officers whose employment is brought to an end—and those are the people one has to consider most, because we hope that the majority will be taken on by the territories—and also for securing the obligations towards past and present Federal officers, which brings in the whole question of the pension funds, which have a life of about fifty or sixty years and have not been operating for very long. Those, therefore, are all matters of considerable complexity and importance which I hope we shall start working on immediately, as I shall describe in a moment. As I say, this is the big human problem which we must solve to the satisfaction both of the officers and ourselves.
I now come to the portion of the White Paper which is, perhaps, the most complex, and which I shall deal with very shortly—the Federal assets and liabilities, including public debt, dealt with in Chapter IV of the White Paper. Here, the Federal Government really had done their homework, and submitted a massive memorandum. It took the line that as the dissolution of the Federation was an exercise of Britain's sovereign power, Britain should, in the interests of the territories, and of the creditors, assume responsibility for the Federal Government's financial obligations, including the public debt. They went on to say that Britain should look to the territories for reimbursement on a scale related to the territories' assets and revenues.
We were somewhat relieved that both the Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia Governments were willing to take over their own fair share of Federal liabilities and public debt, but they reserved their position as to how this could be assessed until the post-conference machinery had reported. I said, as chairman, and leader of the British delegation, that although the acceptance of Federal liabilities would impose a burden on the territories, many valuable assets would also pass to the territories; that the right approach to the whole question was to start from the connection between assets and liabilities and, in that way, to work out what the territories could bear.
To put it in very simple English, that means that if a hospital is transferred, the liability goes with the hospital. Similarly, with roads or other assets that may be transferred there is to be a working out of the assets and liabilities and then an assessment of what the territory can bear as a result of this complicated mechanism. I therefore reserved the position of Her Majesty's Government by saying that when the time came the attitude of the British Government would have to be considered in the light of our general policies on overseas aid. That is summarised in the conclusion of Chapter IV of the White Paper.
The conference then agreed that the whole matter should be referred to a committee to be set up under the post-conference machinery. When I describe the terms of the Bill, I shall give a further indication of how we propose that that shall be done. I think that I can safely say, however, that, considering the short time, some progress was made on this important matter.
Another important chapter in the White Paper refers to the transfer of money and taxation functions. While we were at the Falls we set up a subcommittee of the conference to report on this, and to take account of an extremely able report by the Finance Minister of Northern Rhodesia. The sub-committee reported, and the conference agreed, that the attention of the post-conference machinery should be directed to a scheme whereby the transfer of taxing powers to the territories should take place as early as possible, and it is set out in Scheme"B" on page 11 of the White Paper.
I will summarise it as follows. It is that, as subjects were taken back by the territories, the Federal Government would hand over, either in a lump sum or in monthly instalments, the money required to carry on the services at the level previously determined. Particular importance was attached to this by the territories, because they were particularly anxious to see the functions transferred from the Federation at the earliest date practicable, and had it not been for these provisions which we worked out during those few days it would not be possible to have both the money and the men necessary to run that function in the territories.
Therefore, this arrangement was, I think, a very satisfactory one, because it will enable transfers to take place without undue delay, and, therefore, meet the impatience on the part of the territories to achieve control of the functions that
