28 APRIL 1917, Page 13

ITO THZ EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—Referrino, to your article " Some Specific Proposals" in last Saturday's Spectator, I fail to see how you can expect poor people to use barley flour or oatmeal instead of flour when to-day's prices in our town (Dumfries) are as follows: flour, 3s. Gd. per stone; oatmeal, 5s. 6d. per stone; barley flour, 5s. per stone. Oatmeal porridge is now a luxury in the South of Scotland.—I am, Sir, &c., 0. M. [It is not our fault that barley flour is so dear, but the fault of those who have allowed the brewers to monopolize so vast a share of the barley crop.—ED. Spectator.]