5 MAY 1950, Page 18

The Feather Bed SIR,—Your censure of Mr. Stanley Evans's ministerial

manners may have some justification, though you might have spared a word of sympathy with him on the price he has had to pay for his outspokenness.

Of more moment to the community, however, is a question to which you make no reference, viz., had Mr. Evans any reason for his strictures upon the policy of agriculturalists in this country? It is possible that what he said many others arcs thinking. A farmer remarked to me recently that he thought the Government subsidies to his industry were too large, for they acted as a premium upon inefficiency. In its present straits the nation cannot afford any waste, and attempts to enforce economy might well begin with this much-favoured trade.—I am, Sir,

yours faithfully, D. E. AUTY. Dungarry, Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire.