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5. Mr Davidson, the Governor of the British Virgin Islands, is
concerned over his responsibility in deciding on the death penalty.
Mr Davidson himself is opposed to capital punishment and would like
to commute. He also points out that there is an anomaly between the
non-use of capital punishment by the metropolitan power and its
retention in a number of very small dependencies; he regards it as
unreasonable that Governors should be required to take decisions
previously exercised in the United Kingdom by a Cabinet Minister.
At the same time he recognises that the British Virgin Islanders
generally favour the death penalty. There were strong protests in
1978 when Mr Davidson's predecessor commuted a sentence.
Moreover,
one of the current British Virgin Islands cases concerns two men
from outside the Islands against whom the locals are likely to feel
particularly strongly.
6. Mr Davidson called on Mr Ridley on 8 September. The discussion
was not recorded in detail but Mr Deare's minute of 10 September
reports Mr Ridley's direction that the subject should be aired among
FCO Ministers and that Cabinet colleagues should be made aware of the
problems likely to arise over individual cases.
Argument
7. The points raised by Mr Davidson do not alter the basis on which
Ministers took their decision earlier this year. There is some force
in the argument that territories with populations as small as an
English provincial town should not retain a say on so fundamental
a question. But this comes up against the main argument that the
relationship between the centre and dependencies is based on their
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