murder without an arrest. The public is deeply disturbed by two brutal murders which are causing all sorts of exotic stories to circulate both in Bermuda and in Canada.

The murder of any visitor is particularly bad news for a tourist resort but the brutal rape and murder of a young woman visitor is bound to attract attention outside Bermuda. This is especially true when there appears to be no sense whatever to the stabbing death in a place with a high reputation for safety.

However, there are things which can be done to minimise the bad publicity overseas caused by such a tragedy and to reassure the Bermudian public in the wake of such a vicious murder. What can be done is the careful release of enough information to keep people informed without damaging the investigation.

The release of that information should be such as to quell wild and exotic rumours of the kind which have been repeated in Bermuda constantly this week.

A clampdown on all information such as we have seen in Bermuda this week only causes public uncertainty followed by wild speculation. That creates an unhealthy climate and fuels speculation.

The problem is that the rumours are much more disruptive than the truth and that many of them are alarmist. In the present instance some of the "inside reports'' have been downright racist and divisive which is entirely undesirable.

There have been complaints from the Police about stories carried overseas yet most of the speculative stories appear to have been justified given the lack of authoritative information. It is unreasonable to provide nothing and think that nothing will be printed. The Canadian press has, in fact, been rather tame given the brutal circumstances of the murder of a Canadian. In reality what we had until yesterday afternoon was a total failure of public relations both on the part of the Police and on the part of Government. It may be that the circumstances of the murder were so horrifying as to cause a kind of paralysis. Yesterday, the Police suddenly tried to make friends of the Press at a Press conference which gave the impression that someone has decided that the Police now need the help of the Press because they have very little information. As far as this newspaper is concerned, everything we possibly can do will be done to help with the solution of these two murders.

The easy way for the Police to go is a total clampdown. The hard way but the best way is to make some judgment on what information can be released. The Police first chose the former and now must live with alarmist and probably inaccurate rumours.

The Government failed to see the need for good public relations following a vicious murder of a young visitor. Almost anyone would have understood that there was going to be a great deal of bad publicity in Ontario, Bermuda's main Canadian visitor catchment area. Dealing well with the overseas Press is supposed to be part of the function of both Government Information Services and the Ministry of Tourism. This week they failed.