IN response to my remarks a week earlier, Mrs A M Garner (Letters, May 28) states that my comment about the British public not wanting any more refugees and outcasts (and this includes all these so-called political and economic asylum-seekers who flood these shores) is being hypocritical and unchristian.

The first may be true if it was not for the fact that the vast majority of people one talks to and the amount of correspondence objecting to them shows my statement to be correct

The other all depends whether one contributes to Christian ideology or any other religious ideology.

With reference to my facts and figures being wrong, if Mrs Garner read the better type of papers, she would have read about these figures over the last month or so - all put out by various government bodies.

My main concern was how so-called caring government can state that the coffers are nearly empty and then proceed to lumber the public with expenses of billions of pounds of future debt on a war on which nobody could vote on whether they wanted it or not.

Over the last 200 years, various British governments have waged war on scores of different countries to the tune of some £13 billion and at a loss of some three million British dead and millions wounded - and all for what?

In the name of good Christian virtues and for God and the King/Queen, we have been party to some horrendous crimes against our fellow men.

We took over what is now the USA and nearly wiped out the indigenous people there (the Spanish did the same in the south). We next did the same in Australia and New Zealand.

We took over various other lands and made the people there second class citizens.

In the Second World War we took part in a conflict that claimed more than 50 million lives and left 11 million refugees or displaced persons in Europe. Britain even was party to allotting various East European countries to Russia causing further suffering and misery to millions for the next 50 years. Now, we are bombing and killing other Christians in Serbia. Unbelievable!

Yes, Mrs Garner, British governments over the years have shown true Christian virtues. It's a great pity all the money spent did not go in helping the proper benefactors in all this - the British public.

What I would like to see the British governments do for the next 200 years is to declare our neutrality, like Switzerland; keep the army at home, do away with the expenses of the bombs and guns and just see how well we do in terms of lower taxes, etc, and a better way of life for our future offspring.

Now, that's what I would call Christian virtues. Remember, charity begins at home.

R LOEBELL, Edisford Road, Clitheroe.

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