CONFIDENTA LA L
becoming increasingly difficult to persuade the legislature to vote money for proper police services. Cuba was the big bogey and an independent Cayman Islands Government would need defence assurances. Perhaps the U Government and the United Nations would in time accept a share of responsibility for micro-states, just as Australia and New Zealand were facing up to new responsibilities in the Pacific.
Montserrat
As a new-comer ir Jones found Montserrat society confusing with the unusually close connections between the civil service and business. There was some agricultural potential but because of uncertain markets it was hard to decide what to grow. Island society was conservative and stratified. The people were too suspicious of Antigua at present to consider any kind of political union. Nevertheless, independence and economic viability were real possibilities.
Turks and Caicos
This group of islands felt themselves not so much a Caribbean entity as a poor extension of southern Miami. Although distributing British aid is the mafor industry, the British connection was not seen logically. The islands remained a British dependency because of a series of negative choices: not to join with Jamaica and later with the Bahamas. They had no proper identity. Their yardstick of expectancy was the life style seen in waterside Florida. Disappointment in their
economic achievements had led them to betition to become a Canadian colony. There was potential for tourism but this would need large external inputs. There was no wish for independence but some Ministers might be tempted to seek it if sweetened with enough dollars.
Belize
The Belize/Guatemala problem was not discussed but Belize's constitutional experience was instructive. It showed the problems in the constitutional relationship between Governor and elected Ministers which has had to remain frozen for too lɔnɛ.
This was a warning that we should resist giving away the last stages of constitutional power until a date for independ- ence was clearly seen. Nor should Je surrender control of the civil service. Once this is done, it will become wholly orientated to the government in power. The meeting then dis- cussed how each territory might move to independence.
THE PATH TO INDEPENDENCE
Mr Stanley outlined our dilemma. Hitherto we had been following the classic decolonisation path with more advanced constitutions being introduced at intervals - without any assurance of reaching its end: independence, we were therefore moving progressively into an ultimately untenable position: retaining responsibility while shedding the powers we needed to exercise it. Indeed it would be said that we were already in this position. For example we had surrendered the power to pass a budget in Montserrat and even the other Dependencies where OAGS still had the necessary reserved legislative powers they could be used once only, because use of the reserve powers would have the effect of nullifying the constitution.
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