The speed at which a dependent India is being transformed into two independent Dominions is breath-taking. The first clause of the Indian Independence Bill (historically...

T HE engagement of Princess Elizabeth, on all grounds warmly to be welcomed, creates a situation for which there is no precedent since the time of Queen Anne, who became engaged...

M. Ramadier teems fated to surmount one hurdle only to find another in front of him. The prolonged meeting of the National Council of the Socialist Party on Monday night...

The announcement by Mr. Herbert Morrison on Monday of the membership and functions of the new Economic Planning Board should have been an event of considerable importance. But...

In view of the great possibilities, both political and economic, of the Argentine Republic, as well as of that country's equivocal attitude under its present Government, the...

There is a strange and depressing incongruity in news items recording unofficial strikes for wage rises, figuring side by side with the reports of Ministers' speeches stressing...

The Press Commission in this country may find some interest in the Bill relating to the Press in France, introduced in the National Assembly by M. Bourdan, the Minister of...

While the National Service Bill was passing through Parliament a leading headmaster protested against the idea of sending boys of 18 or 19 to undertake garrison duty in Germany....

The official statement on the marriage of German prisoners with English girl% made in the House of Commons on Tuesday is on the whole satisfactory. The Home Secretary points out...

being a curtain- raiser to Tuesday's important debate which undoubtedly filled' the centre of the Parliamentary stage this week. A curtain-raiser is a convenient thing on a...

T HE most deplorable feature of the deplorable debate on the financial and economic position of the nation in the House of Commons on Tuesday was that the whole of the day's...

English reach me. One, from a British Council lecturer, seems particularly pertinent. If, he says, he teaches his foreign students Basic English and then asks one of them to his...

little. Someone writes asking me to attack it. Logically I can't refuse, but for " on the whole," "all things considered," it is undeniably handy. Then why not say " on the...

I AM a good deal impressed by a report I have had from a business man at present touring Western Europe on the superiority of conditions in various countries he has visited to...

its zenith. Tennis at Wimbledon, rowing at Henley, cricket at Lord's and else- where, all denote climax in that particular field, particularly when, as this year, a Dominion...

of entrants into the teaching profession, " overall " in this context appearing to mean precisely nothing, my little crusade against this pestilential adjective seems doomed at...

share it is as old as the apostolic age. It is certainly very good news indeed that Mr. George Sampson's British Academy lecture on " The Century of Divine Songs," hitherto only...

By T HE flow of American books discussing Russo-American relations and the spread of Communism has reached the proportions of a flood. The appearance of the books is punctuated...

By VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD H AVING often passed through Lisbon during the war, I was anxious to revisit Portugal and see how our oldest ally was facing the problems of peace....

By HELEN KIRKI"ATRICK• T OURISTS flying to Paris have been fascinated by an informa- tion bureau at the Paris air terminal which seemed the answer to all their hopes, desires...

By H. G. DANIELS This world parliament of labour retains its old method of tripartite representation. The three partners—employers, Governments and workers—sit together and...

By DOROTHY F. BUXTON T HE severest test for democracy is imposed by international problems. The Prisoner of War situation brings an inter- national problem right to our doors....

to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold copies are non-return- able....

By DEREK WALKER-SMITH, M.P. w HEN I received an invitation to attend the Christ Church Gaudy I regarded it as a pleasant imperative ; for I had not been in Oxford for nearly...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I N the House of Commons the other day, Mr. Mayhew, in reply to a Parliamentary question, announced that the regulations for Branch B of the Foreign Service...

I CANNOT understand why Berlioz's Les Troyens has never made itself a place in the operatic repertory. Early in June Sir Thomas Beecham did the first part, La Prise de Tr"ie,...

THE THEATRE " Boys in Brown." By Reginald Beckwith. (Duchess.)---“I Said to Myself." By Florida Scott-Maxwell. (Mercury.) Boys in Brown is a serious play with a social...

" The Egg and I." (New Gallery.)—" The Romance of Rosy Ridge." (Empire.) The Egg and I has been taken from a novel by Betty Macdonald, a novel so convulsively funny to its...

TALKERS on the air last week were as diverse a fraternity as usual, and I found it interesting to observe and compare the various styles of those I happened to hear. There was,...

LITTLE ripples of water Lap and tinkle on the warm shore, Bathing the warm stones, soothing The hot tideway of India. All her burning Langour seems now distilled In this...

Stn,—I hope your readers will follow up the letter from Mr. J. R. Eccles. His subject, in spite of its unimposing title, is of immense importance, and is now the object of a...

SIR, —With the completion of the first six months' existence of the Coal Board, statisticians are busily examining output figures of the nationalised coal industry. They do not...

Sot,—I am very pleased to be corrected by so great an authority on Norway as Mr. Gathorne-Hardy. I had in mind, when I gave Norway as an instance, the dangerous possibilities of...

THE INDIAN STATES Sin,—My old friend Sir William Barton in his article on the position of the Indian States in new India assumes that Congress is hostile to the States. This is...

in Whitehall " has arranged " that the unfortunate colonies of Mauritius, Cyprus, Seychelles and others shall have their import duties doubled, without any agreement previously...

SIR,—In your issue of Friday, June 27th, Janus writes in warm terms of Victor Kravchenko's I Chose Freedom, quite naturally, however, adding the proviso that the account it...

SIR,—Not wishing to take undeserved credit for artificial spontaneity, may I assure your radio critic that my sudden arrival from Lapland in the middle of a Nature Parliament...

SIR,—A discussion of Anglican Orders, which is what Mr. Thomson's letter in your issue of June 27th appears to invite, is of course impossible in a letter. An entire issue of...

SIR,—Brigadier Longrigg, who has himself been in the British Military Administration in Eritrea until lately, vividly sees the scenes of frustration in the former Italian...

Stg,—I have been particularly interested to read the correspondence in your columns on the influence of popular art on contemporary industrial design, because, as far as my...

Stg,—Some figures quoted by me in the article Demoralised Germany which appeared in The Spectator last week may give rise to some mis- apprehension. The nutritional surveys to...

number of newspapers reported about a visit to the Polish army in High Ash and stated that the English authorities found there a quantity of black-market articles and jewellery....

Scolt Head I was nearly deafened by the excruciating clamour of anti-aircraft fire from the near- by practice ground ; drums of the targets floated very near to the sanctuary....

SIR, —I do not think there is any very substantial point at issue between Mr. E. G. Barlow and myself. I am no fonder of blood sports than he is, but I do not believe that the...

the holding of a Royal Show, after a seven years' interval, in its capital. The Ministry of Agriculture has devoted a whole number of its journal to the county. As all good...

Barlow say that the B.B.C. broadcasts hunting propaganda to such an extent that he wonders if it is affiliated to the British Field Sports Society or the Masters of Foxhounds...

Sig,—Yesterday I read in The Spectator, No. 6003 (May 16th) an essay a Alan Ross, Books in Germany, and I read: "The second (class) con- sisted of mainly bad, but much...

Not even the Holkham district of Norfolk or the country in the neigh- bourhood of Whittlesea in the shires of Cambridge and Huntingdon owe more to Coke of Norfolk and successive...

owes more than ever this year to that agreeable wild plant the yellow loosestrife, an exact translation of Lysimachia, not to be confused with Lythrum. Clumps are not only very...

other day, whether the flower or the month is meant in the popular doggerel. " Cast not a clout till May be out," evidence reaches me which seems nearly conclusive on the side...

THIS dissection of the soul of the Japanese people was undertaken by the authoress on an assignment from the Office of War Informa- tion of the United States in 1944. It is an...

Keats as a Correspondent The Letters of John Keats. Edited by Maurice * Buxton Forman. (Oxford University Press. 21s.) MR. BUXTON FORMAN'S third edition of the letters comes to...

Britain and Russia. By K. W. B. Middleton. (Hutchinson. 21s.) DR. SCHLESINGER'S book is mainly concerned with the changes, real and apparent, which have occurred in Soviet...

Recording Britain. Volume II. (Oxford University Press, in associa- tion with the Pilgrim Trust, four volumes, not sold separately. 105s.) THE second volume in the tragic...

IN this second volume of studies in Colonial legislatures Mr. Martin Wight has given us a masterly essay. The Gold Coast constitution of 1925 was the starting-point for this...

A Translation of the Idylls of Theocritus. By R. C. Trevelyan. (Cambridge University Press. 7s. 6d.) MR. R. C. TREVELYAN'S translation of Theocritus, which originally appeared...

ADMIRERS of Violet Clifton's The Book of Talbot will not be dis- appointed in her new work. Vision of Peru is exciting, pi - ovocative and beautifully written, and is almost as...

WITH their two books Miss Marsh and Mr. Blake go straight to the top of the criminal class. Perhaps Thou Shell of Death had a better plot, but in every other particular Minute...

House. " 6s.) • IN Mr. Narayan we at last have an Indian writer who can place the 00ent into focus for Occidental eyes. Those who had been nauseated by the Romantic East came...

111416 R in m i O 0 iu :si - r R R P O • v.; . • §11_ iE ID 0 S u o. E N. tit im • A:L:6!R:0N15 LW9IN • K SOLUTION ON JULY 25th The winner of crossword No. 431...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded so the sender of the first correct rotation of this week's crossword to be opened alter noon on Tuesday week My 22nd. Envelopes must...

guinea the reader will shortly be able to obtain a book of 1,143 pages, which includes 123 maps, charts and tables, a selected bibliography and an index of 78 columns. This...

By CUSTOS STANHOPE STEAMSHIP AFFAIR Throtigh the stringent requirements which the Stock Exchange imposes on companies which seek permission to deal in their shares the...