Assembly.

Of the 40 Members of Parliament 33 spoke on the motion tabled by National Liberal Party leader Mr. Gilbert Darrell .

Continuing The Royal Gazette coverage of the historic debate which started in Saturday's edition, which was available to MPs in the chamber at 4 a.m., just 13 hours into the economic debate.

Answering the Opposition member's questions about employment of foreign workers, Tourism Minister Mr. C.V. (Jim) Woolridge said there had been training programmes for the hotel industry but Bermudians had not taken advantage of them.

He said: "Every hotel is owned by people who have come to the Island to work in our major industry. But Bermudians have looked the other way.'' Turning to the overall economy he said: "This country has enjoyed greater economic prosperity in the last 30 years than any other country in the world.

But now the bubble has burst and we are going to have to look realistically at what we have.

"It is common sense that figures show a decrease in jobs in the hotel industry because we lost 1,600 beds with the closures of Club Med and the Bermudiana Hotel.'' He said that the tourism industry had shown promising increases this year but pointed out July and August were not promising at the moment.

But he added that the increased capacity on the cruise ships, the dedicated St. George's cruise ship and the possibility that Club Med could become an old folks' home would boost the economy.

Shadow Tourism Minister Mr. David Allen claimed that all he heard from Government was "promises, promises, promises.'' Mr. Allen said: "Think about how increased taxes on hotels affected the industry on the eve of the recession.'' Listing head tax, fuel oil tax and taxes on wines and spirits, Mr. Allen said that they all had effects on the industry. He said: "The rest of the world was giving incentives while this Government was giving disincentives.

Raising the price of the product. Tourism has suffered over the years.

"Government says Bermuda has ridden the recession better than other countries. Try telling that to the hotel workers, the construction workers, the people whose mortgages have been pulled or are having their houses auctioned off.

"The realities are stark in the tourism industry. We may have begun to start turning the corner but already it is flagging.'' Mr. Allen called for a more dynamic approach to tourism advertising to appeal to younger people and to people from Europe and Japan.

The Works and Engineering Minister misled the House when she denied a private landscaping company was working for Wedco at Dockyard, Mr. Allen said.

"At this very moment there is a private landscaping company working at Dockyard under Wedco,'' he said.

And the company has eight people on work permits, he said. The 10 Bermudians that worked there were now down to four.

The company was "a very shady'' limited partnership operating out of a post office box in Flatts, he said. "I think the House is owed an apology. In some jurisdictions the Minister would have to resign.'' It was an example of immigration abuses under the Government, he said. "We are deeply concerned about the state of the economy,'' Mr. Allen said. "We hope they will take some of our suggestions,'' particularly in the area of tourism.'' The Labour and Home Affairs Minister had said the moratorium on Bermudian status would be reviewed and "make no mistake,'' Mr. Allen said. If the UBP is elected again, "Bermudian jobs will be on the line again.'' Labour and Home Affairs Minister the Hon. Irving Pearman said the moratorium was imposed for five years and was due to be reviewed next July. "There are some areas we have concerns about'' related to people who are part of the Bermudian family but are not deemed Bermudian under present laws, he said.

"It is grossly misleading for the honourable member Mr. Allen to stand up and say we are going to open up something we closed.'' While many countries were too bankrupt to help people during the recession, "we are in a position to assist people where most places can't'' because of the Government's policies, Mr. Pearman said.

Government has training policies but admits that is an area that needs improvement, he said.

The number of small businesses and the number of people they employ had grown in the last few years. To say the Government was doing nothing was "defying logic.'' For a small country like Bermuda to support a huge service economy it had to import people, he said.

It was not true to say there were non-Bermudians on the Island doing jobs that Bermudians could.

The unemployed figure of 2,119 in the 1991 census was suspect, because people who had jobs but were looking for better ones were counted, he said. Two Island-wide surveys since then had seen the number drop dramatically to 305 in January of 1993.

And the number of work permit holders had dropped to 5,402 in December of 1992 from 10,144 in December of 1989.

In February of this year, 66 people were registered as unemployed and 50 of them were then placed in jobs, Mr. Pearman said.

"If this is not a clear indication of the turn that's taking place to employ Bermudians because of the turn in our economy...what more could one say?'' Even if capable, Bermudians could only occupy a few hundred of the thousands of jobs held by foreigners that were generating millions of dollars in Island wealth.

There were still too many unemployed in the construction sector, but that area, along with landscaping, kitchen help, and general restaurant waiting was now being strictly controlled. "That's the reason we've been able to absorb so many people who were being displaced,'' Mr. Pearman said.

As for Mr. Allen's charge about landscaping, an area "which we've restricted vigorously...I need to know how this was done.'' Shadow Environment Minister Mr. Julian Hall began his historic speech by stating that Mr. Pearman had treated the House to statistics, which were worse than "damnable lies.'' He wanted copies of the numbers, he said.

"It has not been easy to listen to the blatant grandstanding by Cabinet Minister after Cabinet Minister who have decided to take the fullest possible advantage of a surprising degree of political naivety on the part of the member from Hamilton East...by handing the UBP public relations machine and propaganda machine this great gift of a vacuous motion.'' He said he hoped Mr. Darrell's speech on the subject was his last in the House. "The Government does not deserve to pat itself on the back for its so-called record.'' The PLP could not take the blame for the economy because it had not been in charge, but it could take credit for many of the improvements cited by Mr.

Pearman, he said.

UBP policies in immigration were "moving in the right direction,'' he said.

But "one swallow does not a summer make.'' The PLP "is not populated with ignoramuses'' and "we would be fools were we not to recognise the vital role played...by an optimal percentage of non-Bermudian employment.'' But the only "real support'' Mr. Pearman received in what he was doing came from the PLP, Mr. Hall said to howls of laughter from the Government benches.

It was the PLP who developed the policy of Bermudianisation, which the UBP first only paid lip service to, he said.

And in his speech, Dr. Saul "sounded very much like the proverbial rooster crowing and taking credit for the rising of the sun.'' Mr. Hall cited a recent article in the magazine The Atlantic which made the point Governments do not really manage economies. Bermuda is "the apotheosis of that principle,'' he said.

The Bermudian economy was to the largest extent managed by the heads of the two banks, Mr. Donald Lines and Sir David Gibbons, he said.

But while the UBP felt that was a good thing, the PLP did not, he said. The bank heads were not elected, and their institutions were "riddled with institutional racism.'' He wondered if Mr. Pearman counted lemonade stands when he said there were more small businesses in Bermuda than ever before. The Minister said the small businesses were successful, but just two weeks ago the House was told how many businesses were behind on their pension contributions because of the recession.

"The UBP can't have it both ways,'' he said.

Even international businesses were getting concerned the UBP felt it had a stranglehold on power and went back to arrogant and capricious governing once elected, he said.

Citing cost increases in the incinerator project and the Civil Air Terminal departure lounge, Mr. Hall said they did not show Government's expertise at management.

While the Tourism Minister was a great public speaker with charm, a PLP Government would not have "Ministers of Tourism acting like tie salesmen,'' he said. The civil servants should be out selling while the Minister was back on the Island developing policy.

The UBP "doesn't have a monopoly on fiscal prudence,'' and what Dr. Saul took credit for was really the work of "an extremely able civil service,'' -- the same one that would serve a PLP Government.

Mr. Hall said: "The UBP is but one alternative to this country in terms of management. We no longer have to be faced with the vacuous unjustified allegation aimed at bamboozling the Bermuda public that there is only one alternative.'' He said that almost every positive principle that Government had introduced was a PLP idea. One example he gave was unemployment insurance which, he said, was only introduced when the Government was faced with an increasing number of jobless people knocking on its door.

Adding: "Successive governments from Sir Henry Tucker to Sir John Sharpe had reacted to PLP calls for unemployment insurance as `communist'.'' Continuing on unemployment Mr. Hall pointed out that Government should have realised the connection between the decline in the number of work permits and the decline in the number of unemployed people.

He particularly attacked foreign domination of the legal profession in which he practices.

Following earlier attacks on threats of eviction by the Bermuda Housing Corporation, Mr. Hall said he could not believe an organisation set up to help the homeless was making these threats. He said there were many similar threats in the private sector.

He said: "Were it not for the fact that the bailiffs' offices are so heavily burdened by such a mass of orders of eviction, we would see people roaming the streets.'' Mr. Hall also attacked the Government's attempts to balance the budget. He said: "We appreciate the attractiveness of balancing the budget but this slavish reliance on avoiding debt is madness. Creative debt is good for any business and country.'' Government was "trying to out-PLP the PLP,'' bringing in policies it did not author or understand, Mr. Hall said.

The UBP received massive contributions from unknown sources, and the stakes in the general election were equally massive, he said.

"I think there are some people who would even go so far as to kill...they've done just about everything else.'' If Dr. Saul's main goal in the recession was to put a safety net under the population, it was a faulty net, he said. Otherwise the Housing Corporation would not be evicting people, and there would not be a sharp rise in economic crime.

The only economic stimulus the UBP had offered was a new prison, which was really a continuation of Government's "thoughtless and uncaring policy on criminal justice.'' Mr. Hall then attacked The Royal Gazette , noting the reporter covering the proceedings was not Bermudian, and few of the newspaper's journalists were.

"There must be a system in place, in that newspaper particularly, which makes sure that no Bermudians, or no Bermudians of significant numbers, ever become journalists,'' Mr. Hall said.

Bermudians were returning from schools overseas and "I know for a fact some want to become journalists,'' he said.

But most of the "shapers of opinion'' on the Island were newcomers who "quite rightly perceive that they must do everything possible to stay in the good graces of what they regard as the establishment -- we know it's not us, and we don't blame them.'' Work permits should not be issued to foreign journalists, and only rarely to foreign lawyers, he said.

There were enough Bermudians literate enough to report the news, and "we know how to get it right,'' Mr. Hall said. "As Bermudians we can stand up to an editor and say: `Wait a minute. You are compromising my journalistic professionalism and integrity by rewriting what I have said just because you want to put the UBP in a more favourable light'.'' In closing, Mr. Hall said he wanted to hear "real evidence of sound management of the Bermudian economy by this Government.'' The public did not know the fate of the US Naval Air Station. "Maybe the Premier, in the course of his nine minutes with Mr. Clinton, found out and will tell us when he is ready.'' Mr. Hall questioned whether the two leaders actually met, noting he had seen no photograph of them together.

As for Mr. Darrell's motion on the economy, "it's not so much the present state,'' Mr. Hall said. "It's the future state of the economy.

"I just pray that Bermudians will whenever they get the opportunity, do the right thing. Give us at last a sound Government, a caring Government, a competent Government, one that is a Government for all Bermudians.''