Sir, - John Bruton is quoted (The Irish Times, May 8thy) as addressing an audience in Missouri with the words: "The United States has created an economic and political order and a network of world institutions which have enabled trade to grow rapidly and sustain huge increases in living standards for most of mankind." According to Juan de Dias Parra, head of the Latin American Association for Human Rights in 1993: "In Latin America today there are seven million more hungry, 30 million more illiterate, 10 million more families without homes, 40 million more unemployed persons than there were twenty years ago." According to the UNDP Human Development Report 1996, about 1.5 billion people live in countries that are poorer than they were in the past. On what evidence does Mr. Bruton base his assertion of "huge increases" in global living standards? - Yours etc., Cormac Parle,
Phibsboro, Dublin 7.