CONFIDENTIAL
Accordingly,
to become part of the new Federation of Malaysia.
together with Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei, Singapore was
put into a category of dependent territories whose examination
was deferred for the time being. It is in any case doubtful
whether Singapore would have been regarded by the Six as a
suitable candidate for association. They did not regard either
Hong Kong or independent Commonwealth countries in Asia as
eligible for association, owing to their different economic
structure from that of the existing African associates, and
in particular to the existence of established manufacturing
industries.
4. As regards the proposed Federation of Malaysia, of which
Singapore was to form part, it was agreed that the Community
would be prepared to envisage negotiations with a view to
concluding a trade agreement if the Federation so requested
and if it proved necessary to maintain and develop mutual trade.
It was also agreed that common external tariff should be
gradually applied to exports from the Federation as agreed
for India, Pakistan and Ceylon - i.c. according to a more
generous time-table than that laid down for the exports of
developed Commonwealth countries.
5. Now that Singapore has withdrawn from the Federation,
we have no means of knowing whether the Six would now regard as
appropriate for Singapore those arrangements provisionally
agreed in the previous negotiations for Malaysia.
It would be
safer to work on the assumption that we have a new problem for which the previous negotiations provide no clear precedent.
The Attitude of the Six
6. We have had no indications of what the Six would regard
as appropriate arrangements for Singapore in the event of British
entry. But what we know generally of their attitude to
countries relying heavily on exports of low cost manufactures
strongly suggests that we should have difficulty in negotiating
CONFIDENTIAL
/any thing
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