IN his hymn of praise for privatisation and unhindered free market economics (“Success is in the post for Royal Mail sell-off”, The Herald October 14), Mark Smith is being somewhat myopic. He claims to be a child of the 1970s and 80s whereas I, as a child of the 40s and 50s, can assure him that I have seen things with my own eyes that contradict his cosy theories.
I have seen the results of uninhibited capitalism and they were not pretty. I recall delivering newspapers in the Canonmills area of Edinburgh (now classed as a part of the trendy New Town) to stinking one-room flats in dark stairs. I have seen men working uncomplainingly in hair-raisingly dangerous conditions and I have witnessed men suffering horrific injuries, I had a few brushes with death and suffered injuries myself as an apprentice and tradesman in the building industry and my lungs are now scarred with asbestosis due to poor health and safety regulations.
Mr Smith need not take my word for it, your photographs of slum living are mute testimony to the exploitation the capitalist system is susceptible to when left to if its own devices (“Pictures of slums go on display after wait of 40 years”, The Herald, October 14). He should note that these slum conditions were the result of the privately owned railways being given the power to compulsorily purchase whatever land they deemed necessary to drive their lines through cities. The tenants of the homes that were demolished to make way for the railways were then abandoned to their fate. Thus was caused the overcrowding and terrible conditions that obliged the poor to cram into homes too small to accommodate them.
Mr Smith's rosy view of the glories of a privately owned mail service will inevitably be proved to be hopelessly optimistic when the time comes that market conditions oblige the Royal Mail's successors to compromise on their current obligations regarding affordable services to remote locations. The time will come when the golden days of Postman Pat's Royal Mail will be consigned to history. Then they will come for the NHS.
David C Purdie,
12 Mayburn Vale, Loanhead, Midlothian.
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