Premier the Hon. Sir John Swan yesterday accused Chamber of Commerce president Mr. Robert (Bobby) Rego and other local businessmen of failing to grasp the importance of Independence.

Sir John, who recently returned from a dependent territories conference, was responding to a speech delivered by Mr. Rego at the Chamber of Commerce's annual general meeting on Tuesday.

At that meeting Mr. Rego disclosed that a recent survey showed 95 percent of the Chamber's members saw little or no economic benefit to Independence.

And, he said, they had grave concerns about the increased cost of Independence to Bermuda.

Stressing that outside retail competition was getting better and stronger, Mr.

Rego said: "To overcome these challenges we need cooperation and coordination, yet we are in conflict.

"In times of globalisation we need strong international links, yet we talk of Independence.'' However, Sir John claimed there was little evidence that "Bermuda businesses, or most of them, have done anything about rethinking their future, anticipating change, developing a collective vision, forming partnerships or any of those things''.

"All the country hears from them is constant complaining about how high their taxes are, despite the fact that the Government has managed to keep taxes down to 20 percent of the GDP, the lowest of any country I can think of,'' he said.

"Mr. Rego... doesn't grasp that freedom to be interdependent cannot be achieved without Independence as a pre-condition.

"As a dependent territory, Bermuda is bound to Britain's apron strings. It is possible for us to be interdependent, though it is not an automatic process, with those countries with which Britain is interdependent.

"We cannot strike out on our own and join some other interdependency without permission from Britain.'' Sir John stressed that Bermuda's international actions were "restricted absolutely to those things which Britain finds palatable''.

"In the past, there has been mercifully little conflict,'' he said. "But as Mr. Rego says, times are changing. We need to rethink our strategy. We need to anticipate change. We need to position ourselves to `take on this global revolution'.

"It is my submission that we should do that by giving ourselves maximum freedom of action, and the way to do that is Independence.'' Sir John also praised Bank of Butterfield chairman the Hon. Sir David Gibbons for a speech he gave at the Chamber's luncheon that day.

"He acknowledged a decision on Independence was for the people of Bermuda, urged participation and lamented the emotional and unpleasant reaction of many people to the debate,'' Sir John said.

But in a two-page statement released yesterday, Opposition Leader Mr.

Frederick Wade said: "I cannot help but be astounded by Sir David Gibbons' newly found concern for the democratic process.'' "When Premier of Bermuda, he had a golden opportunity at the Warwick Camp Conference of 1979 to lead Bermuda to true democracy by agreeing to remove the non-Bermudian vote and to remove the disparity in the voting system to produce a system of one man-one vote, one-vote, one value.'' Mr. Wade added that when Sir David was urged by the then Progressive Labour Party Leader Mrs. Lois Browne Evans to show "true statesmanship and leadership all that Sir David could say was `If I give one inch Lois, I shall be out tomorrow'.'' Bermuda was therefore facing the present "crisis'' over the Independence referendum'' because of Sir David's failure to provide vision, he claimed.