13 JUNE 1952, Page 18

Clerical Telephones

'SIR,—I have just received the Postmaster-General's notice of increased telephone rentals. So, I presume, has the Rector of this parish. Is it not quite time that parish clergy With their low, fixed stipends should receive special treatment when what is virtually increased in- direct taxation becomes necessary ? It would not -cost the country very much to except the telephones of parish priests: the cost to the individual clergyman .is likely to be a reduction in his actual food —he has little else left to economise over.—Yours, &C.,

Temple, Cornwall. DAVID SHARP.