remember that what will succeed and be best for Bermuda in the long term is a careful and consistent cruise ship policy.

The fact is that Bermuda's cruise ship policy is a good one for the Country and that while it should remain under constant review, it cannot and should not be changed every time there is a small hitch. The sensible solution is a consistent policy which the cruise lines can understand and respect and which will be best for Bermuda. Bermuda is too small to flood itself with numbers because every visitor will wind up unhappy when services are strained, especially those who pay high prices for hotels. There is more benefit to Bermuda in quality than there is in quantity and some people in St. George's fail to understand long-term benefits and try to deal in quick but damaging solutions.

It should be remembered that we have just accepted larger cruise ships as replacements for those which served Bermuda. These ships, if they sell well, will provide increased capacity and thus increased visitors equal to another ship. That was designed to increase passengers without increasing berthing problems. It was a sensible decision except that it had the natural side effect of larger ships not always being able to enter St. George's. An ideal world would produce ships designed for Bermuda but no country can always have its own way.

A great deal of the St. George's complaining is over things which Bermuda cannot control. It is easy for "activists'' to shout and demand and protest and criticise when they do not have to do the job. Efforts have been made to do good things for St. George's and a great deal has been achieved in recent years but we all live in a real world and we cannot have everything we want.

St. George's, like Hamilton, will get more visitors just because of larger ships but sometimes those ships will have to skip the Old Town. In any case, we have some doubts about St. George's handling its regular visitors and a cruise ship of 1000 or 1200 passengers. Uncomfortable visitors are unhappy and that is no help to anyone. In that sense, the demands for a large ship at the East End are selfish and damaging.

There have been unsuitable quick fix suggestions, presumably made to score political points, that Bermuda should agree to Carnival Cruises' Tropicale for St. George's. The truth is that the Tropicale would not be suitable for Town Cut and would, like other large ships, have to divert in winds to Hamilton. It is also doubtful that she is the right image for St. George's or for Bermuda.

For many years this newspaper has advocated a dedicated cruise ship for St.

George's. We also think the ship should dock at Ordnance Island in order to maximise the cash benefit of both the passengers and the crew to St. George's.

However it has to be the right ship. To be right for St. George's a ship has to be large enough to cross the ocean without undue discomfort to passengers and it has be small enough to negotiate Town Cut channel in most winds. It should also be a quality ship because that is what a quality town deserves.

It is not easy to find a good small ship owned by a line that is willing to run a dedicated service to St. George's. However we are confident that government is working toward a good solution.