Mr. Bevin and Count Sforza have initiated, and the relevant committee of the United Nations has sped on its way, a plan for the disposal of the former Italian colonies which has...

T HE raison d'être of the Ireland Bill, which received its second reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday, was, as the Prime Minister said in introducing it, the decision...

The sooner the Communists take Shanghai the better it will be for that city, whose strange history is related by a contributor in another page. An acute shortage of bank...

Economic events, as is well known, never attract popular attention until they become so unpleasant that they cannot be ignored. That being so, it is doubtful whether the export...

Nothing is more detrimental to the prestige of the United Nations than the spectacle of constant mass-abstentions when a question of any delicacy is put to the vote. When, last...

Nine days ago the President of the Board of Trade was shaking his head over the prospects for British imports from Canada—as well he might. Canadian exports to this country...

The Government has never had the technical knowledge which is essential if the steel industry is to be discussed intelligently. The Iron and Steel Bill is a political symbol...

T HE Steel Bill is the last of the great measures of national- isation which this Government is introducing, and it was not surprising that it received its third reading on...

It is perfectly possible that a fair solution could be found for the strike in the Lancashire coalfield. That is not to say that the miners' claim for free coal for their own...

• The earlier stages of the Licensing Bill were overshadowed by the controversy concerning the extension of State control of the sale of alcohol to the new towns, in which...

the Spectator in order to devote himself entirely to writing, Mr. Derek Hudson has been appointed Literary Editor as from May r6th. Mr. Hudson, who has been for many years on...

F OR the opening of a new chapter it essentially is, which is signalised by the disappearance of the Iron Curtain across Germany and the imminent endorsement by the Western...

United States. Arriving there early last month he was sent a "foreign-agent registration" form and asked to answer the various questions therein contained. A few days later this...

4 BSCENE," says the Concise Oxford Dictionary—" repul- sive, filthy, ,indecent, lewd." I looked up the definition in order to decide whether " obscene " was the just epithet to...

is due to failure in the Portuguese fishing last year. Is Portugal really qualified for inclusion in the Atlantic Pact if she can't catch sardines

youth, a prominent German told me the other day, is really fired by the idea of a United Europe. "But," I said, "isn't that odd, seeing that the great apostle of the European...

Assurance Company has been arranging a celebra- tion to which it attached considerable importance, and to which it invited various Cabinet Ministers, from the Prime Minister...

article in the News Chronicle Dr. Eric James, High Master of Manchester Grammar School, the largest and most important institution of its kind in the country, condemns...

the established custom of the union to lay a day ? I see that the Mayor of Margate gives the figure at 3oo. I understood myself that it was 320. I know of a bricklayer who on a...

the Cambridge batsmen J. G. Dewes and G. H. G. Doggart beating the English record for a second-wicket stand, by scoring 429 last Saturday, looked forward with eagerness to...

By WILSON HARRIS S UPERFICIAL impressions inevitably. No one even semi-stable mentally would take it on him to dogmatise about Germany on the strength of a week in the...

By RAVVLE KNOX Dublin F OR their Spring Show the Royal Dublin Society had a whole week of fine weather, and the republican capital relaxed into even broader smiles than usual....

By PETER TOWNSEND Shanghai HE mud of the Yangtse delta was rich. Rice, wheat and beans flourished on it. Hemmed in by canals and water- ways, villages crowded each other for...

By E. ASHWORTH UNDERWOOD T HE recent deaths in this country of six persons who con- tracted smallpox while at sea is a timely reminder of the severity of the disease and of the...

By LORD MILVERTON G REAT changes have taken place in Borneo since the war and greater chanvs yet are pending. The former territory of North Borneo, with an area of 29,500...

By R. H. CECIL HAVE often thought, looking through the annual Criminal I Statistics, that there must be scope for useful research among the facts they leave out. They do not...

THE OLDER STUDENT ByA. B. BUSHBY (University of Liverpool) T HERE is at present much enlightened discussion of the role of the universities in our national life, and a...

By HAROLD NICOLSON S WAYING agreeably upon red plush cushions to the move- ments of a Swiss train, I watched the lake flash in and out of the wistaria, the flowering chestnuts...

THE THEATRE "The Beaux' Stratagem." By George Farquhar. (Phoenix.) FARQUHAR brings up the rear of Restoration comedy. He appears to br marching in step with the glittering and...

"Criss Cross." (Tivoli.)—" The Bribe." (Empire.)—" Miss Tatlock's Millions.", (Carlton.)—" A Letter to Three Wives." (Leicester Square.) Criss Cross is a good, tough little...

To shoot a rhinoceros dead is easier than to photograph it well. In this play, a very good one, Miss Storm evokes a monster of which our knowledge is—as indeed it once was of...

BY the time this note appears the Vienna pictures will be on view at the Tate. Let me, in the meantime, take advantage of a momentary lull to mention a few of the other...

THE London Choral Society, conducted Liy John Tobin, have proved themselves as adventurous in their programmes as only those bodies can who are neither concerned with...

of them mentioned only part of a famous journey. According to the Koran and the traditions of Islam, Mohammed made a nocturnal journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and from Jerusalem...

No one denies that a sinner may become a saint. Some indeed hold the principle that the greater the sinner, the greater the saint. But when a church claims the authority to...

version of the Moslem tradition about Mohammed's miraculous nocturnal flight which, as Mr. -Galley has sug- gested to you in his letter, describes the Prophet's ascent from...

SIR,—If I were guilty of the muddled thinking Mr. Quintin Ho g g ascribes to me, I should not be " facile"; " ; I should be what some members of the community would call "plain...

Stn,—On the eve of the Mission to London, perhaps you may care to print a line concerning its purpose and significance. The Bishop of London, who is to lead it, has drawn...

GENERAL FRANCO'S RECORD SIR, —In Second Thoughts on Spain in the Spectator of April 29th you speak of "the plain fact that since 1945 Spain. has shown herself as peace- lovin g...

Sat,The time has Co - e--when someine must speak- up abotiicatering facilities-in Central London. The ordinary person who wishes to get a hot meal after dark without spending...

SUBSCRIPTION RATES Ordinary edition to any address in the World. 52 weeks El 10s. Od. - 26 weeks 15s. Od. Air Mail to any Count* , in Europe. 52 weeks £2 7s. 6d. 26 weeks LI...

on which Mr. F. A. Voigt's article appeared in the Spectator. Unfortunately, I did not see it later, but I trust that, in view of my rather special knowledge of akronesos—drawn...

few weeks ago, paints a false picture of the camp there ; she ,then proceeds to give her version of Makronesos, after admitting that she .has never set foot on the place....

The other day I wrote something about the necessity for using specifi- cally cider apples and perry pears in the making of good cider and perry. A few days later a member of a...

all that he has written in his article Germany and the West and the service he has thus rendered to Britain, for his.conception of the German question if both fair and just, and...

A happy use for lawn-mowings is made by one clerical gardener and doubtless by others. He fills a frame with a deep bed of such grass, which, as always, heats very rapidly ; and...

doctors, policemen and even journalists'. Here' are some modern instances. I was asked last week (by a most highly distinguished publisher) whether as a naturalist I could tell...

Sfit,—Under the above heading, in the Spectator of May 6th, you appear to suggest "that the really important thing is to ensure that the new era of friendly feeling and close...

Alongside a charming lime avenue, with a screen of willows in front, is established a bee-farm where much research work goes on, and some quaint discoveries have been made or...

A PLEASING little system of co-operation and local self-sufficiency has come into being In West Sussex. Members of the Village Produce Association, in which women play the major...

A Running Commentary on Yeats ONE must sympathise with the interpreter of Yeats ; it is interpret- ing the interpretation, for Yeats fully explains himself in his work. Then on...

Egyptian Service, 1902 - 1946. By Russell Pasha. (John Murray. 18s.) To European visitors and residents alike, to a bizarre cosmopolitan society, as to the general public of...

UNIVERSITIES tend as a rule to get on with their job without much explicit concern for the problems of education in general, but Harvard has evidently been stimulating, and...

English: A Course for Human Beings. By Eric Partridge. (Winchester. 18s. 6d.) THE only bad thing about Mr. Partridge's book is the sub-title, a sad instance of that witless and...

THERE are two reasons why Washington has not hitherto received an adequate biography. First, until recently national piety has prevented a steady view of the man. The father of...

.1. One of several suggested subjects of Sea shore conversation. (7, 3.) "Oh, ---- Cottle ! Phoebus ! What a - name ! " (Byron). (4.) 9: I sham camel (anag.). (10.) 18. Eastern...

DO n Nag 19E1 +6R 2s e c')(1, IC A GIL; A A g oraA. nrilag WIRT M t mown MMOMONOMM 3 M MMEIM UMMMOODOMMMOO L 0 2 tiltt CIA sin s SOLUTION The winner of Crossword No. 527...

Surgery, Orthodox and Heterodox. By Sir William Heneage Ogilvie. (Blackwell. 12s. 6d.) WHEN Sir Heneage Ogilvie was asked to deliver, last year, the Beyer Memorial Lecture at...

Mayhew's London, Edited by Peter Quennell. (Pilot Press. 21s.) THIS is the second selection from Henry 1Vlayheves London Labour and the London Poor to be published within...

Enchanted Trails. By Sir Christopher Gibson. (Museum Press. 16s.) IT is salutary, and opportune, that the people of Latin America should be reminded of Britons who have shared...

Napoleon at St. Helena. By Frederic Masson. Translated into English by Louis B. Frewer. (Pen-In-Hand. 15s.) FREDERIC MASSON, the distinguished French historian, died in 1923....

WHEN Mr. Laver, in his historical introduction to this illustratrd survey of London Transport posters, writes that "the bulk of the. masterpieces of the poster was produced in...

By CUSTOS FOR a reasoned defence, if that be judged necessary, of the Imperial Chemical Industries board's decision not to increase the to per cent. dividend, Ordinary...