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be represented in the House of Lords, or in some special organ such as a Privy Council Committee; or that individual territories should be included in a mainland county and parliamentary constituency; or again that for a small territory integration should mean economic equivalence with outlying islands of the United Kingdom. Any such arrangement could fairly be described as integration if it were intended by both sides to be the basis of a permanent union. Which arrangement would be suitable in any particular case is from our point of view a less important question than whether we wish to enter into a permanent union with remoto dependencies at all.
26.
As things stand no dependent territory has any reason to expect an offer of integration with Britain. Since the Malta negotiations broke down we have never encouraged demands for integration and have often discouraged them. As regards integration therefore it lies with us to make the first nove if one is to be made.
27. If we were prepared to offer it, sone form of integration would probably be the best solution for Seychelles (population 47,000), the Cayman Islands (population 9,000), the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (population 53,000), St. Helena (population 5,000) and Tristan da Cunha (population 200). The economies of these small territories (except for the Cayman Islands which ero self-supporting) are likely to be dependent on British aid for the indefinite future. Life there is dull
and narrow. The population are not interested in independence;
their main desire is for assurances that we shall not abandon then, and the prospect of free entry into Britain would alse make integration very attractive to them. On the one
hand we should have te concede
on the other we should in some
free entry and some increased aid;
sense have wound up some of the most intractable of our colonial problems. Union with these territories would involve no very serious additional commitments for us.
28.
But we should almost certainly then face demands for integration from some or all of the following: Gibraltar (population 25,000), Mauritius (population 751,000) and British Honduras (population 106,000) (unless they had meanwhile become independent), Fiji (population 464,000), the Falkland Islands (population 2,000), Montserrat (population 13,000) and no doubt the Associated States, though it should not be too difficult to refuse the latter. The first five represent current military commitments that no British Government would wish to make permanent, however ready we may be to honour our present obligations to them.
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