From the archives: The Winnipeg floods: No Scottish sympathy, 22 May, 1950

SIR: Many Scottish people who saw the photograph which showed the magnificent parliament buildings in Winnipeg, Canada, standing deeply in the flood waters of the Red River must have been as shocked as I was, for it indicated all too plainly the extent of the disaster that has overwhelmed Manitoba.

The flood is a major disaster in a modern city of 300,000 people and it has spread desolation throughout a vast area of rich farming land. No other city outside Scotland has so many Scottish associations, and there must be thousands of people here who have friends and relatives there to-day. I am surprised and saddened that no purely Scottish effort has been made to offer sympathy and help to this stricken city, and I trust that the apparent indifference will be quickly rectified by official action on the part of the City Fathers of Edinburgh and Glasgow.

• archive.scotsman.com