. The military situation remains static, but with no definite armistice declared fighting may. break out again at any time. The signs are that Japan has little :inclination for...

of the upward course of the £ so far as it is due, as it evidently is in part, to the action of speculators buying in the hope of a further rise and the reconversion of their...

Subscription to the SPECTATOR costs Thirty Shillings per --atrrierio,iyalvolierav-putaag.; so-ix" - yat .rt/be.norld `r.los-finsmnrra is registered-as a Newspaper. The Postage...

11 - 111E transference of the Sino-Japanese question to -I- the League of Nations Assembly has given oppor- tunity for the smaller States to declare themselves with emphasis on...

The Disarmament Conference has been rather marking time while the Special Assembly on the Shanghai question monopolizes attention at Geneva. But, meanwhile, M. Tardieu has been,...

Substantial reductions of the Army, Navy and Air Estimates of this country while a Disarmament Con- ference is in session are of good omen, though it cannot be pretended that...

It is easier to sympathize with the strictures passed by a correspondent of The Times on the films served up both to Dominion and Colonial audiences In different parts of the...

into the German Presidential Election if the late Kaiser's son, Prince Oscar, is nominated as candidate on the second ballot. The first ballot takes place on Sunday, and it is...

Events in the Free State during the last fortnight have moved very much as had been predicted. Mr. de Valera is now President of the Executive . Council, elected by a vote of 81...

In India economics are going better than politics; Sir George Schuster was able, on Monday, to introduce a Budget which he expects to balance without new- taxa- tion, thanks in...

as France and India regarding the inability of the railways to pay their way in the face of diminishing. raffic, heavy taxation and road transport competition show that...

is not having so smooth a passage through the Standing Committee of the House of Commons as some of its supporters expected. Last week the Committee reintroduced sonic of the...

Mr. Neville Chamberlain's refusal to tax foreign meat needed any justification it would have found it abundantly in the observation casually dropped by Mr. Duff Cooper in...

There will be much sympathy with the Miners' Fede- ration in its contention that the coal industry has benefited by the strict regulation of output and sale which the Coal Mines...

improve- ment on those for January, brit it must be remembered that January showed an unexpectedly heavy increase of more than 200,000 over December. That puts the February...

abolition of capital punishment generally has often enough been argued in these columns, and there is obviously much to be said on both sides. But the proposal to abolish the...

on March 10th, 1982. War Loan (5 per cent.) was on Wednesday 101; ; on Wednesday week, 100A ; a year ago, 103 G . Funding Loan (4 per cent.) was on Wednesday 96k ; on Wednesday...

I T is noteworthy that a new concentration of public thought on measures far the resuscitation of the Danubian States should coincide with the celebration of the eighty-second...

By H. WILSON HARRIS A GREAT Frenchman, a great European, a great internationalist, a singularly attractive personality, 'combining notable qualities with palpable defects-...

THE people of the United States may well have been roused to indignation by the theft of Colonel Lindbergh's infant son from his nursery in his country home in New Jersey....

V IHE House of Commons generally is now waiting on the Budget. In these quiet circumstances, junior Ministers have had a chance to show their mettle, and some of them have been...

STANCIOFF BY NADLIDA [The successful organization of a Compulsory Labour " Army" in Bulgaria, for purposes of national reconstruction, is worthy of the closest attention in...

This article continues our series of studies of saintly characters who have in different ages and different =timers exercised a trans- forming influence on the life of their...

Br Loan DUNSANY. A S I came into the Club the other day they were talking of elephants. Much more sagacious than dogs, they were saying. Well, it doesn't really matter what...

The Times " S LR ' What (if you will pardon so direct a phrase) has come over you ? On February 25th someone wrote to you and, commenting on a recent remark of yours about...

upon their craft: The trouble seems to be that the domain of Clio has bccn so widely extended that the old formulas scarcely apply.. It is no use to say that history is a...

General Election last autumn, but one is clearly proven —the anxiety of the small investor about his investments, which made him play at all costs for safety. It is too little...

M R. BALDWIN is a master of portraiture, and his appreciation of Mr. Bonar Law last week cane as near the truth perhaps as is possible in the ease of so elusive. a character....

_ time goes on, and with this intricacy the English language seems unable to keep pace. The recent Wheat Bill is a case in point.. I defy anyone to get the hang of it, apart...

Druce was the benevolent chemist who advised them on the minor maladies of undergraduates ; few of them realised that he was even then one of the best of field botanists. He was...

remains one of the deepest of historical mysteries. The story in KenilWorlh is demonstrably false; it is borrowed from Ashmole, Who took it from the libellous Leicister'i...

the SPECTATOR.] Silf„-:-We are always having rubbed into us the importance of buying British. It is a waste of time With me, because that is a thing I really do understand;...

" Kameradschaft." At the Academy. TILE cinema, triumphing too easily in realism, seldom essays the conquest of reality. Its attempts to do so have been conditioned, and...

ALMOST at once the ululation of transatlantic police syrens on half a hundred motor bicycles announced that the hunt was up ; but from the moment, shortly afterwards, when the...

"The Man 1 Killed." Adapted by Reginald Berkeley from the French of MauriceRostand. At the Apollo Theatre. lr is a peculiar corollary to our national sentimentality that we are...

tend to be either very Oiod or very bad. When they are bad the outsider retires in a state of gloom Which is only thrown into darker relief by the local eulogies. When they are...

Ir Shakespeare were in London to-day, with between twenty and thirty MSS. of unproduced plays on his hands, Othello is the one which—if he was as shrewd a man of the theatre as...

motor-car has penetrated the isolation of the country. Ras in tube has a new meaning : the country is part of the town. Our roads are the best in the world: but they become...

to discover which species are the delinquents. The following must be condemned on direct evidence as offenderS, at certain times and seasons, and the list is more or less in...

his tulip bulbs to mice or field voles ; and all of us have found the attacks of birds on fruit-tree buds extensive beyond recollec- tion. To begin with the birds, spraying with...

to reach me about chlorate of soda as a cure for nettles. The efficacy of the treatment is emphasized by the "Farm Adviser" of the Country Gentlemen's Association. Ills...

ished after the wet summer ; but the ways of the beasts have been as unsatisfactory as their numbers ; and strangely enough, mice and birds have been conspicuous for similar...

A RURAL CRISIS. A crisis has-been reached in the battle for the preservation of rural England. It is not only that a Bill for town and regional planning is in debate. The...

the tridest and most sudden threat of violent change coincides with the demise of the only preserver. It is, therefore, imperative that a successor be found with the will and...

helped to frame the Bill and those who are opposing it. Both sides take as an accepted fact the need of a successor to the landowner. Both sides desire a wide, comprehensive...

How quickly and solidly the cult of country life has grown in England, even at a time when we are urbanizing and ugh- . fying many rural scenes ! - That simple, almost...

discreetly and well between the Ministry, the County Councils and the District Councils. But this is not written for the purpose of taking sides, but to suggest how much may be...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—What is a strictly_ scientific tariff ? One that lowers a supposed flat rate in proportion as an import is a necessary of life and...

reading of Liu the Farmer one had come upon him just as he is, sitting there ; for the story is dated late February and it is now only early March. Suppose one could say to him...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Suz,—Friends and even opponents of President T. G. Masaryk of Czechoslovakia will heartily congratulate the veteran statesman on the...

many of the letters which we receive, we would remind correspondents that We often cannot give space for long letters and that short ones are generally read with more attention:...

(To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.) SIR,--The Book Society has recently been subjected to hostile criticism, mainly both vague and anonymous, from different quarters. The Book...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sur,—I, too, like Half-Century Reader, regard Mr. Epstein's work from the point of view of a commonplace man in the street. A schoolmaster by...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SM,—I wonder whether any of your readers can help a parent to find a good public school where some attempt is made to feed the boys on modern...

[To the Editor of the SrEcTs.ron.] Sia—In connexion with the review by Mr. Lyon in your issue of February 27th, of L. B. Pekin's book, Public Schools, their Failure and their...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. Jones, is a little hard upon " old schoolmasters." Why should they not express an opinion upon such a subject as...

[To the Editor of the Sroclwroa.] SIR,—It was not to be expected that my suggestion should commend itself to Mr. Calvert and his society for the total abolition of capital...

Sra,—I would like to thank your correspondent, F. G. Keen; for his protest against Major Yeats-Brown's conception of God. My own faith in God's Providence would be utterly...

of the Spectator " interests me very much by his frank request for an explanation of what Mr. Epstein is producing at the present time. It is truly delightful to find an elderly...

Why is the bridge from the Strand called Waterloo Bridge Because it is like the victory of Waterloo—a very splendid affair, and cost a great deal more than it is worth.

TILE " SPECTATOR," MARCH 10TFI, 1832, A PROMPT CONGREGATION. On Sunday last, at Trinity Church, Sloane Street (containing about 1,300 sittings, 800 of which are free), the Rev....

We class these two musical performances of the week together, because the same report will suffice for both. It is our usual cus- tom to look over the schemes of such musical...

The Anti-Reformers - have at length screwed their courage to the sticking-point ; a preternatural birth has taken place, in the shape of two little Reform Bills, after eighteen...

To-Niorrr again I have heard darkness of music, Mutter of thunder, ominous, not of the storm That drives blackness before me : I rose from my loneliness And went to the door and...

interest that I have read the letter of the " Reader for half a century of the Spectator," on Epstein's art. I cannot claim to have read the Spectator for quite so long, but I...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sra,—Your correspondent who protests against my conception of " a God who pottered about " watching our attempts to escape, while " other...

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...

The Winning Entries %Vo print hero and on tho following page the two short stories which, as announced last week, divided the first prize in our Christmas Short Story...

By Macron Boum°. E RNST BORGMAN was sixteen years old, with down upon his cheeks and close-cropped curls framing his round fine. But he was so mad that little children clung to...

missionaries should be more successful add'remarkable as travellers than as men who offer rich gods and - new devils for old. The apostle St. James, acaOrding to Father Wessell,...

The Letters of Lord Chesterfield. Edited by Beauty Bohr!, ' (Eyre and Spottiswoode. £12 12s;) Ix good Victoria's golden days, whosoever ventured t o hold a high opinion of the...

Aspects of Literary Theory and Practice, 1550-1870. 11% Thomas. (Heath Cranton. 7s. 6d.) The Outlook for Literature. By Ashley H. TImindike. (Macmillan. 8s. &l.) " WHAT is...

The du Barry. By Karl von Schumacher. Translated from tho By D. B. Wyndham Lewis. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. Ss. Cal.) GENERAL Kmn SSNOPF has already made his reputation as a...

Essays Congregational and Catholic. Edited by Dr. Albeit Peel. (Congregational Union. 7s. 6d.) CONGRECATIONALIS5I is in some ways the- most . significant development of the...

Poets in Brief: Tennyson, Beddoes. Chosen by F. L. Lucas. (Cambridge Press. 5s. each.) Desire and Restraint in Shelley. By Floyd IL Stovall.. (Duke University Press, U.S.A....

First Class " LOUDER, please," urged a voice from the back of the room during an after-dinner speech. " Louder and funnier." A ton of feathers (though I am still rather...

IN 1915 Mr. Stephen Leacock published his sixth nonsense book, Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy. The larger moon was a planet which no one else had suspected, and it was left...

The Secret of the Golden Flower. - Translated and explained by Richard Wilhelm, with a European Commentary by C. :G. Jung ; the whole translated into English by Cary F. Baynes....

Journal of Thomas Williams. Edited by Professor G. C. Hen- derson. (Angus and Robertson. 2 Vols. 42s.) Beasts Called Wild. By AncirO Demaison. (Grayson. 15s.) AFRICA is...

gclentific Riddles. By Sir J. Arthur Thomson. (Williams slid Norgate. 10s. WO A Fool., they say, can ask a question that a wise man canriot answer. But there are so few fools...

IF the late Sir Walter Resent, that tireless champion of the sanctity of literary property, had lived to read this brisk, witty and revealing little volume, he might well have...

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Edited by F. 8' Boas. (Methuen. 8s. 6d.) ONE of the most interesting occurrences in the related history of literature and legend is the...

Fugue. By Olive Moore. (Jarrolds. 7s. 6d.) House for Sale. By Elissa Landi. (Chatto and Windus. 7e. 6d.) IT is very good for a conservative reviewer (like myself) to be brought...

Mr. Francis M. Kelly and Mr.Bandolph Schwabe, in their preface to A Short History of Costume and Armour 1066-1800 (Batsford, 2 vols., 25s.), point out that a knowledge of...

(Mowbray, is. fid.), published on the very day of Bishop Gore's death, must inevitably bear for us something of the character of a farewell message. And indeed those who...

AT a time when frustration of the world's credit system is impelling one country after another to seek some kind of " short cut to realization of the national interests," there...

Like Milner's England in Egypt, Mr. Bentwich's England in Palestine (Kegan Paul, 12s. 6d.1 should be a standard work for years to come. The author is well qualified for the task...

The first quarterly issue of Mr. Desmond MacCarthy's Life and Letters (2s. 6d.) is little different, in appearance or quality of content, from its previous monthly form. The...

I. SEROFF By M. R. Werner This biography-autobiography To Whom It May Concern : The Story of V. I. Seroff, by M. R. Werner .(Cape, 10s. Od.), is uneven ; at its best excellent,...

notify the SPECTATOR office BEFORE MIDDAY on MONDAY or EACH WEEK. The previous address to which the paper has been sent and receipt reference number should be quoted.

It is probable, I think, that if called upon to reply . to the interrogation at the beginning of the previous paragraph a good many would reply by saying that a great stimulus...

To what, however, it may be asked, do we owe the very remarkable change which has taken place in financial conditions within a few weeks ? Only a month ago we were experiencing...

. Taught, however, by the painful lesson of adversity, the National Government has concentrated upon its pledge to .economy and upon the problem of the trade balance, and it is...

The real turn in the tide began with the acknowledge- ment last autumn by a small section of the old Socialist Government of the errors which had been committed in regard to the...

From Storm to Sunshine IT is seldom that the financial atmosphere experiences so remarkable a change as that which has taken place during the last few weeks. It is almost as...

RISE IN SECURITIES. GESTMAL holders of securities and speculative operators for the rise have had another cheerful week, gilt-edged securities registering a further sharp rise,...

Briefly, I would say that much of the present im- provement is directly traceable to the attention paid to the severe experiences of last autumn. It would be a pity, therefore,...

satisfactory solution of the problem of Reparation Payments and International Debts, the great uncertainty of the character of such developments has to be borne in mind....

The latest report of the Britannic Assurance Company is a good one. Without relaxing the stringency of its valuation basis, the report shows substantial surplus funds both in...

MUT The quinquennial valuation of the Provident Mutual Life Assurance Association takes place at the end of the current year, and the latest report is somewhat in the nature of...

In an address recently delivered to the Edinburgh and Midlothian Local Savings Committees Sir Alexander Wright, the General Manager of the Royal Bank Of Scotland, made some very...

A further circumstance which has stimulated markets has been the continued rush for new issues of capital. Thus an issue of £1,500,000 in District Railway 5 per cent. Debenture...

Fur seven years now in succession the Directors of the London and Thames Haven Oil Wharves have been able to declare a dividend for the year of 10 per cent., together with a...

Spottiswoode, 50s.), is comprehensive in scope, attractive in presentation, and possesses the merit of not being long-winded. Part One, while touching on the history of some of...