far enough. It would seem that the rental questionnaire now being circulated is designed to tell Government how much rent people are charging above the annual rental value of their properties. That is fine if Government wants to know what the real rental values are as opposed to their assessment even though the survey seems likely to lead to an increase in land taxes. Many people will ask why the landlord should not be taxed, but this may not be realistic as Bermuda's land tax is an occupancy tax designed to be passed on to the tenants. The landlord will only pass on a higher tax to the tenant, making already high rents even more extreme.

As we see it, Bermuda does need a survey of rental properties so that it knows exactly what the housing situation is. Right now we guess at what is available to tenants because not all rentable properties are in fact rented. There are a number of people, possibly as many as 300, who have apartments, mostly part of their own homes, which they choose not to rent.

People make the choice not to rent for a number of reasons but it seems mostly to be for self-protection. Their home is paid for and they do not want to risk a troublesome tenant they cannot get rid of. However, it does cut down on the housing units available.

Then too there are any number of houses about Bermuda which are unoccupied and in disrepair which could provide homes. Sometimes the legal arrangements for the property are complex, but still they "occupy space''. It would seem that it must be possible to identify the owners and work toward putting some of these houses in order to provide homes without starting from scratch on new land. It should be possible for the Housing Corporation to become involved in some kind of supervised redevelopment. When you have the Bermuda situation where space is severely restricted and land is at a premium, it is unwise to go on providing new homes while there are idle buildings.

It seems to us that someone should have understood that an expanding international company sector paying wages above those of Bermudian businesses would lead to higher rents and an increased demand for housing. That does not really affect people at the highest income levels, many of whom have been happy to move out and rent their homes for very high rents. But people in lower and middle income levels have seen rents increase above their ability to pay and they have no alternatives. That is not a satisfactory situation especially since most of the people thus affected are Bermudian.

What we need is a total assessment of rental properties and their availability so that we can plan housing sensibly. We need to recognise the value to the economy of the international companies but we also need to provide for Bermudians who benefit on one hand but have their lives stressed on the other.