Sir, – Patsy McGarry ("Belgium gave Irish men reason to enlist and fight", Rite & Reason, August 26th) argues that it was "morally right" to defend Belgium's neutrality in the first World War.
At that time the global economy was controlled by the European powers whose economies were served by colonies (ie the rest of the world).
Belgium itself was also part of this system with the rule of Leopold II, killing millions in the Congo.
Britain and Germany dominated global trade, and Germany was challenging the existing hierarchy of this European colonial system.
The European powers fought to preserve their vast overseas empires and indeed the system of empires itself. In this context it is difficult to see how any of the European powers engaging in the first World War could have been “morally right” to do so.
This system survived the first World War. Its end came about in Newfoundland in August 1941 when Roosevelt told Churchill that America would not support its continuation after the second World War.
The 1941 Atlantic Charter set the Allies’ objectives for the postwar world, which led to the postwar independence of European colonies, the move towards free trade and the current global economic system. – Yours, etc,
DAVID GEARY,
Cap Estate,
St Lucia.