ex-imperial citizens have the right of abode in Britain unless they
have some connection with Britain, that goes back to '62. The
inhabitants of India or Canada or any of the other imperial
territories, Hong Kong is now the last really, did not and have not
had the right of abode here since 1962. It is not I think a
parallel, nor are they at present happily refugees and our whole
effort is to secure for as far ahead as we can a decent life for
them in Hong Kong which secures their free form of life. And that
must be our duty, to try and do that when the lease runs out.
Q: Would in not perhaps be more constructive for Western countries
to argue that the kind of people who are now leaving East Germany, educated middle class, should actually stay where they are and work
for a more attractive East Germany where people would want to stay?
A: It's very easy for us to say that. But they have the right of
abode in the Federal Republic, the Federal Republic welcomes them
and it's not I think for us to give them lectures about what they
should or should not do.
Q: The flow of people from East Germany to West Germany has been seen as evidence of a broader malaise in Eastern Europe. It does seem that the post-war status quo is beginning to break up. There's been welcome in the West of this process of breaking up with the post-war status quo. But isn't it actually fraught with danger, a
kind of Pandora's Box that actually could have problems with it for Western Europe?
A: All change can have problems. But it would be incredibly timid of us if we did not welcome the fact that in Hungary and Poland we are now well on the way to getting properly elected Governments,
that the reactionary Stalinist Government in East Germany looks more
and more like a dinosaur, that the Czechs, underneath the surface in
Czechoslovakia there are beginning to be signs that change may come there, Western values, well it's not Western values, they're basic
values of Governments respecting human rights of their citizens, beginning to spread East, led and sheltered by the amazing changes
in the Soviet Union. We must surely welcome that, though of course in the transition, there are going to be some bumpy passages.
And,
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