A commission that was charged with investigating the 1977 riots found that the underlying causes lay in the inequalty of opportunity between the races.

The Commission, whose members included former Premier Alex Scott and the late Irving Pearman, who went on to become a long-time United Bermuda Party Cabinet Minister, recommended a raft of policies aimed at improving opportunities.

Mr. Scott said this week that he believes that while many of the issues raised in the report still exist today, they do so to a lesser degree than in the 1970s.

The Pitt Commission report was released in 1978 after the five-person bipartisan team interviewed scores of people over a six-week period before going abroad for two weeks to write the report.

The Commission wrote that while the hangings of Tacklyn and Burrows were the immediate cause of the riots, there were many underlying issues which were "tangled together and derive much of their influence from the way they interact".

Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the last day of rioting.

These causes were: "The economic structure of Bermuda, strong belief that there is inequality of economic opportunities, concentration of economic power in Front Street, lack of support for small black businesses and lack of job training, lack of low income accommodation, decline in discipline, the single parent households, deficiencies in social welfare programmes and education and criminal justice systems."

They continued: "We devote more attention to the contributory causes than to the immediate causes because the latter are relatively simple, and so long as the sense of frustration was acute, a variety of factors could have served to precipitate disorder"

After outlining issues within Bermuda and making recommendations on how to improve society and the economy for the benefit of all Bermudians the Commission wrote: "We are led to emphasise with underlying popular impatience with what is seen as insufficiently equal opportunity.

"The identification of race with privilege sharpens this feeling but does not create it.

"The disturbances happened to be directed against the present Government but in the future disappointment with a different government could be expressed in a similar fashion."

The Commission stated that out of all the recommendations, Bermuda should focus on:

a) The importance of plans relating to child development and of their being supplemented by a programme of compulsory education for children of primary school age.

b) The provision of a second chance to obtain a qualification.

c) The importance of sharing the wealth and opportunities provided by Bermudas two main businesses: tourism and international business; we hope that the propose investigation of monopolies will extend to all forms of economic activity and will not be limited to the retail trade.

d) The importance of substantially reducing immigration and assisting the promotion of Bermudians

e) We repeat our belief that in the long run it will prove essential to regulate the transmission of inherited wealth"

The Commission added that Bermuda needed to ensure that economic prosperity did not hinder society and cause sectors to loose a sense of identity.

"Economic progress has also contributed to these weaknesses in the sense of identity, for it has nourished expectations of educational performance that many young people cannot meet," the Commission wrote.

"Bermudians should not set standards for themselves that are so high that they produce a class of casualties. "

The report also concluded that the Island's parliamentary process did not properly represent Bermuda's citizens.