for small businesses, a candidate said last night.

"That levy for small businesses is so burdensome that they have really been making a noise about it,'' Mr. Eugene Blakeney told a PLP rally at Francis Patton School in Hamilton Parish.

"If a small business doesn't even make a profit, they are still stuck with that levy.'' The employment tax would be looked at in a promised PLP review of the entire tax structure.

More than 200 PLP supporters filled the school auditorium and spilled into the parking lot to hear speeches by Opposition Leader Mr. Frederick Wade and the PLP's four candidates in Hamilton Parish.

Mr. Blakeney, a PLP incumbent in Hamilton West who is general secretary of the Bermuda Public Service Association, said it was the civil servants who ran Government on a day-to-day basis, and the same people who were available to the United Bermuda Party Government would be available to a victorious PLP Government after October 5.

Public servants were supposed to be impartial and serve whatever Government was elected. There could be "one or two'' who were too close to the UBP Government, he said.

"If in fact it's felt that they cannot be loyal, then obviously, our Leader, Brother Freddie, will do what he has to do.'' On a night when all the PLP candidates expressed confidence in victory, Mr.

Blakeney said labour relations would change under the PLP.

A law that allowed employers to turn down a majority request for union recognition would be repealed, he said. "Such outdated and outmoded methods would not be tolerated by a PLP Government.'' He predicted improved labour relations. Despite the PLP's historic ties with the labour movement, "when the PLP becomes Government, they must govern for all. That includes management and the ordinary citizen,'' he said.

Ms Renee Webb, a candidate in Hamilton East, said international companies did not fear a PLP Government.

Ms Webb said she worked with international organisations overseas, then returned to the Island and found a job marketing Bermuda as an international financial centre.

"They foresee no problem in a change in Government,'' she said. "They see a change in Government in any democracy as a healthy sign of political stability.'' The UBP was using "scare tactics,'' she said.

Mr. Julian Hall, an incumbent in Hamilton West, said he noticed Premier the Hon. Sir John Swan had termed the PLP election platform included in The Royal Gazette today "a document of disappointment''.

"But it wasn't designed to make him happy,'' Mr. Hall said.

He said the UBP was "pulling out all the stops'' to win the election and accused The Royal Gazette of bias in its election coverage.

Baskets passed around to help with election costs collected about $2,500. In a speech filled with religious references, Hamilton East candidate and assistant AME pastor Mr. Trevor Woolridge said: "The UBP have had one delay after another in the reforming of our education system, yet they are on time and on budget with the new prison.'' OCTOBER 1993 ELECTION