Sir, - I wish to point out to students of social history that, while the Irish potato famine was an economic and social disaster, it was not the worst in the world (here I contradict the view that no people in history has suffered like the Irish, as President Robinson would have us believe).In fact a much worse famine occurred in China during the years 1959-1962, caused by the communist policies of Chairman Mao. This is still not fully admitted by China, which refers to the period as "the three years of hardship" or even "of natural disasters".The staple crop in China has always been rice (with some wheatlands to the north), but in the 1950s the Communist Chinese government's 752,000 collective farms were unable to provide enough rice or wheat for the population. The results of Mao's economic planning were that there was a severe famine and many millions of peasant farmers and their families starved to death. To put this event into perspective, the number of Chinese people who perished in the 1958-62 famine has been estimated at more than 40 million, or eight times the population of Ireland.In addition, millions of Chinese suffered continual hunger during the "Great Leap Forward" which began when Mao devised plans for Chinese agriculture based on Soviet pseudo-scientific agricultural policies. Stalin had denigrated peasant land holders as inherently capitalistic and this view was repeated by Mao in 1953. However, Mao's Communist Party failed to notice that the collectivisation policies of Stalin had caused a famine in the northern Caucasus and rural Ukraine during 1931-34.Readers interested in the story can buy the excellent book Hungry Ghosts by the journalist Jasper Becker. In a chapter called "The Great Hunger", Mr Becker gives case-studies from several parts of China. One hopes that International Human Rights bodies have a copy of Mr Becker's book to hand. Mrs Robinson certainly ought to read it. - Yours etc,JOHN BUSTARD,Holywood,Co Down.