(16413) Dd.244353 100m 6/72 G.W.B.Ltd. Gp.863
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted. Unclassified.
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In Confidence
DRAFT
DESPATCH
Type 1 +
To:-
FROM
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
In his despatch HX2/1 dated 13 June 1975
Mr Callaghan addressed all Governors about
the policy of the British Government towards
the future of the dependent territories
whose status he described as "an anachronism".
Since then the pace of decolonisation, notably
in the Pacific and the Caribbean, has been
maintained. The Seychelles, Solomon Islands
and Tuvalu have become independent and
Dominica and St Lucia have become fully
independent by termination of their status
of association under the West Indies Act, 1967.
The Gilbert Islands is due to follow on
12 July and St Vincent on
The number of territories remaining dependent
upon the United Kingdom has diminished but
those which are left tend naturally to be
those where the problems, whether external
or domestic or merely geographic, are the
least tractable. It is therefore an
/appropriate