The Bermuda Society

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) July 30, 2006 -- The Bermuda Society
Modern-day Bermuda is affluent, thanks to its status as an offshore financial centre. The government has begun reforming this industry to clean up the territory's reputation as a tax haven. More than 13,000 companies are registered here. The territory's other mainstay is tourism - more than half a million people visit annually. Although a healthy majority of islanders voted against independence in 1995, the issue will not die. In 2004, Premier Jennifer Smith re-ignited the issue, by calling for the resumption of a territory-wide debate.

Modern History

Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, is credited with putting Bermuda on the tourist map after paying an extended visit to the islands in 1883. The princess was the wife of the Governor General of Canada and was keen to escape the long Canadian winter. By the turn of the century, Bermuda was well on the way to becoming a fashionable winter destination for 'snow birds,' who flocked aboard steamers crossing regularly from New York to Hamilton. Bermuda's strategic location in the Atlantic secured it a role in Allied military and intelligence operations in WWII. However, its proximity to the US mainland made it inevitable that the US take primary responsibility for developing bases on the island. Much to the locals' consternation, the British subsequently signed a 99-year lease handing over substantial portions of Bermuda's territory to the US military. The US constructed an air base on St David's Island, where the international airport is now located. In the wake of WWII, women were given the right to vote and, after boycotts, some of the franchise qualifications restricting the power of black voters were removed. In 1963 the Progressive Labour Party was introduced, in part to represent the interests of nonwhite Bermudians in the face of a government almost totally made up of white landowners. The rest of the parliamentarians united to form the United Bermuda Party. The two parties worked together to produce the 1968 constitution which provided for full internal self government, while leaving security, defense and diplomatic affairs to the crown. Although Bermuda had long prided itself on the relative harmony of its race relations, riots and race antagonism in the 1970s resulted in the removal of all de facto discrimination and the beginning of talks on independence from Britain. In the decades that have followed since, the independence movement became the dominant political issue, but a referendum in 1995 failed by a two-thirds majority as Bermudians became apprehensive about the political and economic cost of independence. Two weeks later they did, at least, regain control of 10% of the island's land mass when post-Cold War military cutbacks resulted in the closure of the US base on the island. In 1998 the PLP's Jennifer Smith was selected as premier, replacing the UBP's Pamela Gordon, who was Bermuda's first female premier and the youngest person ever to hold the office.

Source: http://www.yahoo.com

financial centre     healthy majority     jennifer smith     modern-day bermuda     territory s reputation