TNAG-0429-FCO40-494-Programme-Analysis-and-Review-(PAR)-Future-of-Dependent-Terr-1974 — Page 54

CONFIDENTIAL

3

representation in the Congress.

The federal Government has the

same rights and duties in these as in other States, and their

citizens pay full federal taxes, Alaska and Hawaii were the first

territories not contiguous to the continental United States to achieve statehood; otherwise they are only the most recent examples of the

process by which United States territories graduate to full membership

of the Union a process which includes a referendum in the territory.'

20. Northern Ireland, before 1920, was not strictly speaking a dependency. The relationship between Great Britain and Northern Ireland

established by the Government of Northern Ireland Act in that year is

none the less of considerable interest. Under it the Northern Irish are

represented, on a reduced scale, in the Westminster Parliament, which retains the constituent power, exclusive power to legislate in many matters, and unlimited but unused power to legislate in other matters. A number of U.K. Government departments operate in Northern Ireland; there is complete economic integration and broad parity of taxation and services. On the other hand Horthern Ireland has its own Cabinet, Parliament and civil service and a very wide neasure of autonomy.*

/21. The word 'integration' is also used to describe Portugal's relations with her overseas territories, which she regards as part of the Portuguese state. They are represented in the Portuguese National Assembly and since 1961 their inhabitants have been 'citizens of Portugal', though without full equality of rights with citizens of the metropolitan territory. In the overseas territories as in Portugal itself the executive wields the real power. What the Portuguese have done is to change the nomenclature of their colonial empire without altering the fundamental character of the relationship which hos deceived no one.

The proposals put forward between 1956 and 1958 for the integration of Malta with the United Kingdom followed the general lines of the Northam Ireland arrangements. At that time the Maltese, like alļ

'citizens of the U.K. and colonies', were entitled to enter Britain freely. Like Northern Ireland, Malta was to have had a quota of House of Commons constituencies but to have retained its om Premier, Cabinet end legislature. The powers of the U.K. Parliament in Malta were to have been more restricted, and those of the Malte Parliament correspondingly wider. In Malta, however, 'economic equivalence' could not, as in Northern Ireland, be taken for granted, and the negotiations in fact brcke dom mainly ever proposals for achieving economic equivalenco gradually over a period of years. Another point of difference was the Maltese demand for a standing option of independence, which Britain felt wable to concedo. The proposals vero put to the people of Malta in a referendum, but were not endorsed and were then withdramm.