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Come half conclusions
should be directed to achieve reasonable (undefined) level of economic self-sufficiency, even though we no longer demand economic self-sufficiency before granting independence.
We must get others to share our burden. (How?) US and Venezuela could do more.
Aid management is an appropriate tool in preparing dependent terri- tories for independence but its success will require unwelcome decisions by the donor denying help for many local pet schemes.
Aid should be directed to help create a competent political and economic structure with good quality management. The comparatively small sums involved should not be cut. Aid should also provide the support infrastructure for investment.
What about handing over territories with poor prospects to a management group with an incentive to show an annual profit?
SESSION 3: THE PROBLEMS OF SMALL STATES AND ALTERNATIVES TO
INDEPENDENCE
Smallness
Small states have much more open economies, more dependent on external trade and (providing they have good communications) with a relatively high number of people moving in and out. They suffer from dis-economies of smallness: normal services are relatively much more expensive to provide, and many specialised skills are simply not available in small communities. Certain problems that exist in any society can assume exaggerated significance in a small country e.g. if two key people happen not to like each
other.
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Alternatives to Independence
Various possibilities for regional cooperation were discussed, including the possibility of resurrecting the Leeward Islands Federation. But past history of such groupings is not encouraging, and Britain would almost certainly have to make a substantial, and continuing, contribution to the cost of including the dependencies in any such scheme. Federations are therefore best left for con- sideration after independence when the territories can participate on a basis of constitutional equality.
Almost any alternative to independence raises the spectre of respon- sibility without power. Even when reserve powers exist, there is reluctance to use them.
For the five Caribbean territories, the only long term solution must be independence, though possibly within a regional framework. For Pitcair, the future must lie in evacuation probably to Australia or New Zealand. This would then leave us with the problem of what to do with an unpopulated territory - a question outside the scope of the present seminar. Bermuda is clearly capable of becoming independent and the events of 1977 have provided the catalyst that have set it on that path. For St Helena, some sort of integration on the Channel Islands pattern might be feasible, though we should
/need