TNAG-0429-FCO40-494-Programme-Analysis-and-Review-(PAR)-Future-of-Dependent-Terr-1974 — Page 56

CONFIDENTIAL

or exclusive to integration. Until recently for instance all

'citizens of the U.K. and colonies' had an equal right of entry

into Britain; Portuguese as well as French colonial territories are represented in the metropolitan legislatures; while the mixture of local autonomy and control by netropolitan governments is common to most colonial empires. Moreover, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are important exceptions, because they are nearer in size to

the territories with which we are concerned and because they provide procedents for integration relationships within the field of British

public law.

24.

Outside the purely constitutional and legal field, however,

all these relationships have a further important common feature. They are all intended to be close and lasting, and each represents a

deliberate choice by both parties to come together in a permanent

union.

From the point of view of a metropolitan state integration

with a dependency means the acceptance of increased and permanent

commitments. In a major war there might, it is true, be little difference between what we could do to defend Seychelles, as a

dependent territory, and what we could do for then as part of the

United Kingdom; but in almost any other emergency there would be a

considerable difference between the help we should feel obliged to

give to a separate territory, on the one hand, or to an integral

part of the United Kingdom on the other. Integration would mean

formally renouncing any intention of withdrawing from the territory

concerned; and the longer the relationship lasted, the more

difficult withdrawal would in all probability become, as personal

links multiplied and strengthened and the two economies grew closer

together. Disintegration would be more painful and disgraceful

than decolonization. The 'junior' territory must also make a

permanent commitment, renouncing any separatist anbitions, since a metropolitan state could not be expected to make the adjustments

that would be required in its own constitution and undertake these

increased commitments if there were any uncertainty about the future

of the arrangement.

Compromise forms of integration

25. Indeed, provided both sides intend it to be permanent, the

details of the constitutional union are not important. It has been

suggested for instance that British dependent territories night

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