If General de Lattre de Tassigny had not chosen to mark his arrival in Indo-China with such stirring appeals for confidence in himself, there would be more temptation to rejoice...

General MacArthur's headquarters on all news from Korea. It can hardly be supposed that the enemy does not already know, from past communiques and from cap- tured documents, all...

It was right in every way that General Eisenhower should begin his exploratory visit to Europe in France. Of all the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation France at...

The realisation that the new defence effort is going to call for some pretty drastic financial measures was bound to be followed by some industrious rummaging in the rag-bag of...

Any statement affecting our 87,000 blind fellow-countrymen is sure of a ready hearing. During the nineteenth century British philanthropy built up an astonishingly large number...

As the result of pressure by the Government of India, Nepal is now committed to an experiment in constitutional reform. Within two years a constituent assembly is to be...

All the worst nightmares of those who wished well to the groundnuts scheme are coming true. From 3,210,000 acres the area to be cleared was cut to 600,000, and then to 210,000,...

W HAT is it that binds the members of the British Commonwealth together and justifies the common application of some such term as family conclave to a conference like that now...

have made considerable advances in the matter of losing things. An old Punch picture showed a slightly exhilarated bandsman on a Scottish station platform searching feverishly...

it is melancholy to recall, since Jardine's eleven in 1932-3 installed them for a brief period at Lord's (if that Is where they are deposited when here). But even the most...

and in the workshop. He said the Prime Minister had been dropped." --Sunday Times. Firm action at last—and quite time too. JANus.

Sunday, ought to meddle in politics. That depends. I have just been reading a pamphlet by Canon Collins and Mr. Victor Gollancz called Christianity and the War Crisis (Gollancz,...

West as no other modern novelist has done. His Main Street, appearing in 1920 just after a war in which American participation had aroused a new interest here in the United...

to3 be brow- beaten by their underhand methods." Air-Commodore Harvey, M.P., in The Tunes. Underhand ? Or uppercut ? Anyhow, I should like to see it .illustrated.

of a Coalition Government is interesting by reason of the position Captain Thorneycroft occupies. A former junior Minister who sits by preference on a back bench, he stands well...

Corah of that town has had conferred on him the Degree Ph.D. (Hons.) by the Acadimie Internationale, "affiliated with universities and Learned Institutions throughout the...

By OSCAR R. HOBSON I T is commonly said that soldiers plan to fight a war with the weapons, methods and ideas of the last one, and only find by bitter experience that the...

By BRIAN INGLIS Dublin. O NCE in a generation, perhaps, anger at the revelation of a wrong done to an individual by the State takes so firm a hold on a country's imagination...

By C. E. CARRINGTON W HEN that fiery Scot, Robert Rintoul, founded the Spectator in 1828, his intention was to collect a disci- plined team of contributors who would lead the...

By PROFESSOR W. 0. LESTER SMITH A T certain seasons of the year education, normally a silent service, becomes vocal ; the views expressed at its con- ferences arc heard on the...

li, J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. I EXPLAIN at once that emotion will be excluded from this article. I offer you a report which is to be coldly, almost analytically, factual. There...

Fragrance and Memories By ANTHONY BARTLETT (Wadharn College, Oxford) W HEN I was in the Air Force—what a pleasant sound the past tense of the verb has, to be sure—when I was,...

By HAROLD NICOLSON E VEN those who earn their living by answering questions, such as the Pythia, Socrates or the men and women employed in Citizen Advice Bureaux, must feel...

To celebrate its jubilee and continued vigour the Whitechapel Art Gallery has mounted an exhibition of eighteenth-century Venetian paintings and drawings, chosen and catalogued...

THE performance of the Magic Flute at Covent Garden on January 6th was the first to be given under Kleiber, and there were some small changes in the production as well as new...

CINEMA "The Secret Fury." (Odeon.)—"Volpone." (Curzon.)— "Li Vie Commence Demain." (Cameo-Polytechnic.) MUCH as I admire Miss Claudette Colbert, she is not at her best in The...

man born in one of the remote valleys in the North Riding, that land of ruined abbeys and isolated farms. He said something rather contemptuous about the tameness of the Home...

During the recent freeze-up I remarked how, in the ornamental pond, leaves of the water-lily were set like bronze plates, dessert size, just below the ice. Little bubbles of air...

The festivities of the season at Woburn Abbey, which for five weeks past have been a point of attraction to the large and varied circle of those who enjoy the privilege of a...

My recent reference to the blue feather in the robin's wing has orought an interesting letter from a reader in Sussex who, in the routine of her work among her chicken-houses,...

Set by N. K. Boot A prize of £5, which may be divided, is offered for the firSt sentence of a novel which is guaranteed to deter the reader from reading any further. Entries...

Report by D. R. PutItly Problems, whether impersonal. like the dollar-gap, or personal. like the servant probein. eternally beset the human race. A prize of IS was offered for...

Jones that the interest shown in the Christian Church by the Spectator is commendable, but one would have greater CAM for gratification if its comments did not give such...

How to Get the Houses Sta,-4 was deeply interested in Mr. Enoch Powell's article, 300,000 Houses a Year, in the Spectator of December 15th. Recent practical activities which...

SIR,—Will you allow me to congratulate you on receiving and publishing (in the Spectator of January 5th) two such excellent communications as Mr. C. P. Fitzgerald's China's...

SIR. — If the Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers can, through' formal and informal talks, secure a settlement of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, that...

SIR.-1 have read with glee the remarks by Janus on the curse of Christmas cards, and I. am sure that many of your readers will thoroughly agree with him. This last Christmas has...

Snt,—Whelher the Festival of Britain is the result of homintan confttsio or Dei providemia, whether it is a good thing or bad, is not for the outsider to decide I think the idea...

SIR.—Mr. B. Peter Blake does not seem to have read my letter very carefully, or he would have noticed that I was comparing the price of food in Spain with the average wages, the...

SIR, —Dr. M. E. Lampard, in the Spectator of January 5th, states that "the operation of thoracoplasty costs the State about £1,000, and sometimes cures T.B." If it sometimes...

SIR.-1 am sorry for any unintended lack of charity towards those whose way of worship I value. As one of many overworked parish priests, perhaps I may be pardoned for a strong...

Africa very interesting, but. as a Frenchman who lived in North Africa from 1938 to 1944, I think certain points need more emphasis. In the first place there is no unified Arab...

SIR.—Until I read Mr. Harold Nicolson's Marginal Comment on tele- vision I must confess I had not grasped the amazing fact that it is now possible for a man in Bradford to...

Sul,—The Celts were ever litholaters; the Soots differ from my com- patriots of the Principality only in being more noisy. We too have our grievance, and it goes back in time...

SIR,—In your issue of December 15th, Janus, referring to certain passages in the new Boswell Journal. "filthier than anything I have read any- where," goes on to say: "Much as 1...

SIR,—We am now entering the second half of the twentieth Century. If it carries on the tradition of the first half it is doubtful if civilisation will be able to survive it. If...

S OME time ago I found a collection of letters written' between 1838 and 1843 from my grandmother in London (the wife of Lewis Vulliamy, the architect) to her mother in Wales....

Unhappy Genius THERE is no reason—pace Samuel Smiles—why men of great -intellect should be better than others. But there is a reason why achievement should be linked with...

Collected Poems of Andrew Young. Wood engravings by Joan Hassan. (Cape. los. 6d.) ANDREW YOUNG has never attracted wide attention as a poet, but he has not been completely...

The Mystery of Dreams. By William Oliver Stevens. (Allen and Unw in. 16s.) IN this book Dr. William 0. Stevens has collected a number of instances of dreams 'which came true,"...

Not All Vanity. By Baroness de Stocckl. (John Murray.. IRS.) IN 1892 Agnes Barron, aged eighteen, married Sacha de Stoeckl. Attachd at the Russian Embassy in London, who later...

Old Oak : The Life of John Jervis, Earl of St. Vincent, By Admiral Sir William James. (Longmans. Iss.) HIS1ORY, particularly that of war, is so often made up of lost...

Baron at The Ballet. Introduction and commentary by Arnold Haskell. (Collins. 305.) Two saio - us and conscientious books on ballet have recently been published. One is...

Pleasures and Regrets. By Marcel Proust. Trawl' led by Lout • Varese. (Dobson. 9s. 6d.) "IT is true tliat he observed himself too much ; in the background of his life he was...

THototsoN is the only major Victorian poet whose works have tempted no publisher to reprint them. The two-volume collection of 1895 finally sold out about twenty years ago, and...

iN the plant kingdom the fungi have always been the subject of speculation and superstition. They were among the last plants ir have their mysteries scientifically explored, and...

UNLIKE novelists, short-story writers tend to rush into personal forewords. These, we may take it, are designed not to bamboozle but to guide the reader and set the mood....

Image 5. Edited by Robert Harlin. (Art and Technics. cc) Dim the fifth number of Robert Harling's and James Shand's quarterly of the graphic arts, is devoted to a review of...

IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct tolutton of this week's crossword to be opened of ter noon on Tuesday weds, "uttuary 23.d....

By CUSTOS TAKING their cue from Wall Street, which appears to be surprisingl e1 tkutiastic about equity share prospects in the rearmament phase, st klnarkets here are still...