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Reference..
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Mr Champio. (Gibraltar and General Dept)
THE FUTURE OF THE DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
1.
I am afraid that my first reaction to the draft paper and memorandum circulated with your minute of 27 November is the altogether unhelpful one of wondering whether the paper is really necessary
at all.
2.
Who are we trying to convince? Do we need any new general authority from the Cabinet to continue with the policies which we have already begun? For example, as you know, economic studies have already been put in hand in the Associated States and are firmly planned for the Dependent Territories and I do not think we need any new specific authority to continue along these lines.
3.
I do not suggest that the paper will do any har, although since actual decisions both on political and economic options will always be taken in the immediate territorial context and in the circunstances of the time, it might not be particularly helpful to have to look over our shoulders every time to make sure that we were/infringing some generalised doctrine carrying Cabinet authority. If a paper is required the present draft would be satisfactory for our purposes in WIAD, and I do not want to burden you with a long list of merely draft amendments. There are, however, one or two points on which I think amendments could conveniently be made, as follows:
(a) In paragraph 5(a)(iv) we should mention the potential future importance of oil, as well as of fish
(b) The various references to "tolerable standards"
might be cntentious since rost of the
Dependent Territories already enjoy standards of income and of living a great deal higher than those in many independent countries
(c) The references to St Helena in paragraph 11 (vi)
and paragraph 20 are, in my opinion, too definite. My own view is that the right solution for St Helena is to wait until the future of most of the other territories has been settled (particularly the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar), and then to make it a small Isle of Man
(d)
@@
(e)
I think that the general tone of paragraphs 10-13 is a trifle didactic and paternalistic
I think that paragraph 19 might give a risleading impression that we really expect that in all or in most cases we shall be faced with a neat choice between clearly defined alternative strategies. It is really because I doubt whether that will be so that I have ventured. to question whether it will actually be helpful to us to have a paper at all.
6 December 1974
TA Cox West
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