The strongest argument against Mr. Vyshinsky's proposal of measures calculated to remove the tension at present exist- ing in international relations" is the speech Mr....

of the Churchill- Truman talks at Washington is more specific and more encouraging than there was reason to expect. It is clear that the talks have been a complete success and...

General Eisenhower's studiously non-committal statement on his availability for the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the United States recalls both Calvin Coolidge's...

The factors that brought about the fall of the Pleven Govern- ment on Monday are so numerous and so complex that any search for scapegoats is bound to be a little beside the...

A recurrent note of acerbity has distinguished this week's discussions at Panmunjom, where no progress of any kind has been made in any direction. The attitude of the Communist...

The unexpected delay in appointing a successor to Sir Henry Gurney as High Commissioner for Malaya is having an unsettling effect in Malaya itself. Sir Henry was murdered more...

Dr. Moussadek is giving the Directors of the World Bank the treatment which worked so effectively with the British Government; he is co-operative in theory until the point of...

T HE existence of the worst sterling crisis in Britain's crisis-ridden post-war career is established for all who have the ability and the will to read the figures published on...

N OTHING could be more perverse than for persons, of whom there are many (myself included) who dissent strongly from South Africa's native policy to protest against the King's...

papers a few days ago reporting that the house of Ul'stein was to have all the property confiscated by the Nazis restored to it. What that means remains to be discovered. On...

than was accorded on Tuesday to Mr. Chester Wilmot's The Struggle for Europe, which is to be published later this month. The gathering of between five and six hundred which...

justifies retroactively the inordinate amount of space most of the daily papers have been giving to photographs and descriptions, at no one knows what sacrifice of other news....

Mr. Churchill has been astonishing and mystifying the United States is known technically as a "Cambridge." This seems to. hold out some solid prospect (as Mr. Churchill would...

oil and other oddments when we have to and try not to calculate, what it is all costing, learn with something of a shock that according to the A.A. "it. costs 7.04 pence a mile...

By the RT. HON. SIR NORMAN BIRKETT. 'For let me confess at the beginning that I have no special qualifications, and several special disqualifications, for speaking about hymns....

By Dr. L DUDLEY STAMP I T has long been known that the fertility and consequent productivity of soils depend upon a number of different factors, only partly related and of...

By KENNETH TYNAN New York, Winter, 1951. M Y room overlooks Central Park, and the trees, as I write, are shrieking in silhouette against a smoke- coloured afternoon sky. The...

By EDWARD HODGKIN I N time of war hard cases make law; something has to be done in a hurry, and the fact that it is done at all is as important as the way in which it is done....

By J. D. U. WARD E NQLISH people are for trees and tree-planting, but against any forestry which is clearly recognisable as forestry. Some of the reasons for these prejudices...

Carpenters, Coffee and Capital By J. STANSBY (Jesus College, Cambridge) S OMEONE was hanging the jeep bonnet at the front of the house, and the two dogs wOke up and raced...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HE National Book League, in conjunction with The Observer, are holding in their delightful little gallery at 7 Albemarle Street an exhibition of...

Tins well-made social problematic play was on at the Arts a few weeks ago, before the Lord Chamberlain had brought himself to license it for public performace. The young, the...

last week, remains by far the most interesting musical event of these panto- mime-dominated weeks. Among the average music-loving public Schonberg probably remains the...

THEATRE Thieves' Carnival. By Jean Anouilh. (Arts.) Arrest the dazzling agonies of Ardele and the sparkling miseries of Colombe a morsel of light relief is not unwelcome ; and...

Mrss KATHARINE HEPBURN and Mr. Humphrey Bogart, who have for so long identified themselves with brittleness and brutality, prove in Mr. John Huston's The African Queen that ....

The Original Ballet Russe. (Royal Festival Hall.) ON the back cover of the Original Ballet Russe programme is re- produced one of Delacroix's masterpieces, Femmes d'Algers, and...

ALWAYS before my eyes there gleams the gold And whiteness of a child's .dead face. The eyes are open, dark and candid With the knowledge of a lesson we Have yet to learn. The...

IN a foreword to the catalogue of the Observer exhibition of book- plates—organised in conjunction with the National Book League and on view at 7 Albemarle Street until January...

Set by Marghanita Laski The immortality of so many poets rests on brief quotations that it seems probable that many Spectator readers could achieve it too— so long as they...

Report by John Clarke In 1620 Isaac Duckett bequeathed a sum of £400, the interest from which was to be distributed annually for the benefit " of poor Maid Servants (within the...

THE Caffre war, which Sir Harry Smith was to finish off by his mere appearance, continues, at a cost, says Sir Charles Shaw, of 0,800 a diy. . . A battalion of the Rifle Brigade...

SIR,—An anonymous correspondent in your issue of December 28th alleged that a school of the London County Council recently incurred a substantial loss on the production of a...

SIR,—Doctor Nlahony-Jones asserts that the Registrar-General's records . show that "during the marriageable years there are far more British men than women." The last exact...

SIR,—Regarding the shortage of - miners, Mr. Comper's letter does not mention the main difficulty. This is not that miners are unwilling to accept Italians, but that Britons are...

SIR,—Sir Stanley Unwin has already explained, with his usual lucidity, the main factors governing the prices charged for British books in Canada. As the publishers of Professor...

Ste,—Janus, a car-owner, chivalrously takes the side of pedestrians in the matter of zebra crossings. May a pedestrian do a like service for car-drivers ? 1. If pedestrians...

SIR,—Janus refers to a "fairly early tradition that St. Peter and St. Paul were both crucified at Rome." This may well have been the eventual fate of St. Peter, but we may, I...

Federal or Confederal ? SIR,—In the article Federal or Confederal? you stress the unity and strength of the British Commonwealth. I very willingly support you in this. I do...

The ewe peered at me from the top of the bank. I thought she meant to come down into the road, and waved my arms to drive her back, but she did no more than bang her forefeet on...

can see the snow on the mountains right through the winter. It appears at the end of October, and is often visible on cold days in April. The snow we were promised came on the...

In the garden things are dormant, but soon, in the first mild day or two, insect life will revive and begin to do its work. It is time to check that the trees are banded, to...

Bob is very proud of his dogs, two dun-coloured whippets. He poaches with them in the dark, and although they may be missing for a considerable time, when they return they bring...

TALK in the neighbouring village was of sanitation and septic tanks. The scheme for bringing water to rural areas has made some of the local people more familiar with word...

SIR,—Both protagonists and antagonists of side-lights in fog seem to have overlooked the chief advantage of switching them on, which is to safeguard one's rear with a red light....

SIR,—I was interested in Mr. Mallalieu's account of a method of attack often practised by the South African Team, when Fry would kick the ball diagonally across the field and...

travel by British Railways from London to Weymouth en route to Guernsey. The journey took exactly six hours (an average speed of approximately 17 m.p.h.). For the first five...

Drama: Its Costume and Decor. By James Laver. (Studio Publications. 3os.) THE Victoria and Albert Museum is, or should be, one of the meccas of all those many pilgrims who...

The Genius of Lady Ritchie THE works of Lady Ritchie are, one suspects, for the most part neglected nowadays. They are, perhaps, on a shelf with her brother- in-law Leslie...

In Search of Chopin. By Alfred Cortot. Translated by Cyril and Rena Clarke. (Peter Nevill. i2s. 6d.) CHOPIN has been dead only a little more than a century, and yet the number...

Letters from America. By Alistair Cooke. (Rupert Hart-Davis. i 21. 6C1.) THE publication of these two books illustrates very well the perennial interest of the theme and the...

Lost City of the Incas. by Hiram Bingham. (Phoenix House. 2 is.) WHEN, in about the year 1630, Fernando Montesinos was gathering material for his history of Peru, he obtained...

Kingdoms of Yesterday. By Sir Arthur Lothian. (John Murray. 2 s.) No one is better qualified than the writer of this book to depict the princely States of India, large and...

DISSERVICE is done to even the best of books when their publishers' blurbs are couched in extravagant or inaccurate terms. A Window on a Hill is a case in point. The blurb...

Paloma. By Mrs. Robert Henrey. (Dent. t ss.) WHEN people write in a language not their own, they often use words in a way that give new glitter to what had become tarnished with...

IT is a nice point who has the more exacting task, the chronicler or the topographer of Thames, the one in his choice of what to leave out and put in, the other in how to...

The Complete Short Stories of Somerset Maugham. Volumes 11 and III. (Heinemann. t 2s. 6d. each). The Pillar. BN; Da% id Walker. (Collins. 125. 6d.) Prisoner's Base. By Mary...

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subserip.ion. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold...

MR. SWINNERTON is a good deal of a phenomenon. He has (as he says in his preface) a passion for facts, and these facts, once collected, he never forgets. If one were to stop...

justified by adequate new photographs and a readable, fresh and enlightening narrative. The illustrations are not easily found, for photographers, like authors, are apt to...

(Herbert Jenkins. 18s.) "EVEN biography," wrote Forster, in his Life of Goldsmith, " has its critics jealous for its due and proper dignity." Mr. Freeman's book is not...

MANY incidents in this book about the boy- hood of a railwayman's son in a Newcastle suburb early in this century must appear more humorous to the reader who has not shared that...

By CUSTOS EVIDENCE continues to accumulate both of the toughness of the problems confronting the new Chancellor of the Exchequer and of his determination to grapple with them....

Timm Fan onrm FpAi m n o n mmtImm mu ommommilma n FM 12 In VEIHRM mnmenmoom n emommonn maqn m n_M n omnomo vemirlro n II o ROOMOB ITinnnotOM RI III CI Solution on January 18...

guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, January 22nd, addressed Crossword. 99 Gower Street, London, W.C.I....