concerned so unequivocally expressed.
At the end of your letter you suggested that, if
we did not have the power to impose our policies in the
remaining Dependent Territories, we should pull down
the flag and leave.
It would be difficult to reconcile
such action with our well known attitude towards
decolonisation:
that our actions should be governed
entirely by the wishes of the people concerned.
Where
the majority of the pepple in a Dependent Territory
express a wish for independence, we give them every
help and encouragement to move towards it. But we do
not force independence on those who, like Bermuda,
believe they are not yet ready for it; though such
territories are encouraged to assume responsibility
for their own internal affairs.
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