attending the first conference of British Dependent Territories.

The conference brought together heads of governments of dependent territories at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre.

The following article is an account of the event as reported by Associated Press in London. LONDON -- Three decades after the end of the empire, a dozen scattered island colonies held their first conference on Wednesday -- linked by an unfashionable aspiration: how best to stay hooked to the motherland.

"No country that moved to independence in the last 30 years has any success stories,'' said Thomas Jefferson, the leader from the Cayman Islands, a colony an hour's flight from Miami that has grown rich on banking and tourism. "We see no benefit in moving on.'' Others put it less bluntly at the one-day, getting acquainted meeting.

"We forget emotions about independence and look at it in cost-benefit terms,'' said Reuben T. Meade, Chief Minister of Montserrat, recalling 12-million ($18 million) of British aid when a hurricane struck in 1989.

No one -- even feisty Gibraltar which suspects that Britain might dump it one day in a deal with Spain -- came to talk about independence, freedom, self-determination or any other favourite slogans of the '60s.

The roll call was reminiscent of quiz show teasers and Caribbean package vacation ads: Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Montseratt, Turks and Caicos Islands, St. Helena and the Falkland Islands were the other British possessions.

Vestiges of other European empires also came: Martinique, in the Caribbean, the Pacific island of New Caledonia, both French, and Netherlands Antilles.

And so did Australia's Norfolk Islands, a former penal colony which Queen Victoria allocated to British mutineers from a sailing ship, the Bounty , in 1856. Their descendants' loyalty to the British Crown is undimmed through the generations.

Now, says John Brown, a member of the islands' nine-strong local council, the 2,000 islanders fear Australia will become a republic at the end of the decade, removing Victoria's great-grandaughter, Queen Elizabeth II, as head of state.

"We're not kidding ourselves that England would really want us,'' Brown said good-humouredly. "But we'd want to find some arrangement ... Her Majesty gave us the island in perpetuity and we are Crown subjects.'' In all, the ministers and council members came from outposts where plumed governors still govern and with populations totalling not much more than 500,000.

Hong Kong, with 5.8 million people, didn't bother -- it's due to be handed over to China in 1997. "We didn't see the point. Our future is very clearly mapped out,'' said Ranjit Peres, spokesman for the colony's London office.

The Falkland Islands and Gibraltar sponsored the meeting, and others chipped in. Morning coffee was by courtesy of the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda paid for the tea.

Hong Kong has to go under old treaties with China. But British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd noted that the others have a choice about staying.

"We have open minds, though of course not open purses,'' Hurd told the Dependent Territories' Conference.

They hang on through mixtures of fear, pragmatism or because they are so tiny -- St. Helena has fewer than 6,000 people.

For Britain, enduring loyalty can be expensive.

The Falkland Islands, recaptured from Argentine invaders in 1982, now costs London 65 million ($100 million) to maintain a garrison on the remote archipelago.

The population is 2,000.

Bits of the shrunken empire are very rich, headed by the 27,000-population Cayman Islands, the world's fifth largest banking centre.

Gibraltar, population 31,000, would rather stay British than its only alternative under an 18th century treaty -- being given to Spain which claims the 2.25 square mile rock at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula.

"We small people need a link with a big state,'' said Gibraltar Chief Minister Joe Bassano. "It's better to stick with the one you've had for 300 years.'' -- AP.