long-term residents. It seemed to us that instead of squarely facing the basic issue, they brought up a fair number of red herrings. There is only one basic issue here and that is a moral one. It is not right and it will never be right to use the best years of people's lives to Bermuda's benefit and then discard those people as if they were pieces of worn out furniture fit for nothing but the dump.

It is amazing to us that some politicians who consider themselves liberal become "Bermuda Firsters'' and resort to rhetoric which is conservative in the extreme.

One Government Senator went so far as to say that he resented the suggestion that Bermuda has a moral responsibility to long-term residents. It is very difficult to understand why people in senior and powerful positions cannot recognise the contribution made to Bermuda and Bermudians by non-Bermudians and cannot understand that non-Bermudians are owed decent treatment as a result of that contribution. They have served well and behaved well or their work permits would not have been renewed.

We are not suggesting that Bermudians should be deprived in their own Country or badly done by or kept away from jobs they can fulfill. We are suggesting what Sir John Swan was quoted as telling Bermuda College graduates last week.

Bermuda has a growing population and many of them are educated and ambitious and must have access to jobs. But that does not mean we no longer welcome non-Bermudians.

Bermuda is a very sophisticated society with an extraordinary standard of living and while we have done very well in producing the qualified people to support that society, we could not hope to go on expanding without outside personnel. The fastest way to damage Bermudians is to mis-manage the complex economy. You cannot increase work opportunities for Bermudians, especially those Bermudians we are educating to a high standard, by causing businesses to cut back. That is what will happen if they cannot staff to meet their needs.

Yet Bemudians have been encouraged by some people bent on political gain to believe that they are displaced in their own Country by foreigners. There have been some instances of injustice but not many. Given Bermuda's tight immigration laws there is little proof that injustice is rampant as is so often suggested. In fact, much of Bermuda's sophisticated economy which provides a good living for Bermudians has been created by non-Bermudians and there is real evidence that non-Bermudians in the work force create jobs for Bermudians. The suggestion of a "green card'' for long term residents which a number of Senators seem to favour is a total misrepresentation. Granted when people first arrive in the United States, a "green card'' says that you can work freely and it almost inevitably leads to US citizenship.

The people who have served Bermuda for over 20 years have done so on work permits which have regulated where and at what level they can work. To give them a "green card'' after such long service would do nothing but create a group of second class citizens. We believe that if that decision were challenged in the international courts, the challenge would succeed simply because creating second class citizens is grossly out of line with the practice of human rights in other countries.

Berrmuda has yet to learn that if it wants to be accepted as a respectable member of the international community it has to behave well. Very often the act of doing the right thing is not easy but it is right and just.