14 SEPTEMBER 1945, Page 13

SIR,—In your issue of the 7th, our kindly critic Sir

William Beach Thomas says that "what essentially matters (i.e. in farming) is not the produce per man, but the produce per acre." On another page of the same issue, Mr. H. D. Walston says exactly the opposite, and surely he is right. If a country chooses to increase the quantity of agricultural goods regardless of the rtumber of men employed, then the agricultural population must have either a needlessly low standard of living or it must be subsidised by the rest of the workers, in which case, of course, their standard of living will be reduced. One of these alternatives may be forced upon the country in time of war, but they cannot be the basis of permanent policy—