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Integration and Disintegration: The Attempted Incorporation of Malta into the United Kingdom in the 1950s

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03086530601143396

1743-9329

Simón C. Smith,

Global Maritime and Colonial Histories

Abstract Existing interpretations stress that challenges to British interests elsewhere in the Mediterranean were central to Britain's initial support for Maltese incorporation into the United Kingdom. Through a close examination of official British records, this article demonstrates, by contrast, that Britain saw integration primarily as a means of solving the complex constitutional and financial problems which had impeded smooth Anglo-Maltese relations since the restoration of responsible government in 1947. Equally, the waning of British enthusiasm for integration can be traced to concerns about the costs of the scheme, especially in the face of Maltese insistence on ‘economic equivalence’, rather than to any downgrading of Malta's importance in the wake of the 1956 Suez debacle. The Maltese premier Dom Mintoff's insistence on equivalence as the price of integration and Britain's equal determination to resist such claims provide the key to explaining the scheme's demise. Ultimately, Malta followed a more conventional path to independence within the Commonwealth by September 1964. Acknowledgement This article draws on research undertaken for the Malta volume of the British Documents on the End of Empire Project. Notes 1. The islands in question were Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion and French Guiana. 2. Pirotta, Fortress Colony: Volume II, 25–26. 3. Holland, European Decolonization, 261. 4. Austin, Malta and the End of Empire, 31–32. 5. Pirotta, Fortress Colony: Volume II, 26–27. See also, Pirotta, ‘The Attempt to Integrate Malta with the United Kingdom’, 80. 6. Austin, Malta and the End of Empire, 32; Pirotta, Fortress Colony: Volume II, 27; Pirotta, ‘The Attempt to Integrate Malta with the United Kingdom’, 80. 7. Boissevain, Saints and Fireworks, 13. 8. ‘Future status of Malta’: Cabinet memorandum by Maxwell and Lyttelton, 14 April 1954, CAB 129/67, C(54)141, The National Archives (TNA), Kew. 9. Minute by J. A. Sankey (assistant principal), 23 Dec. 1954, CO 926/287, TNA. 10. Minutes of a meeting between the UK delegation and the Maltese government delegation, 27 June 1955, OPM 512/1955, National Archives of Malta (NAM). 11. ‘The Mintoff plan’: memorandum by the Colonial Office for the Cabinet (Official) Committee on Malta, 28 July 1955, CAB 134/1296, MC(O)(55)3. 12. Letter no 250 from Laycock to Alan Lennox-Boyd, 5 Aug. 1955, PREM 11/1432, f. 31, TNA. 13. ‘Foreign experiments in the “integration” or “closer association” of overseas dependencies and metropolitan countries’: paper by Kenneth Robinson, 12 Aug. 1955, para. 19, CAB 134/1296, MC(O)(55)21. 14. Robinson, ‘Alternatives to Independence’, 245. 15. Aldrich and Connell, France's Overseas Frontier, 286. 16. Ibid., 282. See also Aldrich, Greater France, 309. 17. Letter from Mintoff to Eden, 21 June 1956, PREM 11/1433, f. 118. 18. Telegram no 249 from Laycock to Lennox-Boyd, 25 June 1956, ibid., f. 106. 19. ‘Brief for His Excellency's visit to London on 23 Feb 1956’, Papers of Trafford Smith, box 5, file 4, MSS Brit Emp s. 530, Rhodes House Library, Oxford. 20. Financial statement covering the year in the legislative assembly by Mintoff, 5 Nov. 1956, OPM 29/1955. 21. ‘Malta: economic equivalence’: memorandum by Lennox-Boyd for the Cabinet Committee on Colonial Policy, 15 Nov. 1956, CAB 134/1202, CA(56)32. 22. Minute from Lord Perth to Harold Macmillan, 22 Feb. 1957, CO 926/692, PM(57)8, no 26, enclosure. 23. Ibid. 24. Telegram no 93 from Lennox-Boyd to Laycock, 29 March 1957, PREM 11/1932. 25. Letter from Mintoff to Macmillan, 30 March 1957, ibid. 26. Holland, European Decolonization, 262. 27. Howe, ‘British Decolonization and Malta's Imperial Role’, 352. 28. Minute by Bennett, 11 March 1948, CO 158/566/89036/9. 29. Minute by Bennett, 22 Aug. 1951, CO 158/586/89036/1. 30. Minute by P A Carter (assistant principal, Colonial Office), 23 May 1951, CO 158/567/89036/10/1. 31. Minute by Henry Hopkinson, 24 June 1953, CO 926/93, no 8. 32. Cabinet memorandum by Lyttelton, 28 July 1953, CAB 129/62, C(53)218. 33. ‘Future status of Malta’: Cabinet memorandum by Maxwell Fyfe and Lyttelton, 14 April 1954, CAB 129/67, C(54)141. 34. Minute by Morris, 17 June 1953, CO 926/93. 35. Minute by Martin, 18 June 1953, ibid. 36. Minute by Carter, 21 Nov. 1949, CO 537/4956. 37. Letter from Creech Jones to Sir Gerald Creasy, 25 Nov. 1949, ibid., no 49. 38. Minute by Martin, 15 Oct. 1952, CO 926/110. 39. Minute by Bennett, 15 Oct. 1952, ibid. 40. Cabinet conclusions, 30 June 1955, CAB 128/29, CM 19(55)10. 41. Minute from Macmillan to Eden, 2 July 1955, PREM 11/1432, f. 552. 42. ‘Advantages of integration’: paper by the Colonial Office, 8 Aug. 1955, CAB 134/1296, MC(O)(55)8. 43. Responding to the argument that HMG remained indebted to Malta as a result of wartime service, J. S. Bennett had asserted as early as 1948 that ‘we cannot go on admitting an unspecified moral obligation for ever’. Minute by Bennett, 11 March 1948, CO 158/566/89036/9. 44. Malta Round Table Conference 1955: Report, Cmd. 9657, 1955, p. 21, para. 82. 45. ‘Malta:’ Lord Boyd interviewed by Sir John Martin, 31 July 1975, Papers of Alan Lennox-Boyd, MSS Eng c 3432, f. 122, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 46. Minute from Kilmuir to Eden, 26 Oct. 1955, CAB 134/1295, MC(55)9. 47. Round Table Conference 1955: Report, Cmd. 9657, 1955, p. 21, para. 80. 48. ‘Interview with Archbishop of Malta’: minute by Sir Arthur Dawe, 11 Sept. 1945, CO 158/558/89786. 49. Note by Bennett, 25 Sept. 1950, CO 158/590/89844/22, no 7. 50. Letter no 248 from Laycock to Lennox-Boyd, 4 Aug. 1955, FO 371/117998/RV 1781/10, TNA. 51. Memorandum by Laycock, [Oct 1955], CO 926/321, no 127, enclosure. 52. Minute from Lennox-Boyd to Eden, 9 Feb. 1956, PREM 11/1432, PM(56)11, ff. 26–27. 53. Letter from Stuart to Eden, 14 March 1956, PREM 11/1491, ff. 6–7. 54. Minutes of a meeting of the Cabinet Colonial Policy Committee, 17 Feb. 1956, CAB 134/1201, CA 9(56)1. 55. Williams, Diary of Hugh Gaitskell, 470. 56. Established under the constitution of the Fourth Republic in 1946, the Union Française consisted of metropolitan France and the overseas départements and territories, on the one hand, and associated territories and states, on the other. The overseas regions elected members to the French parliament, although not in proportion to their populations. A Union assembly with consultative powers was also set up. 57. ‘Future status of Malta’: Cabinet memorandum by Maxwell Fyfe and Lyttelton, 14 April 1954, CAB 129/67, C(54)141. In an interview given in retirement, Lyttelton (then Lord Chandos) produced a similar line of argument. Recording of an interview given on 27 Feb. 1970 by Lord Chandos, MSS Brit Emp s. 525, Rhodes House Library, Oxford. 58. ‘Future status of Malta’: Cabinet memorandum by Maxwell Fyfe and Lyttelton, 14 April 1954, CAB 129/67, C(54)141. 59. Minute by Bennett, 10 March 1955, CO 926/292. 60. Letter from Brittain to Sir Thomas Lloyd, 22 Aug. 1955, CO 926/249, no 19. 61. ‘The costs of applying United Kingdom scales of government civil expenditure to Malta’: note by the Economic Section, Treasury, for the Cabinet (Official) Committee on Malta, 6 Aug. 1955, CAB 134/1296, MC(O)(55)12. 62. Minute by A. N. Galsworthy, 18 Aug. 1955, CO 926/319. 63. Minute from Brook to Eden, 4 July 1955, PREM 11/1432, f. 537. 64. Ibid., f. 538. 65. ‘Smaller colonial territories’: memorandum by Lennox-Boyd, 7 Sept. 1955, annex B, CAB 134/1295, MC 2(55)5. 66. Cabinet memorandum by Lord Kilmuir, 13 Sept. 1955, CAB 129/77, CP(55)121. 67. Cabinet conclusions, 15 Sept. 1955, CAB 128/29, CM 31(55)1. 68. Eden, Full Circle, 388. 69. Murphy, Alan Lennox-Boyd, 125. 70. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 550, 26 March 1956, cols 1797, 1801, 1824, 1871, 1873, 1868, 1917. 71. Letter from Mintoff to Gaitskell, 28 March 1956, OPM 190/1956, no 93. 72. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 550, 26 March 1956, cols 1810, 1814, 1903, 1839, 1913. 73. Malta Round Table Conference 1955: Report Cmd 9657, 1955, p. 27. 74. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 550, 26 March 1956, cols 1820–26. 75. Catterall, Macmillan Diaries, 444. 76. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 28 March 1956, vol. 550, cols 2157–58. 77. Howe, ‘British Decolonization and Malta's Imperial Role’, 352. 78. ‘The strategic importance of Malta’: Chiefs of Staff Committee report, 28 June 1957, DEFE 5/76, COS(57)150 annex, TNA. 79. ‘The strategic importance of Malta’: Chiefs of Staff Committee report, 25 April 1958, DEFE 5/83, COS(58)122 annex. 80. Agreement on Mutual Defence and Assistance between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Malta 1964, Cmnd 3110, 1966; Agreement on Financial Assistance between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Malta, 21 September 1964, Cmnd 3111, 1966. 81. Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Malta with respect to the Use of Military Facilities in Malta, 26 Mar 1972, Cmnd 4943, 1972. 82. Letter from Sir Gerald Creasy to Creech Jones, 5 Dec. 1949, CO 537/4956, no 50. 83. Telegram no 76 from Lennox-Boyd to Laycock, 30 April 1955, CO 926/249, no 7. 84. 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Record of a meeting at the office of the prime minister, Malta, 26 April 1957, CO 926/694, no 132. 102. ‘Malta: the naval dockyard’: memorandum by Lennox-Boyd, 13 Nov. 1957, CAB 129/90, C(57)268. 103. Note of a meeting in the first lord's room at the Admiralty, 19 Dec. 1957, CO 926/855, no 312; Telegram no 103 from Lennox-Boyd to colonial attaché, Washington, 24 Dec. 1957, ibid., no 318. 104. Times of Malta, 31 Dec. 1957. 105. Letter from Lambe to Lord Selkirk, 21 Feb. 1958, ADM 1/27145, TNA. 106. Letter from Selkirk to Lambe, 5 March 1958, ibid. 107. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 585, col. 1040, 1 April 1958. 108. Record of a meeting between Lennox-Boyd and Mintoff, 10 March 1958, CO 926/790, no 5. 109. Cabinet conclusions, 11 March 1958, CAB 128/32, CC 21(58)1. 110. Minute from Lennox-Boyd to Macmillan, 21 March 1958, CO 926/790, PM(58)4, no 36. 111. Pirotta, Fortress Colony: Volume II, 448. 112. Ibid., Volume III, 58. 113. 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