Dear Sir, I have just come back from a cruise of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Russia.

Every country's streets were clean, no trash, no papers, not even cigarette butts.

I would not believe that countries that are poor have pride in their country and it is shown to the tourist who visit.

Then arriving back in Bermuda, not only Hamilton but the road from the Airport up was dirty and bottles, paper etc., litter right the way up. What a let down. Your own Island is a disgrace and disappointment.

Why not try and be cleaner if not for yourself, for the tourist. Public if you see trash, pick it up and put it in a bag and drop in the many bins that are in all the bus stops.

BERMUDIAN Devonshire Students must come first September 13, 2000 Dear Sir, One can be very supportive of the dedication and commitment of Mrs. Kalmar Richards and her staff without being blinded to the fact the policy decision to build the monstrosity of an Institution was not in the interest of those it has to serve.

Sir John Plowman bewailed the lack of racial integration in the schools. The community made it very clear from the outset that they thought that the building of such a huge school was a bad idea. As a result Warwick Academy, which was the most integrated school, went private and every parent who could afford it and some who cannot have sent their children to a private school - black and white. Those who are left, the vast majority are not all, unfortunately, "student of excellence''.

We were told that the school would be such a "state-of-the-art'' institution that those in the Private Schools would gravitate towards it. That certainly has not happened. That has not happened because even the uneducated know that as important as the physical surroundings may be, the human environment is far more important and what we have heard recently is that the conflict and violence among some of the young teenagers is the direct result of the size of the school since it did not happen previously.

We were told that the impersonal nature of such a monstrous school would be contracted by having three subdivisions to it. Even that did not happen. We have a certain number of young people who are in need of a humane, intimate, nurturing, personal environment (sometimes it may be because they do not get it at home) rather than the impersonal prison like environment made necessary by the mere size of the building: the locked doors, the identification cards, the variety of guards as in a prison and the fear-filled teachers.

As an architectural structure the school looks great but for our young people, many of whom can be said to be "at risk'' and are undisciplined, there are "State-of-the-Art classrooms'' which are most inappropriate because they are not conducive to maintaining discipline, particularly for those children who are most in need of it.

We are now being told that the new Berkeley Institute is going to be the "envy of the world''. That is no more likely to be true than was the promise that the physical "State-of-the-Art'' character of CedarBridge would attract the private school clientele! If the emphasis is once again on the physical structure, the architectural attractiveness and the sports complex rather than on meeting the personal, psychological and nurturing needs of the students who too often may be from homes exhibiting the social problems we read about in the media.

The UBP, in my view, knew little and cared less about the fundamental human needs of the children in the Government schools, the vast majority of whom are black. It is inconceivable how the PLP Government, that professes to care about the human needs, could continue to implement a UBP policy decision, when the social and human disadvantages of CedarBridge with its prison like and impersonal environment have been so evident -- and so many of its supporters, including Berkeley alumnae, are so silent.

DR. EVA HODGSON Hamilton Parish Bad policy is bad policy September 15, 2000 Dear Sir, I was somewhat surprised that my address to Hamilton Rotary Club has raised the fuss it has -- perhaps I hit a raw nerve. The address, contrary to press reports, did not concentrate on the Hotel Concessions Act but on policies that potentially could undermine the long-standing prosperity of Bermuda. Such policies included the Act, but also included things like affordable housing, rent control, sustainable development, and the CURE regulations.

The responses by the Minister, John Harvey and Bob Richards on the Hotel Concessions Act all say that because other countries provide subsidies, we in Bermuda should follow suit. Bob Richards is right in saying that there can be times when subsidies make sense -- giving scholarships is an example, handing out taxpayers' cash to TWA is not. I am aware that other countries give subsidies, for example, in 1995 the US Treasury had more than 125 subsidy programmes in place at a cost to the US taxpayer of $85 billion (billion not million). This is a lot of pork.

Almost every country in the world has thrown money down rat holes; UK tried to save coal mines, Sweden shipyards, United States textile mills -- the list goes on forever. Copying dumb policies from other countries is not a sound basis on which to base policy. Other countries have income tax -- should we do the same? I don't think so. The responses from Messrs Richards, Harvey and Allen are a cop-out and a failure to face reality, as I might add are the several other Government policies to which I referred.

1. Why should the Bermudian taxpayer, poor and rich alike, make a compulsory donation to affluent foreign corporations and the royal family of Saudi Arabia? The act is nothing more than a transfer of wealth or income from the Bermuda public to the proprietors of the hotel industry, and other sectors of the economy such as retailers and other local businessmen (including their employees) lose the benefit of what Bermudians would have spent. The public, of course, is deprived of the goods and services which that money could have bought such as a new car, payment of school fees or painting the house. There is always the consolation to the Bermudian public that their money has kept the wealthy in a style to which they are entitled.

2. How will subsidies help to deal with the underlying problems in the hotel industry such as high costs, inflexible work rules, militant trade unions, low productivity and so on? The Act endorses and enshrines the practices that led to the decline of the hotel industry, and this is done at the expense of those who have been efficient. Government should be encouraging efficiency and discouraging inefficiency -- this nonsensical Act does not exactly the opposite. The moral of this story is don't worry about doing your job well, Government will come in and bail you out.

If the Minister or anyone else can provide satisfactory answers to these two questions I would gladly withdraw my objections, shut up and cheerfully pay my fair share of taxes. And I have not even touched on the potential for corruption which this Act creates -- payments under the table is usually the fee payable to politicians for enabling the inefficient to be subsidised by the efficient.

ROBERT STEWART Smith's Parish AG misses the point September 12, 2000 Dear Sir, The Attorney General doesn't THINK Police Chief Colin Coxall had any intention of giving evidence at the inquiry into serious crime! On behalf of all of those witnesses who appeared, all the taxpayers of this country who have paid for this hearing and most of all, all of those families affected by the shortcomings of our system -- what an affront! How dare she assume anything! No mater how far into the inquiry, she should have given him every opportunity to testify, no excuse to refuse and then leave the decision up to him.

It is her duty to make the wheels of justice turn smoothly. She owes it to the people of Bermuda to allow the Commission to hear from everyone they can in this circumstance.

SITTING ON THE FENCE Southampton