NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
W(B)L 51-7406
LM Aran
حمد
CONFIDENTIAL
must reserve our final position on this
particular issue until we have had an
opportunity of consulting the Governor.
O.D.M.'s proposals (paragraph 42) are
not acceptable to the F.C.0. since it
would be invidious to include some of the
non-independent territories and exclude
others.
In particular, deliberately to
exclude Hong Kong while including other
dependent territories could lead to
considerable political difficulties with
the colony. (Hong Kong's expatriate
pensions liability is only £650,000 a year
and is not an open-ended commitment.)
We should therefore press for the
inclusion of all these territories.
If
this proves unacceptable we should fall
back on obtaining a limited inclusion of
dependent territories on the following
basis:
i)
ii)
Special arrangements on the lines
to be offered to independent
countries would be offered to those
dependent territories having
executive Public Service
Commissions as and when they
reached that stage of
constitutional development;
For the other dependent
territories we would undertake to
take account of their expenditure
on expatriate pensions in
assessing their needs for
development aid.
If we succeed in getting any changes
made to O.D.M.'s proposals, paragraph 42 of
CONFIDENTIAL
/the