"Spectator" Competitions RULES AND CONDITIONS Entries must be typed or

very clearly written on one side of the paper only. The name and address, or pseudonym, of the competitor must be on each entry and, not on a separate sheet. When a word limit is set words must be counted and the number given. No entries can be returned. Prizes may be divided at the discretion of the judge, or withheld if no entry reaches the required standard. The judge reserves the right to print or quote from any entry. The judge's decision is final,. and no correspondence can be entered into on the subject of the award. Entries must be addressed to :—The Editor, the Spectator, 99 Gower Street,

London, W.C. 1, and be marked on the 'envelope Competition No. (—).

Competition No. 25 (Set by "DUGLI." ) A prize of £3 3s. is offered for a paragraph in the form of a publisher's " blurb " intended to advertise Bradshaw as a book for general reading.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, October 5th, 1931. The result of the competition will appear in our issue of October 17th.

Competition No. 26 (Set by " CaIsPiax.") IN their relationship to man, the £ and the appendix may be observed by the perceptive to share a common characteristic ; namely, that they draw peremptory attention to themselves only when threatened with inflation, remaining at other times in a state of unquestioned tranquillity.

A prize of 18 8s. is offered for the best expression of this powerful truth in epigrammatic verse of not more than six lines duration.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, October 12th, 19M. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of October 24th.

The result of Competition No. 21 will appear in our next issue.

Report of Competition No. 23 (REPORT AND AWARD BY " DUGLI.") IT was assumed that, to increase the national character of the present Government, places were found in the Cabinet for Mr. Edgar Wallace, Miss Amy Johnson and Mr. Jack Hobbs. A prize of £3 3s. was offered for a paragraph in the style of the News of the Week section of the Spectator, expressing approval of these appointments. No paragraph might exceed 250 words in length. The impression left by reading a succession of these para- graphs, giving the wise and well-considered views of Spectator competitors in the News of the Week style, is that the Prime Minister has made a grave mistake in excluding the three names suggested from his Cabinet.

Some competitors assumed that the new Ministers were to be without portfolios, others imagined new posts specially created for them. F. D. Lloyd-Wilson pictures Mr. Wallace as Press Minister, seeing " that the printed word is worthy of the trust which the general public places in it." Mr. Guy Innes foresees similar work for him as " Secretary of State for Journalism." Mr. Hobbs is to be "Minister of Recreation " or of " National Sport," under whom, to quote the Rev. Dr. Lonsdale Ragg, " one of the most prominent sides of our national life has at last attained administrative recog- nition." The same point is made by R. E. Kent, who welcomes Mr. Hobbs to the newly created Ministry of Sports and Pastimes." " We have long urged the formation of such a Department. Now that the step has been taken it will bring into public affairs a valuable section of the nation which has hitherto played no part in political life."

Miss Johnson is, rather obviously, Minister for Air, and, almost as often, Minister for Foreign Affairs. Mrs. Hargreaves sends her to a " Travel Office " to " speed up the Come to Britain Movement."

The best paragraphs were those that did not strain too much after the merely funny, and remembered that the Spectator's approval is not lavishly or casually bestowed.

The prize of £3 3s. is awarded to the Ven. Archdeacon Knowles, White House, Buckden, Huntingdonshire (for a paragraph which has caught the very cadence of its model). The following competitors are highly commended for their excellent entries : Sower Fidelis," S. V. W. Morris, Edith Welch, Rev. Dr. Lonsdale Ragg, R. E. Kent, Guy Innes, " Vocline " and P. A. Mainstone.

THE WINNING PARAGRAPH.

As we anticipated, Mr. Edgar Wallace has been appointed to the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. We take this opportunity of congratulating ltlr. MacDonald on the wisdom of his recommen- dation. Of late our budgets have been conspicuously lacking in originality. Mr. Wallace, with his ingenuity and versatility may be relied upon to remedy this defect. We venture to prophesy that whatever financial proposal he may frame to meet the evanomic situation will not fail to appeal to the imagination of the public. It is reassuring to note that within twelve hours of his appointment Mr. Wallace has unravelled and dissipated whatever there was of mystery surrounding the so-called " Bankers' Plot." Contrary to the expectation of many of our Contemporaries that she was indis- pensable at the Air Ministry, Miss Amy Johnson is to be Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Seemingly rapid as her rise to office has been, it is in reality no meteoric ascent. She has repeatedly proved herself a person of fixed determination and extensive vision. There is a propelling energy behind all her activities which may be safely trusted to carry our foreign policy to a successful issue. That Mr. Jack Hobbs should go to the Colonial Office -comes as no surprise to us. He is already persona grata in our colonies, notably Australia. Hitherto his sphere has been limited. Given a wider field there is no boundary that he will not reach. KENNETH D. Kozowers.

SOME HIGHLY-COMMENDED ENTRIES.

By his latest gesture Mr. MacDonald has shown his determination that the National Government shall be fully representative of the nation, in spite of the Opposition. Mr. Henderson has done his party no good by his merely factious objections to the most recent additions to the Cabinet. Patently Parliamentary sovereignty is not endangered. The criticisms of certain Conservatives are more to the point. But revolutionary though the Prime Minister's breach from tradition may be, present circumstances justify his boldness. He could not, we believe, have chosen three persons more representative of popular opinion and more assured of popular confidence than Miss Johnson, Mr. Hobbs and Mr. Wallace. They add, too, a touch of poetry to a rather prosaic Cabinet, and each of them is worth a place for solid merit alone. The crisis will try even Mr. Wallace's inventiveness, but will never exhaust his supera- bundant energy. Miss Johnson is a timely addition to an old and masculine Cabinet. She stands for the women and youth of the country. Her courage and determination were never more needed than to-day, when she embarks on a more arduous adventure than her flight to Australia. The choice of Mr. Hobbs is especially welcome. As a great exponent of the national game, he is the type of the national genius. Distinguished for initiative and energy, he can yet play the defensive game when wickets are falling. He is obviously fitted to assist Mr. Snowden, the most obdurate stone.

wailer in a team without a " tail." SEXPER FIDEITS.

It is an excellent move on the part of the Government to include in the Cabinet people of such varied interests as Mr. Edgar Wallace, Miss Amy Johnson, and Mr. Jack Hobbs. The object of the Govern- ment in doing so is to increase its national character, and by including expert exponents of three of the most widely popular interests of the British public—fiction, aviation and sport, these three will be well represented. Mr. Edgar Wallace is a writer of vivid imagina- tion and inventive power, anticipating situations and surmounting them. If he can extract the present Government from their difficul- ties as easily as he delivers his characters from theirs, he will be a most welcome addition to the Cabinet. Miss Amy Johnson has shown fearless courage, resource, and energy. With foresight she sees her objective and makes straight towards it, fully realizing the difficulties and dangers, the cross currents, fogs and storms ; these she prepares for and so overcomes, and hers are the construc- tive qualities which we feel sure will prove most useful to the Cabinet. In Mr. Jack Hobbs are embodied two of the most sterling qualities of the British character—straightforward dealing and love of fair play. On a quick or slow wicket he is equally helpful and versatile, and we feel he will be a most useful member of any Cabinet aspiring to the altitude of that spirit which holds the British Commonwealth together. We congratulate the Government on its acumen and the wisdom of its choice. S. V. W. Mowers.

Among new appointments to the Government which we have not recorded are those of Mr. Edgar Wallace. Miss Amy Johnson and Mr. Jack Hobbs. So far as we can judge, the country is meeting the announcement well. Much as we dislike Ministries of All the Talents, we are bound to admit the practical value of the moderation of this attempt to begin the creation of one. Prosperity is an elusive commodity ; but it is of good augury that each of the new Ministers has found it in a different walk of life. Let us hope that they will be able to communicate the recipe to the Cabinet. Mr. Wallace's fitness for his position as Secretary of State for Journalism is obvious. His knowledge of the diplomatic side of parliamentary procedure is familiar to all who have read his noteworthy mono- graph, " The Secret House." Apart from this his experience is voluminous. Miss Johnson, accustomed to more rarefied and perhaps purer atmospheres,- may find difficulty in acclimatising herself to the hot air of her new surroundings as Minister for Com- mercial Aviation. By outlook and training one of the Right Wing, though accustomed to revolutions, she has always shown herself above party (sometimes, as when the obstacles in her path were truly Ural, to the extent of fifteen thousand feet) ; and now that she has come to earth, there is no reason to suppose that her attitude will change. As Minister for Sport, Mr. Hobbs will doubtless teach the Opposition what constitutes cricket. Gulf LINE%