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e.g. the Anglo-French condominium of the New Hebrides. In two instances, the British Antarctic Territory and the British Indian Ocean Territory, which have no permanent populations, the question of constitutional development does not arise.
3. I should like to recall the principal developments over the past year in promoting constitutional advance in the remaining Dependent Territories. Seychelles, it will be recalled, became independent on 29 June 1976. The Solomon Islands achieved internal self-government in January 1976. My Rt Hon and Noble Friend, the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, will chair an independence conference in London beginning on 6 September to set the date for independence (subject to the approval of Parliament) and to decide on the content of the independence constitution. The territory is expected to become independent in 1978. The Gilbert Islands achieved self government at the beginning of this year and, provided the idea has the support of the electorate at the next election, independence is likely to take place in 1978. Elections are to take place in Tuvalu, formerly the Ellice Islands, in late Aguust. Provided the electorate is in favour, independence is likely to occur in 1978. The target date for independence of the present House of Assembly is
1 October 1978. In the case of the New Hebrides, agreement
was reached between ourselves and our French colleagues earlier this month on a system of internal self- government to be set up in the first months of 1978 and, subject to the agreement of the New Hebriddans in a referendum next year, independence would be proclaimed in 1980. In short, we expect that all the dependent territories in the Pacific, except Pitcairn, will have become independent by the early 1980s.
4.
In the Caribbean, new constitutions, which provide for a greater degree of internal responsibility, were introduced in the Turks and Caicos Islands in 1976 and in the case of the British Virgin Islands in June of this
year. Earlier this month the Government of Bermuda published a Green Paper on Independence Dommen
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