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standards of housing, health and other public amenities before any constitutional changes are proposed, still less imposed by HMG. Other territories again have productive resources so limited that they can never expect to become economically self-sufficient. For some territories, therefore, separate independence may not be a practicable option, and as an alternative the choice may lie between the following options:
i.
ii.
Federation
Where territories are small, weak and/or poor with minimal prospects of sustaining independence as separate entities, we could consider promoting their admission into a wider (eg federal) grouping of independent states. The process might be assisted by the offer of generous aid, and/or by offering a
consultative treaty arrangement to the federation
as a whole. But the disruptive effects of local chauvinism, and our own lack of success with federations in the past, suggests that this will not
often be an attractive choice either to us or to
the people of the territories.
Association or integration with a third power The prospects for a solution on these lines will be limited by the reluctance of other friendly powers to assume responsibilities which HMG seek to shed, and/or by parliamentary opposition to the surrender of territories to potentially oppressive powers, in the absence of guarantees which HMG might find it impracticable to give or to underwrite.
iii. United Nations Trusteeship
iv.
This option is unlikely to be acceptable to the UN itself; most UN members would oppose the assumption of the consequential financial burdens and administrative responsibilities; if HMG were named the administrative authority, our responsibilities
would remain in effect unchanged.
Abandonment
This would imply either leaving the inhabitants
in situ, provided that this would involve no threat to their lives, or sponsoring their evacuation to
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}