NOBODY has yet worked out precisely why Britain is responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Haitia but somebody will.

Surely us in the 19th century or the Americans in the 20th must have been to blame?

Anyone suggesting that Haiti's failure to organise itself properly had in large part brought about the loss of life would be attacked in the streets by those who believe that foreigners, particularly those of darker skin tones can do no wrong.

Yet the treatment of the Americans has been churlish in the extreme.

Within hours, an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy was on its way packed to the gunwhales with food, tents and medical equipment.

Some 10,000 US troops are presently keeping order and ensuring that aid is distributed with 19 heavy-lift helicopters.

We should remind ourselves that the American relief effort both in terms of the number of troops and helicopters is greater than the British contribution to the Afghan war.

The French can be relied upon to strike an anti-American stance although their posturing was quickly exposed by a US Army officer who, observing that French aid was in inverse proportion to the complaints emanating from that country remarked drily" The French are always there when they need you."

At my Scout Fellowship meeting last week the money from the raffle went to Haiti as I imagined happened all over Gwent and the wider world.

Saddened by the horror of corpses rotting in the streets, terrified people trapped in collapsed buildings and a couple of other Horsemen of the Apocalypse out for a canter, a reasonably compassionate person could not have done much else.

Yet, since the mid-80s over £10 billion has been given to the country in aid with £900 million in 2008 alone.

These phenomenal sums should have made the island into a paradise, leaving the locals free to do nothing more than slit the throats of chickens in voodoo sacrifices and wait for the next tsunami of dollars to hit them.

Yet the country is a basket-case with, according to published sources, 30 percent of its civil servants being 'phantom', the jobs existing only inasmuch as there is somebody there to claim the wages. Enviable from the point of view of Amicus, Unite, the National Health Service and the National Union of Teachers perhaps but hardly the way to run a country.

There is however, a solution.

As they are now people should be free to give money to Haiti, or to tsunami victims or any other cause that strikes them as being worthy.

But, they should be informed by the proper reporting of events and our government should not send one solitary halfpenny unless the donation can be seen to be of benefit to us in foreign policy, economic or military terms.

That sounds heartless. But I do not pay the Government to have feelings on my behalf.

Both the prime minister and Mr Cameron have said they will protect the £7.8 billion aid budget paid for out of our taxes. That is stupid.

The reason has little to do with human empathy and a lot to do with reinforcing the notion that people from blighted places are perpetual victims - usually because the imaged evils of capitalism or colonialism have made them so - and thus should be placated by huge amounts of dosh making any effort on their parts unneccesary.

My own profession must bear much of the blame for its Leftist-slanted agenda which routinely fails to mention the rampant corruption in places like Haiti and the meddling inefficiency and jobsworthiness of the United Nations.

The reasons for this selectivity in news coverage are not hard to find.

Since in the Leftist mindset only those in the world who are of European extraction can ultimately be held accountable for the world's evils it follows that others are responsible for nothing.

The United Nations is in the Leftists' eyes a 'good thing' because it allows failed states to taunt the powerful (especially the United States) whilst extracting cash from them.

The people of Haiti would have been better served if journalists had done their job properly and reported on that country's stinking corruption.

This would prompt a withholding of aid while the country went at least some of the way to sorting out its own problems.

This achieved, the largesse of the Western world could once more flow with some expectation that help would eventually reach those needing it.

One can only affect a grim smile at the idea that the journalists who file endless stories about the pain and deprivation of Haiti themselves enjoy comfortable conditions, their planes-ful of camera kit, crews and freshly-pressed tropical shirts clogging up the airports that otherwise could be for the landing of genuine aid.