Democracy Comes To Sark, Centuries Late

The only way to the little Channel Island of Sark, 20 miles from France, is by boat. Among the more recent arrivals is something called democracy. CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports.

"It's for the good," says Sark resident George Guille. "I think it's for the good."

But this change for the good was a long time coming. Until recently, Sark, a British possession of about 3.5 square miles and about 600 souls, was the last outpost of feudalism in the western world.

One man — known by the old French title of Seigneur, or Lord — controlled all the land based on rights granted by the original Queen Elizabeth in the year 1565.

"This is the last holdout of feudalism in Western Europe. Do you feel you let the side down a bit?" Phillips asks Michael Beaumont, the Seigneur of Sark.

"Well yes, a bit," Beaumont laughs.

Under the old system, Michael Beaumont had it pretty good. He collected rents on the land and, along with a small elite, ran the place. For the privilege he paid the British Crown the equivalent of about $3.50 a year — raising the obvious question: Cash or check?

"Check," Beaumont laughs.

It was — you might think — a recipe for revolution. Not here.

If you're looking for heroic tales of a repressed population rising up to storm the barricades and demand its long-denied democratic rights though, don't look to Sark. This place has resisted change the way it's resisted the winds and the seas. Inevitably though, it had to give way.

The irresistible force came in the form of European human rights law — one person one vote and all that. In a place where history moves at the speed of a horse and carriage — cars aren't allowed in Sark — the islanders had to make a choice. After much debate, they voted for democracy — by a narrow 56 to 44 percent margin.

"Lots of people think this is a great idea, but people like myself who are local, we get quite concerned because we are just wondering how it's going to affect us and how much more the island will change through these changes," says Michelle Perree, a Sark resident.

Sark will change, all right. It will now be run by an elected assembly and publicly chosen officials.

"As revolutions go this may be the most velvet one of them all, I suppose," says Phillips to Lt. Col. Reginal Guille, Sark's chief government officer.

"We certainly haven't had any barricades in the street or banners wandering around, no," Guille agrees with a laugh.

Yet, for the first time in four centuries, future generations here will be responsible for their own lives. Whether they like it or not.