CONFIDENTIAL
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they could make to the political life of this country. But if the intention were for them to be in any sense "representative" I do not see how you could for long stop the peoplein power in the territories demanding an effective share in the selection of their representatives. There are, of course, precedents for this sort of thing abroad. Under the Fourth French Republic, for example, the colonies elected representatives to the National Assembly in Paris. But of course the result was that effective power in colonial affairs rested at Paris, and the institutions on the spot (both colonial Legislatures and Governors) were pat in the shade. I do not think that a system of elective colonial peers would be compatible with the present policy of constitutional development in the territories themselves. Yet nomination by the local political leaders would have obvious drawbacks too.
5. Both the above factors would be intensified by the shortage of local talent in the surviving Dependent Territories, most of vhich are very small. Im Gibraltar, for instance, it would be impossible to find anybody of the calibre to sit in the House of Lords who was not identified with one group or another in local politics. It has indeed occasionally been suggested, perhaps only half in jest, that one way of placating Gibraltar would be for Sir J. Hassan, the present Chief Minister, to retire and go to the House of Lords. But if he did, the position of his successor as Chief Minister, and of the Governor, would be fundamentally different from what it is now. Similar considerations apply in miniature to the Falkland Islands. St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha could hardly produce a man capable of keeping his end up in the House of Lords.
6. I think that the reference to Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands at the end of your sub para.(iv) could be strengthened. A "representative" peer from either territory would obviously inhibit still further H.M.G.'s freedon of action in handling the international disputes over sovereignty. These disputed territories should perhaps also be given special mention under your sub para.(vi). Spain and Argentina would undoubtedly regard the appointing of peers from Gibraltar and the Falklands as a major step towards the integration of those territories with the U.K. and could exploit it in order to embarrass us at the U.N. They would probably also make propaganda use of the fact that these alleged "repre- sentatives" of the territories were not in fact freely elected but hand picked by the British Government. Even if the general idea of peers from the Dependent Territories were being proceeded with, it is therefore arguable that territories involved in dis- putes over sovereignty (i.e. Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, British Honduras and 7Hong Kong?) should be excluded from the scheme, or at least that the Foreign Office should be consulted before these territories are included. For these reasons it might be convenient to bring all the points about disputed territories into a separate sub paragraph of the memorandum.
7. Finally, I assume that those concerned with this proposal will be doing an intensive course of reading into the Hansards of the 1920s and 30s covering the period when Lord Strickland was simultaneously Prime Minister of Malta and a hereditary Member of the British House of Lords. It was shortly before my time, but when I joined the Colonial Office it was still vivdly remembered as an awful warning.
17 June, 1968
GibraltafJ.S. Bennett)
and South Atlantic Dept.