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My own role here is to outline the main considerations
that guide government policy, and to pose some of the questions.
I do not propose to prescribe answers, but I will try to set the
questions in the context of those constraints which we perceive
as limiting the choices open to us.
The underlying policy is, I think, no longer contro-
versial. It is the policy that successive British governments,
of whatever party, have been following since the end of the war:
the policy of recognising the right of human beings everywhere to
self-determination, the right to choose their own government and
not have a government from outside their borders imposed on them
It is also the least that the rest of the
against their will. [It
world expects of us: colonialism is very unfashionable
ole]
Does this mean that our aim should be to end our
colonial relationship with our remaining dependent territories as
quickly as possible, irrespective of circumstances?
A case can
be made for that course. But it is the Government's belief, as
it was of our predecessors, that to pull out regardless would be
a dereliction of our responsibilities towards the people who live
in the territories.
Our starting point must clearly be the wishes of those
people. If they want independence they must clearly be given
every help and encouragement. But there may be difficulties in
establishing what the wishes of the people are.
In theory it should be easy. There are so few people
involved that it ought to be possible to find out what all of them
think. In the eight territories on which we are concentrating in
this seminar there are, altogether, fewer than 120,000 people,
/less
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