Government had to scrub an Independence meeting at Admiralty House Park last night after hardly anybody turned up.

At 8 p.m., the only people at the Community Centre were three Cabinet Ministers from the committee that wrote the Independence Green Paper, Government Information Services director Mr. Gavin Shorto, and a reporter from The Royal Gazette .

Former Bank of Bermuda president Mr. Donald Lines and his wife Janine arrived a short time later, followed by veterinarian Dr. Maureen Ware. But by the time a fourth Bermudian arrived, the Ministers had decided to call it a night.

Human Affairs and Information Minister the Hon. Jerome Dill said last night's meeting in Pembroke would have been the sixth one hosted by the Cabinet committee. "For this to be the first one that's crashed is not so bad,'' he said.

Mr. Dill blamed a change in time for the meeting, which was originally to have been held tonight, as well as it coming so close to several other Independence meetings, including a United Bermuda Party branch meeting in Pembroke West the night before.

Dr. Ware, who wore a T-shirt reading "Just say no to Independence,'' said the lack of attendance told her something else. "Nobody's interested,'' she said.

As Mr. Shorto and others packed up the chairs, Dr. Ware and Finance Minister the Hon. David Saul got into an animated discussion about the effect on the Bermuda dollar, should the Island opt for Independence.

"If your economy failed, your dollar can not stay on a par with the US dollar,'' Dr. Ware said.

"Why not?'' asked Dr. Saul. While "your standard of living would go down,'' unless a country exported goods, "there's no sense devaluing your currency.'' And an economy could collapse in a country whether it was independent or not, Dr. Saul said.