ACCORDING to M Southworth (Letters, February 16), capitalism is the only moral system worth having, and is superior to socialism.

I wonder where he has been living - on Mars? Capitalism has not the morals of an alley cat. In fact, an alley cat is a paragon of virtue compared to the capitalist brigands.

Capitalism does not and never has solved the problem of poverty. It creates it.

Mr Southworth should read history going back into the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 and beyond. Where there was great wealth for the few, there was the direst poverty for the majority.

The irony is, when the capitalist gold and power is threatened by a predatory country, they force the gullible masses to go to war and fight and die, and by conscription into the armed forces deny the conscript the right to live.

I wonder how many readers know that in 1864, hundreds of unemployed mill workers were compelled to eat vermin, dandelion leaves or anything that would ease the pain of hunger in their bellies, and yet Blackburn in those days would have been surrounded by farms.

The mill workers had no money to buy the food. Why did they have no money? Because, Mr Southworth, there was no dole or social security to help them over difficult times.

Two million people died from starvation in Ireland during the years of 1848-51 and yet grain that would have saved them was exported to England.

Business is business, sayeth the capitalist god of Mammon.

LESLIE JONES, Aviemore Close, Audley, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.