TNAG-0429-FCO40-494-Programme-Analysis-and-Review-(PAR)-Future-of-Dependent-Terr-1974 — Page 27

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of locally elected governments with increasing responsibility for their own internal affairs, but have also sought to avoid the situation in which we are left with responsibility for a dependency's affairs without the power to control them We have no need to be

•

ashamed of our record: indeed we have a right to be proud of it. But in practice our role has tended to be limited to one of response to initiatives by the territories them- selves or by third parties; we have sought to minimise embarrassment to the UK, in effect to keep the dependent territories out of the headlines. It would be timely now formally to define our policy objectives for each dependent territory, both on constitutional development and on aid, taking into account the practical constraints referred to in paragraph 5b. and 7 above, the

interests and wishes of the inhabitants of the

territories themselves, and of course the interests of the

UK.

Interests of the UK

9.

As indicated in paragraph 2 above, the cost to the UK of retaining the territories as dependencies is essentially unquantifiable: it is political rather than financial. Indeed a review carried out by officials in 1973 demonstrated that the extra financial cost of continued dependency, in so far as it can be identified, is comparatively insignificant, and would in any case never be a determining or even a major factor in policy decisions on the political future of any territory. Against this, in the case of at least some of the territories we have to weigh the advantages of the dependent status to the UK in the fields of defence, communications, economy and scientific research, and other side benefits such as those obtained from the US as

a quid pro quo for access to facilities in the dependent territories. From the selfish point of view of UK interests, however, on balance, with the exception of the territories listed in paragraph 5a above, it is more often likely to be in our interests to relinquish responsibility for our remaining dependencies than to retain it. This conclusion is consistent with well- established trends of political evolution and

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