BERMUDA: Small Bid, Big Job

Tiny Bermuda put in a bid for a big job last week. The House of Assembly voted to investigate the possibilities of making the islands the New Geneva of the postwar world, where international conferences could be held in an atmosphere remote from national strife. Author of the suggestion was Legislative Councilor F. Goodwin Gosling, who also submitted the idea to Britain and the U.S.

Bermuda has already lost much of its peaceful quietude. U.S. soldiers and sailors stationed at a big new naval base have changed the islands’ face and habits. The change was most apparent in the jeeps and trucks that chugged over roads once sacred to the horse and the bicycle. It had taken a special act of the Assembly to admit motor vehicles; Bermuda’s permanent residents feared that the noisome automobile was there to stay.