"suspect,'' says Premier the Hon. Sir John Swan.

"That's the Gazette 's poll, and we know where the Gazette stands on this subject,'' the Premier said.

"The Gazette has taken a very clear position in its editorials and everything else,'' and the poll "is suspect just because of the position the Gazette has taken.'' The poll, by Urban & Associates Inc. of Massachusetts, found that 68 percent of electors surveyed who intend to vote in the August 15 referendum say they will vote "no'' to Independence, and only 17 percent will vote "yes.'' The "no'' vote was up from 64 percent in May, when the newspaper last commissioned a poll.

Sir John, who favours Independence and said he remains confident of a "yes'' vote in the referendum, said "the people's poll'' was the one that mattered.

"I say it will be a `yes' vote on the 15th because I think it's the best thing for Bermuda,'' Sir John said.

The poll also suggested that the Progressive Labour Party's call for a referendum boycott was losing steam. A full 72 percent of registered voters surveyed said they intended to cast ballots on August 15, up from 69 percent in May.

And black voters were increasingly opposed to Independence, the poll suggested. Of black electors who intended to vote, 57 percent said they opposed Independence at the present time, up from 49 percent in May.

Opposition Leader Mr. Frederick Wade said yesterday he was "not daunted by the figures.'' While the margin of error for the overall poll results is plus or minus four to six percentage points, Mr. Wade noted that the margin of error for some of the poll's breakdowns was as high as 14 percentage points.

"That's an amazing degree of error,'' he said. "I'm satisfied our campaign is going all right.'' He would not be drawn on what percentage of voters he expected would turn out for the referendum, but did say some voters who wished to abstain felt intimidated by presssure to vote from banks and other employers.

"I'm satisfied there's going to be a `no' vote,'' Mr. Wade said.

The PLP favours Independence but says it does not trust the United Bermuda Party Government to take Bermuda there and wants the issue decided in a general election.

Mr. Walton Brown, chairman of the Committee for the Independence of Bermuda, said there was little change between the May and July polls, once the margin of error was taken into account.

Brown: Poll confirms confusion From Page 1 The poll confirmed "the considerable degree of confusion that this present round of Independence talk has generated,'' Mr. Brown said.

Only 42 percent of voters surveyed felt they had enough information to make a decision on Independence, up from 36 percent in May.

The polls showed support for Independence had declined while the debate raged.

"The issue has generated tremendous divisions,'' he said. "There is a lack of clarity about what actually is at stake.

"We haven't really had a debate about the merits and demerits of Independence. It's been to a large extent clouded by a struggle to get people to vote or to not vote.'' The polls confirmed that pro-Independence campaigns "have failed to reach young people,'' and "that's a failure on everybody's part,'' Mr. Brown said.

Urban & Associates, the company that conducted the poll, was established in 1974 and has clients throughout North America, the Caribbean, and Europe.