The Commission for Unity and Racial Equality Regulations apply to all companies with ten employees or more, not those companies with 50 more as stated in yesterday's editorial.

It seems improbable that the near failure of the House of Assembly to secure a quorum on Friday was due to divisions within the Government over the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality Regulations, as has been suggested by Opposition MPs.

Nonetheless, it is surprising that more MPs did not speak on the issue or at least feel obliged to be in their seats.

The regulations -- which only apply to those businesses with 50 or more employees -- go directly to one of the reasons that the PLP and not the United Bermuda Party won the last General Election.

That is because there is no question that black Bermudians feel they are being excluded from the top ranks of business and that whites, both Bermudian and expatriate, are being preferred for promotion.

Statistics from the Employment Survey show that white males in particular make up the senior management and professional ranks out of all proportion to their numbers.

And Government is right to want to probe the reasons why; the question is whether or not the regulations will do that.

Development and Opportunity Minister Terry Lister stated on Friday that the regulations are intended for fact-finding, but there will be many who fear that particular companies will be singled out. International companies, which must hire the best in the world to compete globally, will worry that the reporting requirements will prevent them from doing just that.

Local companies, many of them family-owned and often barely meeting the 50-employee minimum, will worry that even minor changes in staffing will land them in trouble with CURE.

Mr. Lister also assured the House that the regulations would not be used to redress the imbalance by "hiring regardless of qualifications or the hiring of ill-qualified people. Equal opportunity does not mean hiring regardless of qualifications and does not mean the establishment of quotas.'' That statement should be reassuring to the business community which invariably will see the gathering of the statistics as an inducement to do just that.

The question Mr. Lister failed to answer is what happens if a company fails to better reflect the Island's diversity? How, beyond gentle persuasion, will CURE be able to redress the balance? If CURE is later empowered to insist on changes in staff in the workplace, it will be interesting to see if the regulations will hold up in the courts on the grounds that they breach rights of freedom of association -- or that hiring purely on racial grounds is discriminatory.

There is much to be said in favour of improving the diversity of staff in the workplaces and, in terms both of fairness and social stability, in ensuring that equal opportunities are available to all.

But the CURE Regulations as they stand are neither well understood nor do they appear to be capable of achieving the goal for which they are designed.

Because the business community is already jittery over the Budget, the proposals for limiting work permit terms and a host of other issues both within and without Bermuda, Mr. Lister would be well advised to remember that "jaw jaw is better than war war''.

If the business community says it needs more time to discuss the regulations, then the time should be taken to at least give them assurances that there are no sinister motives behind the regulations.