Reference.......
CONFIDENTIAL
L
Mr Hamylton Jones, GGD
FCO FAR 1973: FUTURE OF THE DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
1. I refer to your minutes of 14 and 15 January and Mr Goulden's minute of 16 January to Mr Hitch about the potential sea bed resources of the' dependent territories.
2. I agree that this is a factor which should be taken into account in reaching a decision on whether to grant independence to any territory, though any economic advantages of retention in such a situation could be outweighed by the
· political disadvantages. It would seem to be colonialism of the most blatant kind to hang on to territories because of their potential resources and strong pressures for independence might be expected to build up in any territory in such a situation.
3. I imagine it would be very expensive to commission exhaustive surveys of each territory prior to independence and given the advances in exploration techniques in recent years I doubt whether we could ever be certain that any dependent territory had no valuable resources. However, we should certainly take account of any surveys which had already been made.
4. We could not, of course, make any general predictions about the attitude of ex-colonies to the exploitation by British companies of resources found after independence. Much would depend on the circumstances of independence: there might be a fund of goodwill which would ensure that Britain had preference; equally there might be a legacy of bitterness which would ensure that we did not. Established British interests would not of course be immune from nationalisation after independence.
18 January 1974
00: WIAD
PDTD
HKIOD
Thun
DR MACLENNAN
Energy Department
CONFIDENTIAL
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