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territories concerned.
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The following examples serve to illustrate the diversity and complexity of the problems confronting the dependent territories. There is over-population in the Seychelles accompanied by a high birth rate which slows the pace of economic and social development in a territory short of natural resources. In the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, with a total land area of only 383 square miles, scattered over 2 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean, difficulties of communication inhibit the development of central administrative machinery and hence any rapid improvement in economic and social conditions. The situation is further complicated by the fact that phosphate deposits on Ocean Island, which provide the principal source of revenue for the colony are expected to be exhausted within the next 7 or 8 years. Remote island communities such as Pitcairn (population 89) in the Pacific and Tristan da Cunha (population 270) are clearly non-viable economic units. The average age of the population is rising slowly but steadily in both places as the younger people emigrate to seek their livelihood elsewhere. Problems of a different nature altogether face
the territories in the West Indies. Some of these smaller
territories, in the shadow of the wealth of the United States,
are subject to influences and ideas from the North American
continent that would severely tax the political and economic resources of substantially larger communities. Although the prosperity brought to some of these islands through the development and growth of the tourist industry is welcome, it has not always proved to be an unmixed blessing. Such development has in some cases brought its own attendant
problems in sharply raising the cost of living to the disadvantage of the indigenous inhabitants, or creating acute shortages of labour and the necessity to employ immigrant
labour.
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Against this background, the eighteen remaining British dependent territories (for brief basic details each see background notes attached) scattered around the globe cannot be regarded as presenting a single problem susceptible of solution by a single panacaea. The dependent territories present 18 separate situations. The problems of each therefore require and receive individual consideration.
The political, economic and social conditions
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