Sir: A propos of the consequences of immigration, may I
submit a piece of information for the historical record? The late Sir John Foster was Assistant Secret- ary of State for the Colonies during the Silly Sixties. He told me that each year he sent up a memorandum to the Cabinet warning that, if immigration was allowed to go on uncontrolled, it would in the end mount up to an almighty problem.
No notice was taken by Macmillan's government. On the other side Gaitskell was no better: to begin with he was fool enough to declare against controlling im- migration.
American friends, thought that we were fools to import a problem we did not have before. It was of course crazy irresponsibil- ity to bring more people into a small island already over-populated. • Scientists know. that overTopillation is the greatest danger; and historians regard it as the bottom of the world's troubles.
But politicians—what are they for if not to think of the long-term interests of their country?
A. L. Rowse
St Austell, Cornwall
Previous page
