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THE COMMONWEALTH SECRETARY said that, although he agreed generally with the Foreign Secretary's proposals, he considered that we should be wary of banning Spaniards from going to Gibraltar to work since to do this would cause very serious damage to the economy of the Colony. It was not certain that Moroccan workers, 500 of whom would be needed
even to operate essential services, would be forthcoming.
In discussion there was general agreement that we should not consider initiating retaliatory measures against Spain in the fields of trade or
tourism. As regards the imposition of restrictions on the number of non- scheduled flights from this country to Spain in 1968, this would damage
our own airline operators seriously without causing equal damage to Spain,
particularly as tourists would transfer to other airlines; the difficulty
was, however, that, although almost any retaliatory action open to us
would damage our interests, provocation by Spain might nevertheless force
us to take action.
In further discussion, it was agreed that consideration should be
given to improving our publicity on the record as colonial powers of
Spain and also Portugal, by comparison with our own. At present Spain
in particular enjoyed a good reputation in the United Nations, despite
her bad record. As a first step the Commonwealth Secretary night discuss
with Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, the United Kingdom Special Representative in
East and Central Africa, how best to improve the briefing on this matter
of High Commissioners of Commonwealth African countries.
The Committee
(1) Took note, with approval, of OPD(67) 56.
(2) Invited the Commonwealth Secretary to discuss with the United Kingdom Special Representative in East and Central Africa the briefing of High Commissioners of Commonwealth African countries on the facts of our colonial record by comparison with Spain, with particular reference to Gibraltar.
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