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4. There is also the question of British-owned vessels of foreign registration. Sometimes these vessels have a much closer connexion with the UK than with the country of registration. Under the arrangements proposed in your draft, we would have no authority to provide guarantees in cases like these. Conversely, there may be ships which are UK-registered but foreign-owned and which have no connexion with the UK, apart from their registration, on whose behalf we would be expected to provide guarantees under the proposed arrangements. So far as I can see, no arrangement, short of all countries agreeing to give temporary asylum without demanding guarantees of other countries, is going to be perfect. I can see some problems if we recommend a rigid policy to give guarantees only on behalf of UK-registered ships. But I understand your need to draw the line somewhere and, from our point of view, if this really has to be done, then it should be drawn at UK- registered vessels (including those registered in ports of our overseas territories if it is confirmed that these vessels are, indeed, technically British).
5.
Given that there is no legal responsibility on any government to accept refugees and that our purpose is, first, to relieve the burden on Eritish shipping lines and, secondly, to see to it that the refugees themselves are treated in a humane way and relieved of their own anxiety and insecurity as far as possible, I believe our best course would be to aim to have some kind of flexibility, rather than a rigid policy, to enable us to deal with each case on its merits. I am not sure whether such a scheme would be acceptable to your Department or to the Home Secretary: you will be able to judge this. But if the Home Secretary could agree to the proposals in your draft submission and agree also to provide you with some discretion to give a guarantee in any special cases of non-UK registered vessels (which otherwise have a very close connexion with the UK), then this might well give us the flexibility we need to confront these problems. One could argue that British ship- owners who choose to register their vessels in foreign countries can have no right to expect us to help when they run into trouble over the landing of refugees, and we certainly consider that, in such circumstances, the country of registration should take on this responsibility. But as we all know, some countries are less humanitarian in attitude than others: Liberia, for example, has so
For far, as we know, shown a marked disinterest in these affairs. the sake of the refugees themselves, we should prefer a little flexibility to deal with cases of non-UK registered vessels where, nevertheless, British interests are closely involved.
6. We do not want to open any floodgates. Nor do we want to accept responsibility for refugees properly the concern of others, unless there is an overwhelming humanitarian case for so doing. The line has to be drawn somewhere. But the general public (and, I suspect, Ministers) are not going to understand when refugee children are picked up at sea by a ship with some sort of obvious British connexion and then start dying for lack of medical care because HMG washes its hands of them on some technicality of registration. A hypothetical example, but one, I suggest, could arise any day. Against this background, and given the
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