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increasingly prosperous Community for the advantage not only of the peoples of Western Europe, but for mankind as a whole, and the Commonwealth countries among them.
One has got to accept that this decision will have effects on our relationships with the Commonwealth and will create some problems to be solved. Somebody might say in reply to what I have just said that “it's easy to express hopes about the benefits that may come to your Commonwealth partners once you are in and have shut the door behind you. What are you going to do to mitigate the possible damage to their economic interests?" Before answering that question, I want to make two comments on what seems to be the assumption behind it. The first is that Commonwealth leaders themselves have accepted that what will be in our economic interest will eventually be in theirs too, as our trading partners. That is not just something that Britain is saying. Lee Kwan Yew, the pragmatic philosopher of the Commonwealth, in the Smuts Memorial Lecture last year at Cambridge said--" with the restoration of confidence in Britain's economic strength, she will then add to the strength of Western Europe, the Commonwealth and America", and it is interesting to see how similar statements-" a strong Britain means a strong Commonwealth ", were made at last year's Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference.
The other general comment I want to make on this question about what are we doing to mitigate possible damage to the Commonwealth, is this: the European Economic Community is not a haven whose benefits only Britain can enjoy. There are already moves in East and West Africa and elsewhere, Malta for example, which show that other Commonwealth countries recognise the advantages of being associated with the Market. The East African Community has already concluded a treaty which establishes reverse preferences against us. I will not say that we like that development, but we recognise that it is in line with the way the world is developing, that it was an arrangement they had made on a view of their interests and that we could not properly object to it. Neither can it be objected to us therefore, that we also, not alone among Commonwealth members, are recognising the important fact of the existence of the EEC and seeking to secure that relationship with it which is appropriate to us.
But of course our entry would, in the long term, alter the patterns of our trade and it would affect the system of Commonwealth preferences that operates at present. Commonwealth countries have done a good deal to diversify their trade since our original move to join the European Communities. But there do remain problems. We have obligations to our fellow Commonwealth members over these problems and we shall have them very much in mind in our approach to the Community. In the debate in the House of Commons, on 9 December last, I repeated that we should have a proper regard for our duty to our fellow members of the Commonwealth throughout the coming negotiations. I did not believe then and I do not believe now that the negotiations are likely to break down on that issue. Nor do I believe that it will be impossible for us to secure in the negotiations reasonable arrangements for those of our fellow members of the Commonwealth whose interests are likely to be most affected. The arrangements we would seek for safeguarding essential Commonwealth interests were set down in the statement which my predecessor, George Brown, made to Western European union in 1967-and that statement still stands.
Briefly, we have suggested as appropriate solutions: association under Part IV of the Treaty of Rome for our dependant territories, association as under the Yaoundé Convention for the independent countries of Africa and the Caribbean, and trading arrangements as agreed in principle during the 1961-63 negotiations for other developing countries. In addition, we have laid emphasis on safeguarding
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