Channel Islands: Nothing Like a Dame

She hums along the narrow roads in her electric wheelchair, monopolizes the right to keep pigeons and bitches, takes a 13th share of the price paid for any property, and governs the tiny islet 20 miles off the coast of France with the traditional whim of iron. Last week Dame Sibyl Hathaway, 85, one of the Western world's last feudal rulers, was furious. "I can no longer publicize this island as a haven of rest when there are 42 tractors, few of which obey the traffic laws," she said. "I am also tired of having to call on Guernsey police every few weeks because of complaints and utter disregard of licensing [drinking] laws."

After delivering her complaint to the island's parliament, the Dame of Sark, who is responsible only to Queen Elizabeth II, announced that she planned to surrender the sovereignty of her 3-mile-long-by-H-mile-wide island to neighboring Guernsey, eight miles farther out in the English Channel. Her 575 subjects were aghast. "The Dame has put us in a small boat and pushed us down the river," groused Philip Perree, a hotelkeeper. "We have no wish to be ruled by the bureaucrats of Guernsey."

Sarkees fear that union with Guernsey would mean a loss of their ancient privileges. On Sark there is no personal income tax. Instead, after consulting, a dozen of the island's leading citizens set a "poor tax," based on how prosperous a resident appears. "We more or less guess," says William Baker, head of the island's parliament, which is called the Court of Chief Pleas. "We know approximately how much money everyone has and decide how much he can afford to pay."

The less well-off pay a few shillings a year, while Millionaire Leonard Mat-chan, the wealthiest Sarkee, forks over only about £125 annually. In return, residents are guaranteed serenity: Sark has no cars, no newspapers, no police save for two honorary constables, and no hospital. In recent years, however, Dame Sibyl's subjects have been asserting an unwonted degree of independence.

On Their Own. The Dame is particularly annoyed by the proliferation of agricultural tractors, imported by residents to circumvent the ban on cars. The tractors are used to cart tourists up the steep hill from the harbor—at a price. In addition, ugly rumors came to the Dame's attention that some tractors occasionally exceed Sark's 10-m.p.h. speed limit. Sark's pubs pose another problem. Though the drinking hours (8 a.m. to 11 p.m.) compare favorably to those in Britain, residents often carry on past closing time—and some of those residents are members of the parliament. "I feel it becomes unbearable," Dame Sibyl said, "when the very laws that are made by the Chief Pleas are broken by the members themselves."