effectively prepare it for the challenges of the future, the Premier said last night in his first speech on the subject outside of the House of Assembly.

And the Hon. Sir John Swan, relishing the fact that the 1995 Independence Referendum Act had been handily passed in the Senate just an hour before, lashed out at critics who have suggested he has pursued the Independence agenda for personal gain and glory.

"Many people have said I want Independence because I want to be Bermuda's first Prime Minister. That's not it at all. Don't believe that I would act in such a small way,'' Sir John told the Sandys Rotary Club at the Belmont Hotel in Warwick. Editorial: Page 4 .

"I favour Independence because I see it as the only way to draw this divided community together, to solve not just our current social ills but those which will present themselves to us in the future.

"It is a way,'' the Premier stated further, "of guaranteeing a stable society from which to continue our prosperity in the future. My motive is to assist my country, not myself.'' While Sir John was effusive in his listing of the Island's accomplishments since 1968, the year that Bermuda adopted its own Constitution, he was somewhat less specific in his speech on how Independence would be able to solve the colony's problems, saying only that the "winds of change'' demanded it.

"These winds are all around us,'' he said, "and they will continue to change our lives just as much as they have been doing for the last four or five years.

"Don't believe for a minute that the closure of the Bases is the last difficulty which is going to be forced upon us by the outside world. The whole world is changing, and we have to be able to change with it.'' As it now stands, the Premier told an audience that also included Lady Swan and Government Sen. Gary Pitman, Bermudians "don't have much of a sense of community. We live in our tight little cliques, a few hundred people in a group, and we almost without exception think Bermuda's problems are things we can criticise and write letters to the Editor about (and blame) other people for.'' Independence, the Premier suggested, would force Bermudians to come together Swan `for Bermuda' Independence because I want Bermudians to have the spirit of Emily in their lives and in their hearts. I want us to become one country and one people.'' In a veiled reference to his recent public feud on the issue with Bank of Bermuda chairman Mr. Eldon Trimingham, the Premier tried to dismiss the concerns of the business community over Independence by pointing out that many influential business leaders made similar predictions of doom before the Constitution was adopted in 1968.

"They said the same things that are being said today,'' Sir John recalled.

"That the country would become corrupt, riddled with debt, politically unstable and that tourists would be scared away. "But did that happen?'' the Premier continued. "No, of course not. This country has gone from strength to strength because the leaders of the day had faith in the Bermudian people and the courage to pursue Constitutional change despite the objection and fears of others.'' Bermudians, Sir John told the audience, had the same strengths and abilities today. And he added: "Do you think we are going to fall to pieces just because we don't have a British Governor here? No, of course not. We have the ability and the experience. We must not be frightened of the future.'' In a reply on Tuesday to the anti-Independence comments of Bank of Bermuda chairman Mr. Eldon Trimingham, Sir John noted that corruption in the Turks and Caicos islands occurred while the country was a dependent territory. The Turks and Caicos had "one leader blown up in an aircraft suspected of smuggling drugs,'' then his successor and a senior Minister arrested and jailed in Miami, "all when they were a dependent territory with a British Governor,'' the Premier said. Similarly, Montserrat and the British Virgin Islands had experienced corruption and/or charges of corruption while they were dependent territories, he said. Mr. Trimingham had noted that corruption and dictatorships often accompanied Independence.