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whether to make available aid with the ultimate objective of promoting economic independence at tolerable standards of living, or alternatively to provide more aid aiming at rather higher stan- dards than the country is ever likely to be able to support, and accepting that this may commit us to indefinitely continued financial aid, incompatible with economic independence. Although the circum- stances, needs and resources of individual territories differ widely, and these questions have therefore to be considered and answered
separately in relation to each, it is possible to state two general principles within which this should be done:
a.
b.
20.
We should consciously adopt a policy of "accelerated de- colonisation", that is, to seek where possible to relinquish our responsibilities for our remaining Dependent Territories as soon as we can create the necessary conditions to make this practicable in each case, except for those territories which we may wish to keep as dependencies for our own purposes (BAT, BIOT and St Helena/Ascension Island), and also Hong Kong.
We should devote the major part of our aid to investment in projects and programmes designed to make better use of local resources and to increase future income and employment, but
in the few territories which are considered unlikely ever to
become viable, it will be necessary to determine the level
of services which HMG can continue to support more or less indefinitely. Only the very poorest territories should be considered for inclusion in the second group (inclusion should not necessarily be assumed on the grounds that progress towards viability could involve some reduction in standards of social services now enjoyed). The alternative, given present population trends, could prove to be an increasingly expensive commitment on aid for social infrastructure by the 1980's.
If these principles are accepted, it is recommended that, with the exception of Hong Kong, individual studies, territory by territ- ory, be set in hand immediately:
1.
to define the political objectives appropriate to each territory, and
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