TNAG-0714-FCO40-910-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1978 — Page 82

CONFIDENTIAL

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5.. I feel a White Paper will be very flabby if it has no firm proposals and surely we would be expected to include in it our ideas for the future of each dependency. The device of grouping is thin and does not make it any easier to define answers. A White Paper would invite a debate and we are not ready for one. I do not see therefore that we are in a position to publish any- thing more than a discussion paper and an address to the right audience might be preferable.

6. As to the policy itself, I strongly support what has been said about;

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a) the danger of trying to force feed into regionalism; b) the wrongness of deciding policy mainly on a mercenary cost/benefit basis. Maybe we shall be left with some permanently pensionable islands. If this is proved to be the wish of the people let us accept the burden and bear it with imagination;

c) for the qualified but reluctant we must watch that we do not concede constitutional advance that leaves us responsibility without power (an active issue in Belize 3-4 years ago and now coming up in Bermuda and perhaps the Caymans).

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8 March 1978.

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PC Duff

West Indian and Atlantic Department

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