Letters: It is time Britain recognised that Russia poses a real threat to peace in Europe

Plus: Falling birth rates; the toxic Amazonian gold trade; the Church and slavery; the luxurious lives of racehorses; and outrageous operas

SIR – Our government has a duty to inform the nation of the potential risks posed by Russia. We are all aware of the war in Ukraine (Letters, March 24), but many do not or cannot believe that it could directly affect us. 
We have provided military support to Ukraine, but the Government’s defence budget is insufficient to address the pressing need to expand and update our own Armed Forces. A general election is looming, the Conservative Party looks weak and the economy remains fragile. The Government’s underlying focus is on its own political survival, with tax cuts favoured over defence spending, but events unfolding in Ukraine may ultimately threaten the very existence of a democratic Europe.
Our national security must be the main focus of  Rishi Sunak and our other political leaders. The threat to the UK and the rest of Europe posed by an aggressive Russia is real and growing. We need to be made to understand the magnitude and nature of the risks we face.
David PlattsNewark, Nottinghamshire
 
SIR – Commenting recently on the need to increase the French birth rate (Business, March 26), Hélène Périvier, of the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE), said: “As long as we have unemployed people, having more children is not necessarily a good solution. Rather than more people, it is better to have more people who are educated and are able to work.” 
The same point was made 100 years ago in respect of the British population by R A Fisher, then chief statistician at Rothamsted Experimental Station. He noted that the cost of education was tending to cause the wealthier classes to reduce their fertility below their replacement rate, and that this in turn had the genetic consequences of associating wealth with infertility in the population. After studying the flat-rate scheme of child allowances adopted in France, Fisher concluded that it would be better to adopt a system in which child allowances proportional to earnings would be paid by employers. For self-employed professions such as medicine, the same effect would be produced through their professional associations. In neither case would there be a call on public funds.
Discussion of the two types of scheme was conducted largely among the members of the Eugenics Society. William Beveridge, in his 1943 Galton Lecture to the society, favoured a flat-rate scheme on public funds, which was later enacted.Today, Beveridge is revered as the founder of the welfare state. Fisher, however, has been cancelled for being a “eugenicist”, and his scheme for family allowances is wrongly stigmatized for benefiting the wealthy at the public’s expense.
Professor AWF EdwardsGonville and Caius CollegeCambridge
SIR – I don’t see falling birth rates as a problem. They are not surprising, when young adults in many countries can’t afford their own home, do not feel secure in their job or just can’t get a well paid one. Immigration does not solve this problem, but exacerbates it.
Instead, we should focus on keeping people healthy into old age so that they do not cost society so much. When the situation for young people improves, the birth rate will increase naturally.
Lucy RamsdenLondon SW1
SIR  – Reading your report, “Zimbabwe’s toxic gold rush: how would-be treasure hunters are causing ecological disaster” (March 26), I was struck by the parallels between the situation in Zimbabwe and the humanitarian emergency facing the indigenous Yanomami people in the Amazonian region of Brazil, which has also been created by the activities of illegal gold miners.
As in Zimbabwe, mercury poisoning is wreaking havoc in the Amazon, killing the fish that the Yanomami eat and poisoning their children. In the process, it is also destroying incalculable bio- and cultural diversity, and a precious carbon sink that the whole world depends upon.
Where our gold comes from is important, and those who manage its trade should play a key role in ensuring that supply chains are ethical and transparent. Although the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has ethical guidance for companies trading on the British market, this does not go far enough. Key priorities should be the full disclosure of supply-chain and country-of-origin data, constructive engagement with affected communities, and the implementation of rigorous grievance processes.
It’s imperative that the LBMA aligns with international standards such as the EU’s Conflict Minerals Regulation, to ensure that gold traded within the United Kingdom is not contributing to these serious harms.
Lucy BrillPrivate Sector Policy Lead, CAFOD
 
SIR  – As the Church of England continues to agonise over the issue of slave-trade reparations (Letters, March 24), it might consider widening its remit to include child labour in the UK, itself a form of slavery. The activities of the Committee for the Relief of Black Poor (1786) and the Act to Abolish the Transatlantic Slave Trade (1807) preceded the Factory Act (1833). Thus, it would seem that concern over child labour attracted a lower priority; indeed the 1833 Act did not put an end to such slavery, it merely imposed legal limitations while recognising that children as young as eight were still part of the labour force. 
The virtue-signalling Church could compensate the home-grown heirs to what was a form of slave labour.
Michael NicholsonMoretonhampstead, Devon
SIR – Hereditary guilt for slavery is just intellectual nonsense. Current generations have no responsibility to the descendants of those wronged in the past. All slavery is wrong, not just the slave trade that was carried on by Britain.
Recompense is mere virtue signalling; the right course of action is to redouble our efforts to ensure today’s slaves are freed and that slavery is relegated to history.
Andrew WauchopeLondon SE11
SIR  – Jonathan Longstaff (Letters, March 24) suggests that the families of those who benefited from slavery should consider paying reparations. However, I would suggest that the nations that sold their subjects into slavery should pay reparations to the families of those who lost their lives trying to stop the vile trade, while serving in the Royal Navy.
George HerrickRothes, Moray
 
SIR  – With regards to the letter from Mark Richards entitled “Racehorse cruelty” (March 24), in which he suggests that the horses are merely “bred as investments” and lead wretched lives that end in “their untimely deaths at the hands of humans”, I would suggest that he visits a racing stable to see the love and care lavished on the animals by trainers, grooms, jockeys, staff and owners. He would find a completely different situation to the lonely and cruel existence he imagined. 
Sadly, due to the weather, this year’s Lambourn Open Day was cancelled. However, there are other opportunities, such as National Racehorse Week in September, when the public can visit stables all over the country.
Anthony BootyLittlehampton, West Sussex
SIR – Mark Richards displays a lack of knowledge of racing and racehorses. For a start, National Hunt horses do not go racing until they are at least three years old and, in most cases, they are four or five before they go anywhere near a racecourse.
Secondly, for the most part, racehorses are not an investment in any financial sense. They are extremely expensive to maintain and, as the saying goes, the best way to make a small fortune at horse racing is to start off with a big one. 
My wife and I are comfortably off – but by no means wealthy – and own shares in two horses that are in training at our local yard. They spend their days roaming the fields, being ridden out or schooled over jumps, and are looked after royally. We were recently lucky enough to be there when one of them won his race at Bangor, and the sense of elation was indescribable. 
Owners, trainers and jockeys all do it because we love both horses and racing, and accept that it comes with an element of risk as accidents do happen. Without the thrill of racing, there would be no point in owning these beautiful creatures.
Graham LowThreapwood, Cheshire
 
SIR – I sympathise with JT Campbell (Letters, March 24) over his experience at the English Touring Opera’s production of Manon Lescaut.
My sister and I once went to see Carmen done by Opera North. Carmen appeared wearing dungarees and baseball boots; Don José and his fellow soldiers were clad in Boy Scout uniforms, including shorts; Micaëla was depicted as some kind of camp groupie, who allowed herself to be sexually assaulted; and Escamillo appeared with a pit bull terrier in tow, stripped off his top and smeared himself with tomato ketchup while singing the “Toreador Song”.
We, too, left at the interval, and have not been to a live performance since.
Jacqueline WatsonWashington, Co Durham
SIR – I remember a sense of bewilderment during a staging of Carmen at the Royal Opera House, when the heroine entered at the top of a huge staircase in a gorilla suit.
Tom StubbsSurbiton, Surrey
SIR – I have been a regular at English Touring Opera productions, but I noticed a marked change last year after the appointment of a new director and I will not be returning. Meanwhile, the wonderful Mid Wales Opera, which brings entertaining productions to communities across Wales and the borders, has had all its funding removed by the Arts Council of Wales. 
Clearly, its outreach work with schools and the opportunities it provides for young artists count for nothing. Yet I have spent a number of joyous evenings with this company, which has given a first taste of opera to many people who have no access to large venues. 
It is time those charged with spending our money on the arts considered the audiences instead of their own narrow viewpoint.
Susan JeevesHiston, Cambridgeshire
SIR – I found myself with time to spare during a recent trip to Washington DC, so decided to while away four hours watching the New York Metropolitan Opera performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Forza Del Destino, which was being beamed live into a very comfortable cinema a stone’s throw from the White House.
The performance was outstanding in every detail: late 20th-century costumes, a turntable stage and superlative set designs that morphed from a palatial apartment to a post-war apocalypse. The voices were breathtaking, and the fact that the performance was being transmitted provided the added advantage of close-ups for those of us who were not at the opera house.
My advice to anyone tempted to dip a toe into opera is to go to a live-beam cinema performance of a world-class company singing in the original language. It is a truly emotional, uplifting and intimate experience that comes at the price of a cinema ticket.
Tim WrightRampisham, Dorset
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