CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
DSR 11C
5. In his 1975 Despatch, Mr Callaghan referred to the policy he was setting out as "accelerated decolonisation". This expression appears to have led to a certain amount of misunderstanding. It was not intended to imply any intention to bring pressure to bear on territories to move
to independence more rapidly than they wanted to. It referred only to the policy of our seeking to create the conditions which would make independence possible. This remains our policy, as mentioned in paragraph 3 above. One of our principal instruments in pursuing that policy is of course our aid programme. As far as the dependent territories are concerned, our aid policy can be summarised
as follows:
as well
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e
6. We are also of course concerned to create the political
conditions that will make independence possible. The standard constitutional path to independence is now well established and has proved itself to be suitable even for very small states, such as Tuvalu, with populations of less than 10,000. But there are other problems to be resolved particularly those arising from the position of tiny indpendent states in the world today. We do not, for example, know to what extent small states are deterred from seeking independence by the disproportionate cost of member- ship of international organisations. The Commonwealth has recently introduced the concept of "special membership" for small states, under which they make only a nominal contri- bution to the Commonwealth budget but still enjoy all the rights and benefits of membership except the right to attend the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings. Nauru and Tuvalu have both opted for this type of membership. It is British Government policy at the moment not to attempt to persuade dependencies approaching independence to opt
/for this
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