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These conditions are still valid.
The Position of the Commonwealth
17. The United Kingdom has always made it clear that, in the case of products on which Commonwealth countries enjoy contractual preferences in our market, our offers would be conditional on the Commonwealth countries concerned waiving their contractual rights to the extent necessary to enable us to give preferences to non-Commonwealth developing countries. We shall also be tabling offers affecting a wide range of non-contractual preferences in the UK enjoyed by Commonwealth developed countries and we can expect them to press that our offers on many of these items be withdrawn. Similarly, Canada and New Zealand will table offers on products on which we have margins of preference.
18. The main anxiety of the developing Commonwealth countries is that the loss of advantage from sharing their preferences in the UK market at least should be balanced by advantages in other developed markets. Mr. Heath, when addressing UNCTAD 1 in 1964, said on this point:-
"The preferences we give at present are designed for the benefit of Commonwealth countries. These countries might suffer by sharing them with others unless they obtain compensating advantages in other markets. We would, therefore, need to act in concert with the other major industrialised countries to ensure that this is brought about."
At the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in January 1968, Mr. Lightbourne (Jamaica) raised this matter and asked for an assurance that the UK would participate in the generalised preferences scheme only if all other developed countries did so and that Mr. Heath's statement in 1964 remained our policy. The Minister of Overseas Development stated in reply that our position on this was unchanged, but that it might be unreasonable to cause the whole scheme to break down just because one or two developed countries of no great importance refused to participate. As the result, the final communique of the Conference expresses the hope that:-
"It would soon be possible to conclude success- fully the negotiations on a scheme of generalised preferences which would be of benefit to all developing countries and which would provide com- pensation for the less developed countries whose export trade may be adversely affected by the introduction of such a scheme."
19. Until the other prospective donor countries table their offers, we cannot judge how far Commonwealth developing countries will be compensated for the loss of their preferences in the UK which we are contemplating. Clearly, the UK's offers will have to be modified if it appears that the offers of other donor countries will not provide the Commonwealth with sufficient compensation.
CONFIDENTIAL