CONFIDENTIAL
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(c)
(a)
whether any work has in fact ever been done on paper on this idea. I did not pursue it (see (b) below) but something may have been done before my time.
Mr. Warner wrote from UKMIS some months ago about the future of the dependent territories. The U.N.referred the papers to me and I remember minuting that, apart from more pressing occupations at the moment, I thought it better to await the result of the Crowther Commission on the organisation of government in the U.K. in case it flung up any ideas. I do not know whether the matter was pursued further after I minuted.
The alternative to independence, short of integration, is of course associated status. Caribbean Department have dealt with this subject in a memorandum on the Caribbean Commonwealth which has been prepared for a projected DOP meeting on 2 December. The analysis in that paper should be available to your Department in this connexion, though I have doubts whether Ministers would be prepared to consider associated status, at any rate until the Anguilla In this connexion problem has been successfully resolved.
Lord Shepherd on his visit to the Seychelles told Mr.René that the Seychelles could have associated status if it wishe but that the grant would be accompanied immediately by six months notice by us of our intention to terminate the association!
There is also a certain amount of material which is relevant and something of a gloss on the Thomson/Crowe doctrine. This has been built up dealing with the territory that refuses formally to ask for independence but behaves with a disregard of H.M.G's views, which would only be appropriate for a fully independent country. The material can be found in telegrams to the Bahamas Personal Nos. 98 and 99 of 24 September and in a letter I wrote with Ministerial authority to Mr. Mancham of the Seychelles immediately before the last Seychelles Constitutional Conference.
/(e)
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