Swiss labour
Sir: Reading another long letter criticising my 'Swiss xenophobia' article. I almost regret my conciliatory reply to Nina Harvie (6 June). When J. M. Walsh defends Swiss reluctance to offer foreign workers permanent residence, he exhibits just the confusion I discussed in my article: to end the degrading saisonnier system need not imply turning the saisonniers into resident aliens, since a morally unobjectionable intermediate status already exists. Mr Walsh writes of the Swiss being 'swamped' by immigrants as if the decision to admit them were outside Swiss control; my point was that the Swiss want the benefit of cheap imported labour without conceding in return the elementary right to family life.
In any case, talk of 'stemming the tide' and 'preserving the Swiss way of life' is wide of the mark: there was a higher proportion of foreigners in SWiss cities in 1914 than there has ever been in recent decades.
As for Mr Walsh's impatience with the failure of British academics to grasp the virtues of Swiss local self-government: I cannot speak for my colleagues, but in view of what I have written in praise of that very feature of Swiss life it seems ironic that Mr Walsh chooses this Point on which to criticise me.
Geoffrey Sampson Richmond House, Ingleton, Yorkshire
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