Fog Over The Falklands

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31867, 20 December 1968, Page 12

Fog Over The Falklands

The British Foreign Secretary (Mr Stewart) has failed to reassure those who have expressed concern over the future of the Falkland Islands. Mr Stewart must know that the Argentine Government’s claim to the islands, which lie in the South Atlantic some 300 miles off Argentina, is even less tenable than Spain s claim to Gibraltar. Argentina, claiming to be Spain’s “ colonial successor ”, demands sovereignty because of contiguity and because an Argentinian colonising party was expelled from the islands by the British in 1834.

Mr Stewart has denied reports that Britain, for trading reasons, is prepared to bargain with Argentina over the future of the colony. Such reports, he says, are no more than “ fairy tales ”. If this is so. why should there be any need for discussion about the status of the islands? Why did Lord Chalfont in his capacity as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, go to Stanley, chief town in the islands, to “explain ” Britain’s position to the islanders, and. then call at Buenos Aires for talks with Argentina’s Foreign Minister. Dr Mendez? When Lord Chalfont was questioned on his return from the islands in he repeated what had been said time and' again by the Foreign Office: “ There “ will be no transfer of sovereignty against the “ wishes of the islanders ”, The wishes of the islanders ba we been made crystal clear: like the Gibraltarians, they insist on remaining British.

It is odd. in the circumstances, that Mr Stewart should have said that the purpose of Lord Chalfont’s visit to Stanley was “to describe progress and “ explain the way in which the British Government “ is handling the matter ”. Lord Chalfont, it appears, painted a gloomy picture of the colony’s prospects, particularly if the price of wool, on which it has virtually depended for the last 150 years, should remain depressed. He gave the islanders little encouragemeort for their hopes that Britain might increase its economic aid: and he appears to have said nothing about proposals for the establishment of a seaweed-processing industry, on which considerable hopes have been placed.

The islanders, all of British stock, must feel, after Lord Chalfont’s visit and Mr Stewart’s unconvincing explanation of it, less secure now than at any time since Argentina asserted a claim to sovereigntv—largely in the hope of distracting attention from domestic difficulties. The impression has been given that the Foreign Office finds responsibility for the islands, weak economically and now unimniortant strategically, something of a nuisance. It has been noted that the recent visit of Queen Elizabeth and her husband to South America was not extended to give the islanders the pleasure of greeting them.

The 20PO Falklanders like their life and their British associations. It should be made clear to them —and to Argentina—that these ’associations will continue unless the islanders voluntarily seek a change. A British surrender of the Falklands would undoubtedly encourage Spain -to press its claim to Gibraltar even more firmly and strengthen the resolution of Venezuela and Guatemala in demanding sovereignty over parts of Guyana and British Honduras. *