18 JANUARY 1975, Page 4

Burmah Oil

Sir! The Government has just given taxpayers' money to the Burmah Oil Company in return for a stake in the company, and a 51 per cent share in its interests in the North Sea oil exploration.

It is perhaps fitting that we should wonder whether such help and intervention would have been necessary if the House of Commons had not shamefully passed retrospective legislation so as to avoid paying war-damage compensation to the company, which the ,House of Lords, on appeal, had found to be lawfully due to the company. H. D. Sills Hillstead, Great Shelford, Cambridge