Gas Attack

When James I in 1615 granted the "still-vexed Bermoothes" their charter and Assembly, it was with the settlers' promise that "if any assailed the island, not cowardly to yield the same." Last week Bermuda's Assembly seemed more than ready to yield their island* to an old assailant, long held at bay. On a Hamilton wharf stood the enemy in force--the largest shipment of new cars ever to arrive from England.

Forbidden on.public roads since 1908, private cars have long since infiltrated Bermuda's big estates. When U.S. troops arrived in 1941 with a thousand-odd snorting jeeps, trucks and staff cars, most bicycling Bermudians choked with rage and the island's soft coral dust. But the merchant-politicians of Bermuda's 36-man Assembly greeted the invaders as a welcome change. "Cars are here," said they in effect. "Let's all have one."

Bermuda's upper house, the nine-man Legislative Council, was horrified. "Bermuda has only one industry," warned Attorney General J. Trounsell Gilbert, "the tourist trade. Make no mistake, if we admit cars generally we will destroy our beauty and kill the tourist trade."

While Chief Justice Sir Brooke Francis argued mildly that "it would be a mercy to turn Bermuda's overworked horses out to pasture," the two houses of the Empire's second oldest parliament settled down to a knockdown, three-year battle over the issue. Last January the Assembly let Bermuda's traffic law lapse and refused to renew it unless the upper house would permit private cars. With the island's drivers suddenly free to careen at will without lights, licenses, brakes or speed limits, Bermuda's alarmed acting governor begged his legislators for a compromise.

Last week a joint committee of both houses submitted a new bill permitting each Bermuda family one car or one "motor assisted" bicycle. Bermuda's merchants, many of whom have gone into the auto business, rubbed their hands and hungrily eyed the 58 spanking new cars and 40 trucks waiting in Hamilton.

* Bermuda actually consists of 360 small & smaller islands.

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