TNAG-0835-FCO40-1043-Foreign-and-Commonwealth-Office-seminar-on-the-future-of-Bri-1979 — Page 69

we shall do everything possible to encourage territories that we believe capable of sustaining independence to move towards it. The arguments for and against this will be set out in more detail when the memroandum is submitted for Ministers' consideration. (I should perhaps confess that, after over

after over two years' dealing with this (to me) new question, I am becoming increasingly conservative and cautious).

4.

On the second point, I am asking the departments concerned to consider whether we are keeping other Governments in the Caribbean area as fully informed as is desirable of our plans for the future of the remaining Dependent Territories, and whether everything feasible is being done to promote regional cooperation.

5. On the third point, I believe the suspicion to be under- standable but unjustified. The speaker who made the point most forcibly himself quoted an example (the Gilbert Islands) where we quite clearly did not allow ourselves to be blinkered by precedents. Possibly the misapprehension arose because we chose to present the question of the future of our remaining Dependent Territories as a continuation of the decolonisation process that started with India in 1947. But it does not follow from this that we automatically adopt the same course in every case, and I hope that we persuaded the participants in the seminar that we can be flexible.

R. J. Stratton

RJ Stratton

22 October 1979