all recognise that Bermuda is an expensive place. However we can and generally do provide quality vacations in a beautiful setting.

Expensive quality vacations mean that visitors should expect not to have their visit disrupted. They have a right to assume that Bermuda will give them every consideration and take good care of them. Yet we continue to allow internal conflicts to impact on visitors. We have to learn to solve our problems among ourselves without disrupting people's holidays. Other countries have known that for a long time and that is why some of them are getting the better of Bermuda.

Last week's ferry service stoppage seems to have been an internal dispute which resulted in an injunction from the Minister of Labour and then went to mediation. But the fact is that ferries stopped to the inconvenience of locals and visitors.

It seems to us that this was not a major dispute. It was not a wages issue or a problem between union members and their employers. It was unhappiness over one member, a tug pilot, who had been legally reinstated in his job. He was not even a ferry pilot. We make no judgment on the issues involved since the matter is in arbitration but it seems clear that the conflicts could have been sorted out internally without work stoppage.

Far too often in Bermuda we resort to work stoppages much too early rather than as a last resort.

Ferry travel for visitors is one of the most attractive things they can do in Bermuda. It can be a great part of their holiday experience aside from just being transportation. Traffic on the roads already makes them uncomfortable and when they are deprived of the ferries or the buses there is little left except expensive taxis. We should remember that before we stop the ferries.

Tourism Minister David Dodwell who is working extremely hard to solve the problems of tourism has been quoted as saying that incidents like this get reported overseas. He said it could harm the tourism industry and that he hoped for a quick resolution.

Work stoppages which disrupt a vacation are not simply a matter of inconvenience to the visitors on the Island during the stoppage. With today's communications travel agents who want happy clients hear of these things.

Since they do not want the visitors they serve to complain, they advise them that there is "trouble'' in Bermuda and some people decide to go elsewhere.

It puzzles us that Bermudians cannot agree to solve their own problems without disrupting the very people who contribute so much to our world class standard of living.