JOHN Maclean has featured prominently in the National with various articles highlighting his achievements.

However, there has been little mention of his role in exposing an adulterated meat racket here in Scotland.

Maclean had read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, with its graphic account of conditions in the tinned beef factories of Chicago.

But he had heard of a scandal closer to home – in Greenock!

There was a slaughterhouse there on Crown Street. It was owned by the town council and managed by a committee.

Prior to April 1907, the committee employed a Mr Ballantine to inspect all the carcasses taken out of the premises. However, he often let out diseased ones. Indeed, diseased entrails were sent on to Glasgow in bags labelled “tripe”.

The council did nothing. Bailie Andrew, convener of the Slaughterhouse Committee, only visited the premises six or seven times during his long period in office.

Maclean points out, so lax were inspection methods, that in time Greenock became a dumping ground for “old, dead and dying cows within a radius of 20 miles”.

Maclean was so appalled by what he had heard that he wrote a pamphlet, The Greenock Jungle, exposing the slaughterhouse practices and the trade in diseased meats.

In the pamphlet, first published in 1907, Maclean also condemned the treatment meted out to a whistleblower, a Mr Houston, who had been forced out of work and blacklisted after talking about what he had seen in the slaughterhouse. Maclean appealed to the people of Greenock to help find Mr Houston alternative employment.

And Maclean’s pamphlet did actually result in positive changes, including the appointment of a new government inspector!
Alan Stewart
Glasgow

I AM in complete agreement with George M Mitchell’s letter (March 14) praising Ian Blackford. In doing so, I would point out that I am not a member of the SNP, never have been and never will be. I am a socialist (of sorts) and have spent my entire adult life detesting the lousy, rotten capitalist system, and will continue to do so.

Yes, Ian Blackford and his equally excellent comrades have certainly fought Scotland’s corner with a tenacity and a patriotic passion that compels me to applaud and greatly appreciate their endeavours on our nation’s behalf.
Norrie Paton
Campbeltown

I READ with interest recent letters regarding the viability of Scotland revoking the 1707 Treaty of Union and wondered if perhaps the judgment of Lord Cooper in the 1953 case of MacCormick v Lord Advocate may be worth taking into account.

I am no expert, but it seems to me that the Lord President expressed a lawful opinion that while the Union effectively extinguished the parliaments of Scotland and England and replaced them with a United Kingdom Parliament, there was no reason why this parliament should have followed the English template rather than the Scottish model. I believe this to be a clear and legal indication that both parties to the Union are to be equally respected.

Furthermore, he noted that the concept of unlimited parliamentary sovereignty was”distinctively English and lacking a Scottish counterpart”. In my view, this is a rich endorsement of the continuing of sovereignty of Scottish people. With this in mind, surely any democratic event resulting in a majority vote by the Scottish people for re-establishing our independence would be sufficient grounds for revoking the Union.
Iain Lappin
Perthshire

AFTER her second trouncing on the withdrawal agreement, the sound bites about the “will of the British people must be delivered” are being repeated ad nauseam by the government, sections of the media and others.

But the will of the “British” people is now harder to divine! At the referendum, Scots and Northern Irish voted to remain, despite the DUP and its red lines written in “blood”. England and Wales voted to leave and in Gibraltar about 97% voted to remain!

The returns from recent polls show overall that a majority in the country could now support remaining. Shifting times, indeed.

The British state is coming apart, diverging as old ideas and old myths disappear from consciousness. A generational shift is also under way and no doubt this will accelerate when the present deference to Windsorian dynasty recedes as its long-standing figurehead gives way to the next heir apparent.

The chaos witnessed in the UK Parliament can only reinforce the structural decay and endemic paralysis there. It goes beyond the current UK Government – the official opposition is split and its leader Jeremy Corbyn is bumbling at times.

As the boasts and wildcat promises from the Brexiteers have turned out to be chimeras, the UK body politic as represented by the Anglo-duopoly and LibDems is fossilised beyond repair!

Rule Britannia ... that squeak from a distant Empire when it was then in the early stages of terminal decline, which the likes of Boris Johnson tried to reignite with his faux panacea of Global Britain, cannot even rule itself from within, and the world looks on!
John Edgar
Kilmaurs

I THINK most people would agree that carers fulfill an important role in our society, looking after those who need additional support. It is good news that the Scottish Government plans to increase the carers’ allowance by around £460 per year. What is disappointing was that one party voted against this increase – and surprisingly it wasn’t the Tories this time!

Twenty Labour MSPs – including Renfrewshire-based Neil Bibby and Mary Fee – decided that carers shouldn’t get an increase in their allowance. When even the Tories provide more support to carers than Labour MSPs then you know that the Labour Party is heading for oblivion.

Lately, Neil Bibby MSP has been demanding that the Scottish Government spend millions of pounds on a dodgy tram train link to Glasgow Airport, yet he doesn’t offer a single penny extra to carers – we know where his priorities lie!
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley

WHAT a spectacular own goal Jackson Carlaw MSP scored at First Minister’s Questions, while the record of his Scottish Conservative MPs at Westminster was ringing in our ears.

All but one of those MPs did not vote to take the catastrophic scenario of a no-deal Brexit off the table, and even worse, the Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell abstained, yet he remains in the Cabinet, clearly demonstrating the authority of government no longer exists!

Mr Carlaw should have come to Holyrood and apologised to the people of Scotland for the complete meltdown of parliamentary democracy at Westminster and for a Prime Minister who has lost all authority.
Catriona C Clark
Falkirk

IT was probably predictable to note that the United States dropped the term “occupation” from the occupied Palestinian territories and the Syrian Golan Heights on Wednesday.

The US decision to drop the status of occupation from the Palestinian territories and the Syrian Golan Heights is a continuation of the hostile approach of the American administration toward the Palestinian people and is contrary to all UN resolutions. These American titles will not change the fact that the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and the occupied Arab Golan are territories under Israeli occupation in accordance with UN resolutions and international law. This last decision falls within the American scheme to pass the so-called “Deal of the Century” to liquidate the Palestinian cause. But regardless of the attempts and conspiracies, the Palestinian people will remain steadfast and adhere to their rights until they reach an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The US dropped from its annual report on the human rights situation any reference to the Palestinian territories or the Syrian Golan Heights as “occupied territories” as it used to be mentioned in former reports. The Palestinian Authority has been boycotting the US administration since December 2017 when US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and then moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018.

The US Trump administration’s undeniable support for its fellow right-wing Israeli government has prompted the Palestinians to cut communication with the US and declared it unfit to be a mediator during the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Just another example of the complete wretchedness of the Trump administration.
B McKenna
Dumbarton

P KEIGHTLEY (March 13) said that in a letter from Burns to Mrs Dunlop of 1789 he wrote “I am fed up with English meaning Britain, what does this mean for Scotland”.

I have searched through J De Lancey Ferguson’s The Letters Of Robert Burns, 1931, and can find no reference to this letter.

Perhaps your correspondent could furnish the exact date of the letter.
Jim McLean
London

IT is generally agreed that Brexit is not going to be good for Scotland and a no-deal Brexit would be a catastrophe.

Our high-quality food producers would be severely disadvantaged by cheap imports from countries with low animal welfare standards and GM crops, etc.

Loss of EU workers will create great problems for the food and tourism sectors and the health service.

On BBC Radio Scotland last week, with the topic of a delay to the Brexit deadline, Steven Jardine had an interview with Tim Martin aka Mr Wetherspoon.

Mr Martin is very pro-Brexit. He is totally behind immigration control. He enthused over trade deals with countries such as Canada, New Zealand and America. (Omitting that we already trade with them as a member state of the EU.) Unlike interviews with Scottish independence supporters, Mr Martin was allowed to express his views almost totally uninterrupted.

I would have loved Mr Jardine to have asked Mr Martin if, after Brexit, he was to offer a minimum wage of £30,000 to his employees – to fulfil immigration requirements when he has a shortfall in staffing his premises.

Also, importantly, what his thoughts were regarding chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef.

Mr Martin has promised to reduce the price of beer if there is a no-deal Brexit.

No doubt the beer will be drunk to wash down the Hormone Beef Burger or Chlorinated Chicken Tikka Masala.

(Not quite “let them eat cake”, which is probably too European to be appropriate, but along the same line of thought.)
Douglas Stanley
Ayr