The letter (10 March) relating to the Artist and Empire exhibition at the Tate and how arrogance, greed, slavery and racism made us rich, while accurate for one section of society, is not true of all and we would do well to remember the history of the working people of Britain. My forebears were nail makers in the Black Country and, along with chainmakers and miners, were known as “the white slaves of Britain”. A little research will show that their labour was exploited unmercifully by the same people who exploited abroad and they were never made rich by the empire.
Doreen Fryer
Birmingham
• Kuldip Khosla (Letters, 10 March) lists “good things” that the empire did, including railways. The reason we built railways in India was to transport the plundered raw materials to the coast, so they could be shipped back to Britain.
John Richards
Oxford
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