T HE American Chiefs of Staff having come and gone, the American Arms Bill having been put into a shape in which it could pass Congress, and a number of European service chiefs...

It is natural and right for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to make the most of the achievements of the organisation. of which he is the servant, but in his fourth...

The presence in London of the Regent and Prime Minister of Iraq is not entirely due to the fact that Baghdad in August is a good place tp get away from. Their country is in a...

For more than a year Biblical scholars have been excited (though the word is too weak) by the discovery in a cave near Jericho of Hebrew manuscripts dating, it is thought, from...

of Trade's announcement of a cut of 5 per cent. in the retail prices of utility clothing, footwear and sheets, and that is that it will not achieve the effect he intended. That...

The massive White Paper on China, published by the U.S. State Department last week and described by Mr. Acheson as "a frank record of an extremely complicated problem," tells in...

T HIS is a week momentous for the future of Western Europe. Between the meetings of the Council of Europe—Committee of -Ministers and Consultative Assembly—at Strasbourg and...

up on a post, so as to be out of the reach of boys, with a place-name on it. "To Erewhon," it said, or perhaps just "Erewhon." There were few main roads, and on them milestones...

During the war most British soldiers got the impression that the American Army was more wasteful of man-power than we were, and that their field forces carried far bigger...

of eight pigs from mc last April counts as bulk buying, but if it does I am in agreement with critics of the practice. When I sent the pigs into market (where I am compelled to...

W E no longer talk about the "lower orders," and an almost equally cogent tabu has virtually deleted from our vocabulary all allusions to the "upper classes." The middle class,...

read in The Times an advertisement which ran "Gentleman would like to contact person capable of writing good after-dinner speeches. Plenty of humour." The implications of this...

to the general relief the steam-packet has brought Janus back safely from who can say what escapades in Europe) I Should like to thank (a) the reader who wrote from Whetstone in...

By JOHN LONGSWORD A CADEMICIAN Varga's exact status as an exponent of Marx- Leninist economics during the two years or so before his recent confession of error had been...

By II. D. WALSTON T HERE is today much talk about increasing the efficiency of our industry and lowering our costs of production in order to maintain our exports. Some people...

By REGINALD GIBBON W HEN our organist (a distinguished amateur, but with a distinction that happens not to be musical) meets with an E sharp, he feels for a black note which is...

By CLELAND SCOTT K ENYA'S two National Parks have only come into being since the war, and each is beset with problems for the trustees. Three species of animals create these...

ELEPHANTS IN PINK By A. C. L. HACKNEY (New College, Oxford) 0 I course, it was my wife who actually had the baby, but I make bold to assert that in these performances husbands...

Deplorable as it is, we cannot gainsay the fact, that among Englishwomen of the humbler classes the settlement of conjugal or pecuniary difficulties by the Summary help of...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HE first meeting of the Council of Europe took place on Monday at Strasbourg, and there are few people, in this country at least, who either understand...

THE only two new works which have figured hitherto in the Prom. programmes have been disappointing. Richard Strauss's duet con- certino for clarinet, bassoon, string orchestra...

• Winter Meeting." (Carlton.)—" Trottie True." (Leicester Square.)—" Obsession." (New Gallery and Tivoli.) "The Younger Brothers." (London Pavilion.) THE years come, the...

THE l'IlEATRE •• Roundabout." A Merry Musical. (Saville.) IT depends what you mean by merriment. The cast put up a wonderful display of high spirits, and many of the...

recording except in case of necessity should be fairly rigid, or there is a great temptation to laziness, and that would never do. Without knowing the mechanics of the affair, I...

Nothing very new has come along in this holiday season, and can find time for once to praise an old, faithful programme, Woman't , Hour. It is not in the nature of things that...

Canterbury Tales adaptations (by Mr. Nevill Coghill, Mr. Stephen Potter producing) continues and flourishes. In general principle a good many of us like our poets where we first...

A CORRESPONDENT, who is COlUICOOS but very fierce, urges me IO hurl the weight of the Spectator against recorded programmes. "In one day—one single and solitary day—last...

SEE a sad gothic kingdom here decayed ; Between unpeopled platforms mounts the blind Tide of the grass where, trimly bedded, lay The sleek significance of sparking rails....

since pre-war days, it is still necessary to place a firm order with a bookstall manager or newsagent ill ensure regular weekly delivery of the SPECTATOR. Newsagents cannot...

GERMANY ON THE EVE Sta,—Since last autumn Western Germany has been developing a life of Its own, giving rise to multiplying reports of "German arrogance," anti- Allied...

Sta,—Your correspondent, Mr. A. G. Robinson, unquestionably speaks for some of our leading architects who do, I know well, feel that a civilisa- tion cannot after all be so...

better than in Mr. Robinson's. Designs of all buildings' subrniued to the Planning Authority are vetted by an advisory panel of the Council for the Preser- vation of Rural...

Sin,—The Martini-Henry rifle was certainly used at Flisley in 1896. I still have the rifle which I used in that year throughout the meeting, and a number of the surplus rounds...

Sta,—Your correspondent, the Reverend W. T. F. Castle, in the Spectator of April 15th, need have no fears that the population of the Falkland Islands might vote in favour of...

SIR,—Allow me to set at rest all doubts about Pougher of Leicester. Never mind Wisden. I know that he existed, because many years ago I met the man, and a very nice man he...

on my part, and I am grateful to Mr. Stanley Turner for pointing it out. (The two weapons are as different as scarlet and khaki !) But Mr. Porter's date for the introduction of...

Sta,—In view of the correspondence on German forests, I have written to my friends and former colleagues in Economic Division, Military Government (British zone), for an...

Sut,—During the next few months I shall be editing a volume of poetry from Oxford for the Fortune Press. It will consist of work from those in residence at the University from...

the Australians, a cricketing poet addressed to them some friendly advice in a rhythm made popular by Austin Dobson. So far as I can remember after more than fifty years it...

makers of garden catalogues to describe colour. "Terra-cotta-salmon" is one such phrase. In one catalogue, kirsten and karcn, those almost indistinguishable Poulsen polyan-...

A strange tale of the sparrow's intelligence and parental affection is told me Two birds were watched again and again from close quarters in the act of pushing beak-loads of...

whether interested, or not in grouse, grow ecstatic about the glory of bell-heather, may forget how beautiful are the commons up to the very edge of London. Ling is the...

IT was suggested last lo.eck that the harvest of this year was likely to be , the earliest in the records, though it began later than some, because of the speed of its...

Sta,—Mr. Basil Wright wonders whether, in my reference to "Dovzhenko's juxtaposition of newsreel shots," I had intended to name not Dovzhenko but Vertov and his Kino-Eyc. No,...

In the many harvest fields that I have visited I have seen no single instance of damage by sparrows ; I am inclined to think that they are a diminishing species in many places....

that great day and we all said Puffer. I am now myself an elderly BOUCHER.

Pilgrim's Progress Black Odyssey: The Story of the Negro in America. By Roi Oaks , . (Murray. 18s.) Ma. Omit" is widely known here as well as in America as the author of an...

Pax Britannica. By F. A. Voigt. (Constable. 25s.) THE essential part of this book, though bearing little relation to its title, consists of a carefully documented account of the...

A' DISTINGUISHED divine of the Church of England has told how, many years ago, when he was in doubt whether to be ordained, he went to hear the then Bishop of London preach. The...

The History and Social Influence of the Potato. By Redcliffe N. Salaman. (Cambridge University Press. 50s.) IT is not in the least astonishing that Dr. Salaman should have...

The Sea Shore. By C. M. Yonge. (Collins. 21s.) SELDOM can there have been a more effective alliance between writer and photographer than the one that confronts us in this book....

IT is now a little over fifty years since Freud first began to practise psychoanalysis, and to publish those discoveries about the structure of personality which in so short a...

Murray's Berkshire Architectural Guide. Edited by John Betjeman and John Piper. (Murray. 18s.) How many of us owe part of our education in matters of the eye to the Shell...

Charles Freer Andrews. By Benarsidas Chaturvcdi and Marjorie Sykes. (Allen and Unwin. 18s.) IN the early years of the century those in vivid contact with life and thought in...

Little Gacidesden. By Vicars Bell. (Faber. 12s. 6d.) IF the record of an ordinary English village is to interest the general public, it must show some outstanding feature or...

American Excursion. By J. E. Morpurgo. (Cresset Press. I2s. 6d.) MR. MORPURGO was an undergraduate and later a fellow of William and Mary University in Virginia, and a history...

Blind Man's Bull. By Robert Neumann. (Hutchinson International Authors. I2s. 6d.) THE general reader may not be particularly interested in the way in which a novelist goes about...

mmemnommomm mega SmeoRming ri In 13 13 IMI ri nel ffmmunonpmeN R or ia n m E n O mm i ng nummp in Mtwara m m nmnmm _ v R NECINI 4 1 e A eamma E D SOLUTION ON AUGUST 26 The...

the sender of the but correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened alter noon on Tuesday week. August 23rd. Envelopes must be received riot later than first post that...

By CUSTOS AFTER another week of falling gilt-edged prices the City is still groping for an answer to the all-important question: where will interest rates settle down ? At the...