I HAVE watched with some alarm the reactions to two initiatives taken by the Government on the last day the House of Assembly sat.

One dealt with the long-term residency issue in the form of a Green Paper. The world now knows what a can of worms that became -- in essence a one-sided exposition of xenophobic vitriol.

The other initiative dealt with extremely important constitutional matters supported by, at best, a skeletal indication of the extent of Government's proposed constitutional changes.

But what can be gleaned from the document presented to the House, and subsequent utterances from the Government, speaks to the very foundation of our country's future. The agenda Government has put forward will obviously restructure the entire edifice of governance in Bermuda. This is cause for some considerable alarm. All summer the people of Bermuda have not been able to reflect on the proposals because what was proposed is not quite clear. We could only speculate.

Significant changes to the very core of our Constitution apparently do not require the careful consideration of a conference. A general debate in the House of Assembly, as proposed by the Premier, would simply result in political grandstanding on both sides of the House -- hardly what the people of Bermuda deserve.

A Constitutional Conference would have the merit of several shades of political opinions being expressed based on papers developed with the aid of constitutional lawyers, not well-meaning amateur theorists. A Constitution of worth is not just plucked out of the air.

To be as inclusive as possible, public meetings should be held to ascertain the views of the governed (the man in the street). Instead, it is my understanding much of the arrangements will be left to the appointed Boundaries Commission. I do not believe that this is part of their mandate.

What has been clearly stated is that single-seat constituencies are central in the Government proposals (such as they are), with a reduction in the number of seats and a violation of parish boundaries. But to achieve a vote of equal value, proportional representation has to be considered and PR takes various forms.

The current number of part-time MPs provides a wide range of knowledge and opinions to bring to bear on whatever is being considered. There is no such thing as too many representatives in a healthy democracy. Reduce the number of representatives significantly and Cabinet dominates! Next step, a parliamentary dictatorship.

In these circumstances, the preservation of part-time politicians is a valuable feature of our current arrangement. The wide range of background would be replaced by persons of a type narrow in outlook and short on ability.

The control of the few would be very real.

There are questions that need to be asked and answered.

(1) Why the haste? (2) Who on the Government side will go in a reduced House? (3) Do the demographics of the new census come into play in this decision- making by the Boundaries Commission? I have read and re-read that part of the Constitution dealing with the Boundaries Commission, Sections 53-54, and cannot see the new powers being given to them as part of the intent when the Constitution was drawn up 1966-68.

In closing, there is enough evidence elsewhere to suggest that people seem to get used to bad government. But we should not allow this tendency to let us ignore what is being proposed for Bermuda. If successful, Government's proposals will be result in an outcome we will all certainly regret.

DR. E.S.D. RATTERAY City of Hamilton What's the hurry? October 20, 2000 I DO not understand the reticence in the community to speak out against the proposed boundary changes and/or reduction in the number of Parliamentarians.

I am not criticising the Progressive Labour Party's individual members; I am criticising their propositions. In fact, they are holding their constitutional cards so close to their chests that I frankly don't know what they propose.

I would suggest your readers re-read a few of your Opinions on this issue that you have written over the last few weeks -- you've said it well.

Let me ask again. What is the hurry? The PLP has three years of its elected mandate to implement any changes. Frankly, I think proportional representation without a transferable vote is the best alternative but from broad-based, community input might well come a better, more democratic solution. "What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.'' Stop the farce Jennifer Smith -- it has already gone too far! The overwhelming number of people -- in fact, all of the hundreds of people I have talked with -- want consultation. Broad-based consultation is vitally important. All who I talk with want a Constitutional Conference for certain.

Almost all would like a referendum to follow.

Many people say to me when I ask them to write a Letter to the Editor on this matter that they don't know enough to write -- is that not the point? Let me get down to brass tacks about the Premier's proposals.

1) Why should the Bermudian people write Jennifer Smith a blank cheque? 2) She had but 18 per cent support for her proposed constiutional overhaul in a poll taken by Walton Brown.

3) If the United Bermuda Party had proposed anything like one half as drastic a change there would have been riots -- with the PLP cheering on the sidelines.

(4) What's the hurry? SANDERS FRITH-BROWN Warwick Another masterpiece October 23, 2000 BRAVO, Mr. Editor! You've done it again! "Again'', however, in your case, is an understatement. You've been doing it so long and so well.

Last week's Opinion was your latest masterpiece ( Mid-Ocean News , October 20). Once more, you have told it exactly as it is and, worse still, as it assuredly will be unless the Jennifer Smith/PLP offensive on constitutional change is promptly blocked and derailed.

Let no one be fooled. As you accurately point out, the complacency and silence offered up by Government House and Bermuda's social, economic and civic leaders is dumbfounding.

Also, there is every need for the international business community to speak up. They complain, but let's hear from them when and where it matters. They have always insisted on stable government as a prerequisite. The shambles Jennifer Smith presides over becomes more unstable by the day.

Let's start helping Bermuda's cause by speaking up, signing petitions and keeping the Letters to the Editor coming.

LOUD AND CLEAR Hamilton Dust off this book now October 24, 2000 THE problem with all ideological political movements is that once victorious, they become the tools of opportunists and power brokers.

This is as true for the Progressive Labour Party as it was for the Bolsheviks in Russia of the 1920s and '30s. To quote from part 1/Chapter 2 of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago : "In 1921 all Russia's political parties had been buried, except the victorious one. And so that the dissolution of these parties would be irreversible, it was necessary that all members should disintegrate and their physical bodies too.

"Not one citizen of the former Russian state who had ever joined a party other than the Bolshevik party could avoid his fate ... He might live on, depending on how dangerous he was believed to be, until 1922, 1932, or even 1937, but the lists were kept; his turn would and did come ...

"This whole operation was stretched out over many years because it was of primary importance that it be stealthy and unnoticed ... And without any noise, without any outcry, the members of all other parties slipped gradually out of sight ... thus -- imperceptibly and mercilessly -- was prepared the annihilation of those who had once raged against tyranny ... and clanked their Tsarist shackles in pride.

"In the spring of 1922 the Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle Against Counter Revolution, the Cheka, decided to intervene in Church affairs. It was called on to remove the existing leadership, and replace it with one which would have only one ear turned to heaven and the other to the Lubyanka. the so-called `Living Church' people seemed to go along with the plan...'' And so on, and so on ...

Any Bermudian wishing to find out how a population of good, tolerant citizens can be cowed into submissive obedience to the political aims of a Government interested only in consolidating its powers, should dust off this book and have a read. They should do so preferably before our local Turn to Page 9, Col. 1 LETTERS Continued from page 4 Parliament is reduced to little more than an assembly of overpaid party apparatchiks , convened periodically only to rubber stamp their approval of legislative change and new orders.

NOT SMILING, NOT SMILING AT ALL City of Hamilton Subversive tactics October 24, 2000 A RESOUNDING "thank you'' to Editor Tim Hodgson for his wholly accurate assessment of the current battle to preserve Bermuda's constitutional freedoms in face of the subversive tactics thrown at us by Jennifer Smith and her accomplices ( Mid-Ocean News , October 20).

Some think all we have to do to get rid of the current regime is to wait for the next election.

But the projected damage the Progressive Labour Party is trying to do to the electoral system may well preclude Bermudians ever ousting them from power.

Their real goal is a dictatorship.

Thank you, Mr. Editor, for your great and patriotic service to Bermuda.

Your efforts give us hope that the ulterior path chosen by Premier Smith will not prevail.

Bermudians, make yourselves heard -- all of us.

It's our country. Sit down and write your Letters to the Editor to all newspapers in Bermuda.

Tim Hodgson will welcome all you send to him.

Let's not turn "precious little time'' into "too late''.

BERMUDA FIRST Pembroke