Draft
INTRODUCTORY AND CLOSING
PARAGRAPHS FOR LORD LOTHIAN'S SPEECH
IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS ON 8 December IN REFLY TO LORD SHEPHERD'S
MOTION 1
To call attention to the problems of British Colonial territories, and the need for a full review of policy to improve the economic and social conditions of their peoples; and to move for papers.
Introductory
Her Majesty's Government are fully aware of the variety and extent of the problems of the remaining British dependent territories. We are deeply conscious of our responsibilities as the metropolitan Power towards all the peoples in our overseas dependencies and for assisting them to find solutions to their individual problems and to improve their economic and
social conditions.
* Although the former colànial empire has now virtually ceased to exist, Britain is left with colonial responsibilities all over the world which do not readily fall into any general
pattern.
3 There still remain eighteen dependent territories with a total population of only 5 million, of whom 4,035,000 represent the population of a single territory, Hong Kong. The populations of the other 17 territories range from 189,000 (the largest) in the Bahamas to a mere 80 (the smallest) on
the island of Pitcairn. The majority of these territories.
comprise small scattered groups of isands or, in some cases single islands in the West Indies or in the Pacific, Indian
or Atlantic
oceans.
2
4 It would be misleading to assume that, because the total populations of the dependent territories which remain now account for less than half of one per cent of the populations of all our overseas dependencies in 1947 or because the territories themselves are small, the problems connected with their administration and development are therefore easier to solve. The contrary is in fact the case. The diversity of their economic, social and political problems is not correspondingly less than those encountered by Britain in guiding the larger former colonial territories to their present independent status. In some cases the difficulties are accentuated by the smallness of the
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