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to ensure adequate provision for the police. Tut in other dependencies where this power existed it could only effectively be used once since its use amounted to a suspension of the constitution. Governors would therefore have to soldier on, using such persuasion as they could to make adequate provision for maintaining law and order.
19. The Conference discussed the feasibility of paying budget- ary aid only after receiving satisfactory assurances that proper police forces would be maintained. This was thought to be impossible in Montserrat and the Caymans. Even if this arrange- ment were accepted locally, it carried the danger that the police would come to be regarded as the Governor's private force: local Ministers would never then accept proper responsibility for their police maintaining law and order for their country and people.
20. We should continue to think of the use of UK troops as the last possible option. Ministers would be unlikely to agree to this until they were satisfied that law and order had broken down. Since at that stage speed would be crucial the British garrison in Belize (as long as it was there); troops from Belize could be on the spot in a few hours. This possibility should accordingly be examined with MOD.
21. The OPA discussed the valuable help Chief Superintendent Radford (Metropolitan Police) had given to the Turks and Caicos and said he was available elsewhere if wanted. There was a short discussion on the need to identify and train tomorrow's commanders. These were not always obvious and several depend- encies would probably need a period with an expatriate chief or deputy while a middle grade officer was groomed for command.
AID
22. Mr Kirkness explained the function of the aid framework in establishing a balanced allocation of the available funds having regard to existing commitment and the priorities for the use of uncommitted funds whicharose from the aid strategy. That strategy put the main emphasis on aid for the poorest countries (ie those with a p/c GNP of under US$200) and as far as possible on the poorest people within such countries. This emphasis led to a concentration on.development in the rural areas, since it was in these that the greatest poverty was to be found. Against this it had to be accepted that scope for ideal rural projects did not exist in most of the islands. The Conference should nevertheless recognise that while OM Ministers accepted that the difficult circumstances of very small islands and the special needs of dependencies made it necessary to regard such territories as being to a large extent special cases, Ministers were bound to be anxious to reduce the aid programme to many of the Caribbean territories which had national income figures far above $200 a head.
The Framework
23. OAGS then examined the DevDiv proposals for development and budgetary aid for their territories in the next framework period up to 1980/81. The Conference noted that, in spite of
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