18 MARCH 1938, Page 6

One tribute deserves to be paid in these agitated days,

and I, at least, would like to pay it. The evening paper posters, the daily paper headlines—all, no doubt inevitable, and in the tradition of the trade—produce the maximum of alarm and apprehension. Happy in such circumstances are they who get their news first through the B.B.C. bulletins, for the voice of the announcer, never varying from its calm evenness, whether he is announcing football results or the Moscow sen- tences or the invasion of Austria, does, in all seriousness, ensure the reception of disturbing news in its least disturbing form, and except for those who take a kind of masochistic pleasure in agitation of the nerves that is something to be distinctly thankful for.