Registry
No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret,
Secret.
Confidential
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
DRAFT
DESPATCH
To:-
Governors
Dependent Territories
POLICY TOWARDS DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
Type 1 +
From
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
DSR 11
I now
1. In his Despatch HX 2/1 of 13 June 1975, Mr James Callaghan set out our policy towards the future of our remaining dependent territories, following a review by ODM and FCO Ministers. That Despatch ended by saying that separate studies would be undertaken to determine what the policy meant in each individual territory. attach as an Annex to this Despatch an analysis of the prospects for each remaining territory with the exception of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has been excluded from this review because its political and economic circumstances are so special that it is being made the subject of a
separate study.
We
2. Our guiding principle continues to be that the wishes of the people concerned should be paramount. shall encourage and in every way assist towards independence those territories where this is feasible and in accordance
with the clearly expressed wish of the majority of the population, but shall not force independence on those territories which do not want it or cannot sustain it. The acceptance of this principle is not without cost to the UK. As long as we retain any dependent territories, we shall be accepting a political risk the risk that responsibility for the affairs of dependent territories will bring us into conflict with other states to the detriment of wider UK interests. This is already the case of course in Belize, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. But the risk exists wherever we retain responsibility for a territory's defence and external relations. There are
other costs as well for example our responsibility for internal security could lead to our having to divert
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
/resources
1