L J L E5 Luja EELUBA From: Olwen Battersby, Alfred
Sherman, M. G. de St. V. Atkins, C. G. Lynam. B. Evans, Edmund Crispin, B. Engert: Oliver Stutchbury. M. J. Fennessy, David Buckton, A. G. F. Farquhar, T. Griffiths, John Other Roe, J. H. Curtis, Nicolas and Ruth Walter, Thomas de Marfty.
War on Want SIR,—"They, and they alone, force a party to define its policies over a wide range of issues': so states your leading article (March 11) on the political' manifestoes. But is this really so?
We are floating voters. We are internationalists. We believe that the spread of hunger—which at the present rate of food production will have doubled in intensity by the turn of the century—is the greatest problem confronting mankind today. We scan the three political manifestoes, and what do we find? One sentence only: 'Britain must take the lead in the war on want and deprivation' (Labour party manifesto). But it is the Labour party which has failed to give the 1 per cent of the national income-24d. in the £—annually, requested by the United Nations from the wealthier nations, and which now has pegged aid for four years (reply by the Minister for Overseas Aid. Mr. Anthony Green- wood, February 1966). France gives double this amount. How, then, can 'Britain take the lead'?
We do not like being diddled, but where else can we look? How, in the circumstances, can 'We, the peoples of the United Nations.' make our voices felt and demand the halting of hunger before it is too late? Peace. no less than the future of millions .yet unborn, may well depend upon it