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hence HMG had honoured any commitment, this is unlikely to cut
any ice if the individuals concerned in the dependencies are
determined to make political capital of the fact that they had
no knowledge of the bill's contents before publication.
3. It is greatly in our interests that we avoid taking any
action which would undermine local confidence in the
dependencies.
It would considerably ease the pressure on
Governors and help to disarm local critics if we could arrange
for some form of advance notification which have the semblance
of consultations and which the Governors could play at their
discretion.
4.
It would be unrealistic to suggest that we should send
the full text of the draft bill, which presumably would not,
in any case, be available until a short time before its
presentation to Parliament. What we have in mind is a summary
iskehr of the main provisions. Although we have a good idea by now
of the probable broad lines of the provisions, we can truth-
fully say that they are only proposals at this stage. If the
Governors could be authorised now to let their senior advisers
know what proposals are under consideration, it would
greatly defuse the issue. The risk of a leak is slight, but
in any event, we could always say, again truthfully, that
these are options under consideration and frame them in such
a way that nobody will be surprised that consideration is
being given to them. The later we leave it, the more likely
it is that we will be faced with having to admit that the
proposals are firm. By telling the dependent territories now
we are at least giving an opportunity for comment on features
which might present difficulties for them
though in fact we
do not expect to learn anything new and so do not expect
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