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EGISTRY NO. 51h
Mr Duff
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TERRITORIAL STUDIES
1.
28 JUL 17.i
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Thank you for copies of the near final drafts on the BVI and St Helena (your minute of 20 July). I note the probability of a wigwam discussion of their content. In the meantime here are some preliminary reactions.
British Virgin Islands
2. It would surprise me if the path to independence were quite as smooth as the paper suggests. Imagining myself as Chief Minister I cannot readily persuade myself that independence would be a rational step: it offers too many risks (a point we tried to bring out in the DTEU paper on Funding) and scarcely any benefits. In particular: -
3.
(a)
The BVI is too small (population 11,000) to attract international attention or sympathy. It is unlikely that other donors would step in following independence.
(b) The economy is based as your draft points out on tourism. I have recently seen evidence that the tourist industry in the BVI is much more fragile than we have hitherto supposed; the sector appears to be in financial deficit and to be kept going only by transfers from the USA. If the economy were to collapse or decline after independence there would be no guarantee of help from HG.
(c) The benefits of any independence package would be short-lived, and we would have difficulty (cf. Mr Stanley's comments) in offering this on other than hard repayment terms.
(d) The Wickham's Cay/Anegada bribe may turn out to be worth less than might appear at first sight. What matters is less the capital sum waived than the proportion of recurrent expenditure otherwice absorbed in servicing the debt and this may not amount to much of a burden. We have yet to fix terms for Anegada. In short, why not get out of budgetary aid, which is the most tiresome feature
// of the present relationship with Britain, and then decline further constitutional advance? This is apparently the position taken up by Bermuda and the Caymans, and it seems to me a perfectly sensible onc.
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hy
One aspect your draft does not touch on is the possibility of a link with the USVI. I have a dim recolloction that this was proposed and rejecten some years ago. If that is so, do the same factors still apply, or should the question be re-opened?
My final point is more fundamental. as you know I have never been convinced that accelerated decolonisation is either necessary or fe, ibie forlo
our Caribbean territories, and every time I encounter a statement .ch .. the one which begins paragraph 13 of the draft I write "Why?" in the rin and get out the 1973 PAR to remind myself of the answer. I last had scc:. Inn to cummarise the received wisdom when contributing to the briefing for Mr Cortazzi'o visit to Washington. I wrote as follows:-
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Dilu
27/2.
ODE 18. n
Confidential
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