Sick of the sick society
Sir: 'But they [the rich nations] should not be asked to assume an open-ended moral indebtedness in areas over which they no longer exercise control,' writes John Rowan Wilson (14 March).
No matter how extravagant, illogical, unreasonable, uncivilised, or even pug- nacious is the reaction of Britain's former African or Asian colonies to their problems as emerging nations, clearly Dr Rowan Wilson or any other educated Englishman `who speaks the tongue that Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold which Milton held' (Wordsworth) cannot entirely disengage himself from the moral respon- sibility he has inherited.
He may wince perceptibly when he reads that a certain African delegate at the Com- monwealth Prime Minister's conference has expressed such and such a view, but con- sidering that the British Empire, when it existed in all its regal magnificence—before 1939 it was possible to drive from Cairo to Capetown without putting the wheels of your vehicle outside British territory—was established and maintained by brute force of arms how can he just dismiss them as dirty and unwashed and illiterate or poor when his forefathers fired the guns and brandished the whips which made them that way?
This moral legacy of British responsibility may be harsh on the younger generation, but not one of the older generation in Bri- tain can, with conscience, deny it or opt out of it. Even here in Australia we seem to be called on to a greater and greater extent to exercise leadership in this area. How much more then is the responsibility of Britain who (according to a book-mark in my great-grandfather's Kitto and Birks bible) ruled over an empire on which the sun never set?
Howard Robertson 319 South Pine Road, Enoggera, Brisbane, Australia
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