Your correspondent L. Pace’s contribution re the illegal immigration problem is much to the point (TMIS, 12 April). It is possibly the greatest challenge we have had since the last war.

It represents the possible undoing of everything the island has stood for, all the history of our island, socially and in the realm of the spirit.

Nature built Malta as an island for herself. Our ancestors gave up their lives and built bastions to avoid intruding elements and even nature teaches that birds of the same feather flock together. The reality is that Spain, France and Italy and Greece can easily take what the island is just not in a position to take, let alone absorb.

Before our generation sings its praises, we must assess the wisdom of our present apparent acceptance of the risk of our becoming a part of Africa in all matters of the traditional social fabric of our dear fatherland. Clearly, the island faces a dangerous horizon.

Lewis J. Lautier

ATTARD