I WOULD like to point out to Matthew Southworth (Letters, September 15) that the doctrine of laissez-faire has been discovered to be, not a rational philosophy of life, but a clever smoke screen behind which landlords and factory magnates could act at their own pleasure.

Capitalism is the most corrupt, the most evil system ever devised by man. Countless millions of people have been sacrificed on the altar of Mammon.

Wars are the stock-in-trade of the faceless bankers who are quite happy to lend the money and who is burdened with the debt? - the working classes.

Poverty and hunger could be a thing of the past if the wealth of the world was used wisely for the benefit of its populations.

The USA since 1940 has spent a trillion dollars on the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

I would like to learn how much our governments have spent over the years on nuclear weapons - at a guess, far more than on the NHS.

And now we have the buffoons telling the people on low incomes to save for their old age and they will only be taxed at 10 per cent and not 20 per cent.

The working classes have been in hell as far as I can remember.

I am into my 84th year and when I was a little lad in Liverpool -pensioners almost starved to death (and some did) on ten shillings per week.

Your capitalist could always find money for wars but not to alleviate the poverty and degradation of the working classes.

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.