The next questioner asked whether Mr. Stewart agreed with the views expressed in Mr. Tate's letter in response to the Daily Telegraph's editorial critical of the Commonwealth.
Mr. Stewart: Well, I think in the first place I would certainly endorse what was in the Chairman's letter about the value of the Secretariat. I think that acts. of the kind to which he was referring spring from an ignorance of the point I was trying to make about the immense complex nexus of all kinds of contacts that there are in the Commonwealth, and that really give it its life. The Secretariat has been of very great importance in promoting and keeping this kind of thing going. It could also mean, this may be looking a bit into the future, that when there are difficult problems arising between Commonwealth countries there is often a natural feeling that although Britain is the senior member of the Commonwealth, she ought to be rather careful about appearing to try to put other Commonwealth countries in order. The existence of a Secretary-General, somebody who serves the whole Commonwealth, could I think, in certain circumstances, be of increasing political importance. But in general about attacks on the Commonwealth, one of the most extraordinary things was the attack on the last Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. Well, if you really want to assess the value of that conference, is it likely that extremely hard-headed men, as most of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers are, would have come over here and spent that amount of time here and at the end be all spontaneously saying how valuable they had found it, if that in fact was not true? Commonwealth statesmen I do assure you, are not a bit like that. I think there was no doubt at all, that that last Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, rather contrary to some people's expectations, showed what a living and powerful force the Commonwealth was. But if you will allow me just to be a little partisan, when one reads attacks on the possibility of another Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, one must not be too politically innocent. A Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference is bound to mean a certain amount of favourable publicity for the British Prime Minister, whoever he may be at the time and of whatever party. It is just possible, therefore, that such a conference might not be welcome to organs of the Press who are opposed to the present Government.
The next questioner asked whether Britain could fulfil her commitments to the Commonwealth sugar-producing countries in view of the over-production of sugar in the EEC.
Mr. Stewart: Well, you'll appreciate in advance of negotiations I do not want to go into too much detail on this kind of matter but I do not believe it will be beyond the wit of man to make some special arrangements safeguarding the interests of those countries that now benefit from the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. For the reasons you have mentioned, I think this is bound to be a matter of fairly hard bargaining. But where I said I could not see negotiations breaking down on this kind of question, I was making that deduction from the history of the last two negotiations, where it did not appear that that kind of question was really going to be the obstacle. They both broke down then for much more fundamental reasons. This is not, after all, what I label as one of the "Yes" or "No" questions. It's one of the "less " or "more" questions, exactly what degree of concessions can you make. Now that kind of question I think we shall be able to resolve at the negotiating table, now that the great " Yes " or " No " question--do the Six want Britain in at all--has been answered in our favour.
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Questioner: Can the Secretary of State comment on the relationship between France and her former Colonial Empire and our own when we enter the Common Market?