions of the 1890s.