Just how many Hungarians are pleased with the recent move of the political centre of gravity towards the left, and just how many are displeased, is not revealed by the cautious,...

Lord Pakenham is striving, with much gallantry and some success, to put some heart into Germany. For it is abundantly clear that the danger is not revolt or resistance—of that...

I N spite of certain sporadic disturbances, the calm restored to India by the' Viceroy's declaration last week continues. The most important event of the last few days has been...

The new Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr. Hitoshi Ashida,.has now followed the Prime Minister with a statement to the Press in which he said, among other things, that Japan looked...

Believers in the English legend that the French are a logical people have had their credulity seriously strained by the events of the past week. The one thing that France most...

The important speech made by Sir Alexander Cadogan at the Security Council on Tuesday on the Military Staff Committee's recent report on an international force makes the best of...

While it was perfectly right for the House of Commons to press Ministers regarding the deportation of a small number of Poles from this country to the British Zone of Germany so...

W HILE the Lords have been sitting patiently, if not unprece- dentedly, until rr p.m., the Commons have divided their time between the Finance Bill and mopping-up operations. In...

It is difficult to quarrel with the Government's decision regarding equal pay for men and women. The subject has been given imme- diate urgency by the Labour Party Conference...

One of the hopes of all who look to the United Nations for some- thing more than what may be called hard politics has been that there should emerge from the new organisation...

I MMEDIATELY after Mr. Marshall's speech at Harvard on June 5th, in which he said that the countries of Europe should draw up a programme designed to put the continent on its...

on the ,same footing as men as regards degrees soon after the last war. Cambridge has not done it yet, but the thing is now as good as settled, since the syndicate which has had...

Punch found singularly happy expression in the luncheon given a few days ago by the proprietors of the latter journal to the editor and founder of The Countryman, Mr. J. W....

people whom at one time or another he annoyed might care to count them- selves such—must have felt a sense of loss when Mr. James Agate died last week. He was in his way an...

Theatre authorities have offered to give a series of Shakespearean performances for the German prisoners in the many camps in the neighbourhood. This is the kind of action...

like to add Mine now, at the practice of bringing in verdicts of " Suicide while of unsound mind" at inquests when there is no evidence of in- sanity except the suicide itself....

T HAT the man-power situation is difficult is understood by every- one, but most of us are getting a little tired of the monotonous reiteration of "man-power shortage " by...

By PROFESSOR SIR PATRICK ABERCROMBIE, IT is a commonplace, but perhaps worth repeating, that powers and procedure do not necessarily result in performance. Several simultaneous...

By CECIL NORTHCOTT N EARLY every Dutchman I met was aware that something extra- ordinary was happening in his greatest picture gallery—the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. Not only...

By ANDREW REV/it rIIHE present crisis in Hungary can be assessed only in the wider perspective of the growing friction between the Soviet Union end America, in relation to the...

By CLIVE TURNBULL Melbourne. A USTRALIANS find . themselves in a world of paradox ; the reorientations of the nations are bewildering, and Australia's own part is by no means...

By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. I SHOULD stand at Tattenham Corner, I was told, near the spot where, years ago, a suffragette threw herself under the King's horse and died. The key...

,By HAROLD NICOLSON riN Saturday last the degree of Doctor of Letters was accorded ki by Oxford University to Andre Gide. Few distinctions which the world can offer could be...

THE THEATRE THE trouble about Mr. Priestley's new play is not that you can't see the wood for the trees, but that you can't see what the butler saw for the butlers. A brace of...

" The Yearling." (Empire) " Dear Murderer." (Odeon, Marble Arch). The Yearling is an appealing film, easy on the heart and easy on the eyes. It tells a simple story of a...

IN common with a great many other people, I used to consider Saint loan Mr. Shaw's Masterpiece. Of late years my opinion has changed, and last week's broadcast in World Theatre...

IT ought by rights to have been an eventful week with " the greatest musical event of all time " starting on June 7th, for that is how the advertisements describe the series of...

IMPERCEPTIBLY the great century of French painting begins to slip into perspective. No less splendid do the great peaks of high adven- ture seem in more objective retrospect,...

Sns,—Mr. Alec Hobson assures us that from 1948 onwards entries of milking cattle at the " Royal " will be restricted " to those of a minimum standard of performance." This is a...

Sta,—The Foreign Minister's decision, a year ago, to postpone further consideration of the disposal of the Italian colonies in Africa for twelve months was, however convenient...

GREATER LONDON SIR,—On page 611 of The Spectator, dated May 30th, I read that " London's population is at present increasing at the alarming rate of half-a-million a year." For...

in the public interest to ensure that all the ablest boys and girls for whom there is room in the universities and who desire a university education should be properly prepared...

Sta,—I have read Martin Cooper's article on Brahms's German Requiem several times and cannot decide whether it is supposed to be serious criticism of music or crude Catholic...

Snt,—The figures regarding winners of Oxford and Cambridge open scholarships given by Mr. Hunt and discussed by Dr. Maxwell Garnett are doubtless true, and Mr. Hunt does well to...

SIR, —Mr. Gunther Stein mentions U.S. speculation in wheat as a cause of current high prices. Speculation, with the safeguards practised by all the leading world's " futures "...

which you published on May 30th, is of considerable interest to all who are studying current French history. It is, no doubt, an admirable summary of the book written by two...

SIR,—Your interesting article on the health of policemen was brought to my notice by some friends who maintained that conditions in the force could not be as bad as suggested by...

SIR,—Having read with sympathy and respect your article and the suc- ceeding correspondence on Hunger in Germany, I believe many of those with first-hand experience of...

Sut,—Canon Roger Lloyd contributed an understanding article to The Spectator of May 30th, dealing with the Catholic Church in France and her relations with the industrial...

the great number of fruit-tree stocks imported during the past year. It is, of course, much to the good that our orchards should have the opportunity of increase. We grow too...

a revision of the National Anthem, which changing circumstances make more pertinent and urgent now than when the natter was debated some years ago apropos of the offer by Lady...

SIR, —No wonder Mr. St. John Ervine always puts such gusto into the singing of those lines about frustrating politics and confounding knavish tricks, since he himself, and...

recent visit to Gloucester- shire of the increase in the number of magpies and a corresponding increase in the boldness of their thievery. A similar experience is now recorded...

Those who obeyed the old, old maxim: "Cast not a clout till May be out," must have suffered horribly, whether "May " means the month or, as some hold, the flower. The blossom...

dew ponds what they have done, or think they have done, for water-divining. They argue that dew could only at the best supply not more than .0002, or some such absurd figure, to...

estimating the effects of a hard winter on insect life. He has had to be very busy—with Denis dust, if wise—on his gooseberries and small fruit. He has probably seen great...

Sm,—In A Spectator's Notebook of My 16th, Janus asked whether the proposal made by the Bishop of Durham in the recent Convocation of York bore " any relation to the work already...

have read my article, Pays de Mission?, as meaning that I shared the outrageous view that in France " everyone who is trying to work for better social conditions must of...

Freedom as a Panacea The Great Challenge. By Louis Fischer. (Cape. 18s.) Tint writing of commentaries on current affairs has always been a dangerous trade ; a little - less...

George Eliot. By Gerald Bullett. (Collins. 12s. 6d.) ONE cannot help wondering why Mr. Bullett tells us among his first remarks that, whereas other great Victorian novelists...

THIS book is an emasculated version of the autobiography which Frank Harris wrote in the last decade of his life. Although, to quote Hugh Kingsmill, " no one but a salamander...

Faber. 12s. 6d.) ON the assumption that this was a book that had got to be written, no one could have done it better than Mr. William Sansom. He is level-headed.. He is...

THE revival of interest in poetry is one of the few encouraging portents in this troubled age. Hafiz, the greatest lyric poet of Persia, has long been a name to British...

Events and Shadows. By Lord Vansittart. (Hutchinson. 10s. 6d.) LORD VAtisrrrART is hamstrung by the perversity of his pen. The sub-title of this his latest book is "A Policy...

MISS GRINDROD has provided precisely what she set out to do, a fair-minded and accurate handbook to the Italy which has emerged after Fascism. There is real need for such a...

University Press. - 7s:6d.) PERHAPS the most interesting passage in this varied collection of antiquarian studies occurs in the chapter on. High Stewards of Cambridge—the...

is a very hot • and angry little book, belying its elegant eighteenth-century title. It is a review of the whole field of music in the light of y a single disbelief which...

English Popular Traditional Art By Margaret Lambert and Enid Marx. Britain in Pictures Series. (Collins. 5s.) THE problem with a book of this kind is where to begin and end—...

Harris (Melrose. 16s.) SIR PERCY HARRIS has spent twenty-five years in the House of Commons as a private Member, and private Members see quite as much of the game as Ministers,...

. - Filu l I - a E ▪ 0 R r4S A 0 I lA ` PlEiR - Lily liAINIS '21A N NIA 1 6 1.0,S•u'L u NI LIE lc Ill E 2> uil_E tir Pil F R R s _Atilli!R 1 ts!c , ! . *1 'IljEle '4. A...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week ffune 24th. Envelopes...

By CUSTOS IN the face of a situation which, to say the least of it, is confused, investors are giving hope the benefit of certain doubts to the extent of refraining from...

MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S war memoirs, the serial rights of which were recently the subject of a comment by Janus, will be published in book form by Cassell, who announce the...