strictly for Bermudians and that non-Bermudians are given a precious gift by being allowed to work here and should be dismissed and dispensed with at any old time no matter how and no matter why as long as it suits a Bermudian.

There seems to be very little understanding that Bermuda would not be anywhere near what it is today without the labours of non-Bermudian contract workers from top executives to dishwashers and gardeners.

There has to be an understanding of what really happened to create today's Bermuda. Simply put it goes like this. In the years after the Second World War Bermuda expanded very quickly and in order to keep expanding it imported outside talent and expertise which Bermudians could not supply. This talent contributed greatly towards making Bermuda rich and allowed Bermudians to educate their children abroad to take over the jobs at home. Gradually the picture changed. Bermudians, better educated and better prepared and with greater expectations, began moving to the top and the better jobs, allowing more menial jobs to go free. Bermuda thus began to switch its overseas hiring to trades and labour rather than brains and talent. Both types of hiring are a convenience to Bermuda and to Bermudians and not, as some people claim, a plot against Bermudians.

We doubt if there are very many Bermudians who are deprived of jobs which they can fulfil. We think the injustices are few and far between and that there are plenty of safeguards to be sure that Bermudians come first. Bermudians should come first but that should not be used as an excuse for cruelty to those we bring into Bermuda to do jobs we cannot or will not do.

Having your work done by someone else so that you can enjoy better financial returns or more leisure time or less work has a price in terms of both cash and responsibility. Part of the price is some duty towards the people who come to Bermuda and give this Island the best years of their lives.

In recent years Bermuda has behaved in a most selfish way towards a good many non-Bermudian workers of all types but especially towards workers from the Azores. We have allowed the Portuguese to labour away for half their lives and have then sent them home. Children of Portuguese have been born and raised in Bermuda but have no guarantee of Bermuda Status, no permits to work and no home to go to because they were born here and know Bermuda as home. A Portuguese pointed out to us recently, "This is totally unfair because these children have lived here all their lives, but a foreigner married to a Bermudian for five years does not have to have their job advertised''. There are, of course, people other than the Portuguese in very similar situations.

We think it is without conscience for Bermuda to use the best years of people's lives and then ship them out the way we ship out old cars. There cannot be many other places on earth which behave in such a cruel or selfish fashion.