report as Parliament opened so that the McDonald's mess which has shattered the Government could be sorted out quickly. We are now told that it will be presented "this month'' by which time Ann Cartwright's anti-franchises bill may well be back up for debate in the House of Assembly.

We suspect that the committee has been looking at the practicalities of allowing franchises when it should have spent some time examining the acceptability of the decision to approve Grape Bay Ltd. and its quest for McDonald's. However, examination of the decision was probably precluded when Finance Minister Grant Gibbons, the man who caused the problem to start with, was appointed to the committee.

Make no mistake, this is not an impartial committee taking an objective look at franchises. It was very clear from the beginning that this was a committee stacked in favour of finding a way to let McDonald's into Bermuda with the addition of a few anti-franchise people for window dressing. If the Saul Government had wanted to be rid of the franchises and the dispute it could have found as way for the Cartwright bill to pass.

We tend to agree with MP Trevor Moniz when he is quoted as saying, "My feeling is that the majority of the committee was asking not whether to let in international restaurants, but how to do it. ....I think the committee are leaning towards something that looks Bermudian on the outside but looks like a franchise on the inside.'' In other words, we could get a McDonald's in a "Bermuda cottage'' with small golden arches in the windows, except at the Airport, of course, where a visitor's last impression of Bermuda could well be McDonald's.

This is not simply a question of whether or not Bermuda wants its uniquely Bermudian environment cluttered up with American fast food franchises... we use the plural because it will be impossible to refuse other people if a McDonald's is granted to UBP politicians. The basic problem is a Cabinet which does not seem to understand the long-term implications or the frightening example which has been set by allowing two parliamentarians to have a fast food franchise despite a long term policy against franchises. We know that this Cabinet is not politically astute but surely someone should have understood the inevitable row which would result from the decision.

The Cabinet, of course, should have taken the high ground and moved to ban fast food franchises by introducing in the House something very similar to the Ann Cartwright bill. Bermuda would have been spared this debilitating row and the Saul Government would have been seen as above political wheeling and dealing and supportive of the environment.

That was not to be, but there is still time for the Franchises Committee to put the row to rest and to put the UBP back together. It is becoming very clear that if this Government does not stop McDonald's it will not have the credibility to win another election. The world will laugh at the Country which tore itself apart over McDonald's and at the political party which allowed that to happen.

Premier David Saul will go down in history as the man who was defeated over hamburgers and Sir John Swan will be remembered as the man who forced franchises on Bermuda.