LETTER : Peak of Empire

From Mr Jim Mangles

Sir: G. Chowdharay-Best (letter, 12 May) is incorrect when he says that Niall Meehan (letter, 10 May) vastly exaggerated the size of the British Empire. In fact, Mr Chowdharay-Best just as vastly underestimates.

The probable reason for his error is that his source, the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1910, was published rather more than a decade before the empire reached its maximum extent, which occurred following the redistribution as spoils of war (under the gossamer-thin cover of trusteeships of the League of Nations) of former German colonies and detached parts of the Ottoman Empire after victory in the First World War.

Yours sincerely,

JIM MANGLES

Norfolk

12 May