The Bermuda Independence Commission quietly delivered its report to Government yesterday, but the public will have to wait another month to see it.

The report, which has been more than a year in the making, may be one of the most keenly awaited documents in recent years and is likely to be analysed with a fine tooth comb.

Premier Alex Scott has sought to take credit in advance for putting the examination of the issue into the hands of non-partisan laymen and women to study and draft what is in effect a Green (discussion) Paper on the issue.

This group is supposed to dispassionately examine the pros and cons of Independence and the merits and demerits of taking that route or remaining as we are.

If it does that, it will be welcome. The world has changed in the ten years since the last Independence Referendum and a fresh examination of the question should, at the very least, bring the public up to date.

Premier Alex Scott appears to believe that once the "true facts" of Independence are known, the public will swing around to support for sovereignty. This ties in with the long-held Progressive Labour Party belief that education is all that is needed.

The concern among those who have yet to be convinced that Bermuda will be better off with Independence than under the current set-up is that the document will be a whitewash that will play up the benefits and will ignore the risks and problems in order to deliver the result the Government wants.

But if that was the case, it would ultimately discredit the committee and the Government because it would be easily seen through.

According to polls ? administered by Independence advocate Walton Brown's Research Solutions group ? there is a bloc of 65 percent of the population who oppose the idea. While support for Independence has gone down and back up to about 28 percent recently, opposition has remained unmoved.

And they are likely to stay that way if they do not see some of their objections and concerns about Independence acknowledged and addressed. Obvious omissions from the report could be very dangerous.

Independence advocates will hold the opposite view. If too much is made of the pitfalls of Independence, they will likely be upset. But the report should at least dampen some of the hysteria of Bermuda becoming another Haiti the minute the Union Jack slides down the Flagpole.

At the same time, it will have to address questions that surround national identity, and to what extent Independence will reduce differences ? especially in terms of race ? within the community.

This is the strongest card Independence advocates have, but it is also the hardest to define and the most subjective. The United Nations got one thing right after they visited. Bermuda will have to address racial issues whether it becomes Independent or not.

The view here is that Independence will make far less difference on this question than improved economic opportunity, better education and solving social issues like housing, family breakdowns, and the like.

But the BIC may have come to a different conclusion. It will be interesting to see what it has come up with when the report is released in a month's time.