LETTERS Running the race
Sir: It is a welcome surprise to see Charles Moore's plea for a more liberal immigra- tion policy on economic and demographic grounds (Another voice, 19 October). No Politician has been brave enough to say that an aging population with low fertility and no renewal from the outside will inevitably Produce long-run economic decline.
Less agreeable is his explicit appeal to .race' as the suitable criterion for determin- ing entry. Apparently all Poles, Hungarians and Russians are preferable to anyone of colour' on the grounds that these groups are likely to share a greater cultural affinity With the British people.This seems unlikely, as most East Europeans are dissimilar to most Britons in religion and language and Share nothing of the heritage of Empire and Commonwealth. They would not, for example, even be able to grasp the first Principles of Norman Tebbit's 'cricket test' of loyalty. Why not deploy some more relevant Judgments — relating to the skills, age, educational attainments, family circum- stances, financial situation and language of the applicant?
Australia and Canada have pioneered the co-ordination of immigration, manpow- er and economic policy and have rightly Consigned racial definitions to the scrap- heap of history. It would be nice to think that they and we could also afford a few humanitarian gestures to asylum-seekers worldwide. But if we have to have a selec- tive immigration policy, let us base it on rational grounds rather than on 19th-centu- ry appeals to 'race' and 'nation'.
Robin Cohen
Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry
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