AS usual, Mr Spiteri manages to find some trite nonsense (You Say, Thursday, May 1) to say in order to support his European Federalist views.

But, this time, he seems to have taken rather longer than usual and has truly excelled himself in his lack of understanding.

He quotes my earlier statement to the effect that if you travel between one US State and the next you don't notice the difference because they are all American, and inexplicably adds: "This statement is only possible if one conveniently excludes the Blacks, Hispanics and Mennonote communities."

Well, for your information Mr. Spiteri, there are Blacks, Hispanics and many other communities in all of the American states.

I repeat, when you travel between, say, Virginia and Maryland, you do not notice the difference because everybody - Black, Hispanic, White, Green or whatever is American - it really has nothing to do with skin colour.

If you travel between two European countries, for example France and Germany, you'll also find people of different racial backgrounds but some are French and some are German.

That, quite simply, was the point I was making.

You can't compare the USA with the EU because the USA is a confederation of people with a common nationality and the EU has pretensions to be a confederation of different nationalities, completely different and totally unworkable.

Got it now ?

GARY WEBB, Worcester.