A S we go to press the danger that Hitler may be able to make good his threat that Paris will be occupied by June 15th is grave. German outposts, not in themselves of great...

Bitterly disappointing as it is that the Allies should relin- quish their hold on those northern portions of Norway where the Norwegian flag was still flown, the decision to...

Since the delivery of President Roosevelt's " dagger in the back " speech at Charlottesville, Virginia, on Monday evening opinion in the United States has been changing even...

Whatever the German vessels concerned may have been, the fact has to be faced that a naval detachment in the North Sea encountered a superior force of Germans and must be...

Italy's aggression against the Allies has extended the war to Africa, and it was on African soil that the first blows against her Air Force have been dealt by R.A.F. bombers of...

At the time of going to press the mystery concerning the presumed loss of the aircraft-carrier ' Glorious,' the destroyers ' Ardent' and Acasta,' the tanker ' Oil Pioneer' and...

Italy's declaration of war against the Allies creates the situa- tion which requires Turkey to come to their support. It may well be that in the last fortnight the Italian...

The task of rounding up potential enemy agents becomes an ever larger and more complicated one, and experience in other countries has shown that it must be performed with...

Experience has revealed the necessity of making many changes in the Schedule of Reserved Occupations and the ages at which men are to be reserved. The alterations that have now...

The number of unemployed persons on the registers on May loth fell by nearly 92,000 to a total of 880,822, of whom 570,712 were men. The formation of Mr. Churchill's Govern-...

The countries which have been conquered and occupied by the enemy must not be regarded as incapable of making any further contribution to the Allied war effort. Czech and Polish...

A further sign of the Government's determination to switch over the country's manufacturing power to war production was given in the Order restricting supplies of goods from...

In the British attitude to Germany in this war is discernible a laudable desire not to over-state the case against the enemy, and not to let war deprive us of a sense of...

over the application of epithets to Italy. Mr. Mackenzie King has called her a carrion-crow. Several American papers prefer vul- ture. But by general consent jackal is...

must have mentioned it here some time or other—a statement which General von Blomberg, the former German War Minister, made to a friend of mine a few years ago. " One thing," he...

were no doubt good reasons, or at any rate reasons of some kind, why certain Italian cafes should have had their windows broken the day Mussolini went to war, while others,...

judgements in these days. I received this week the latest—I assume it to be the latest—of the European Letters issued by Count Coudenhove-Kalergi in connexion with his...

I F there is tragedy, there may equally be hope in the precision with which 1940 is repeating 1914 in France. It is true, no doubt, that hopes enough have been frustrated...

an elderly dog sat patiently by her on the pavement. I caught one sentence as I passed, and it touched me strangely. " He's getting old. Of course, he's all I've got really."...

his way to Moscow have anything of the desired effect, there and at his ultimate destination, we may decide to amend an ancient epigram, to read " Unus homo nobis volitando...

aerodromes in Libya and Eritrea deserves attention for more reasons than one. Soon after the war opened an airman friend told me that in his view the right man for the post of...

present war are many and strange, but (as has just been pointed out to me) one told in this column a month ago carried strangeness well beyond credibility. It was stated that "...

By STRATEGICUS T HE last week has been so full of tremendous fighting that one has come to live from hour to hour ; and when it seemed that the strain had become almost...

By PROFESSOR G. M. TREVELYAN, O.M. T 0 some of us older men this is the bitterest day we have yet known in all our lives. Victorians born and bred, few of us believed the poet...

By ERWIN D. CANHAM W HAT the rushing torrent of events will have brought to Europe by the time this article crosses the Atlantic via Clipper cannot be foreseen, but at the...

By THE RT. HON. ISAAC FOOT Ts Cromwell there? " inquired Prince Rupert of a Parlia- 1. mentary prisoner on the eve of Marston Moor. " Will they fight?—if they will, they shall...

HE Day of Prayer which thronged all our churches was T followed within a very few hours by the news of the Belgian surrender and the worst tidings we have heard for centuries....

last the strife? On to the very end of life: Till you have offered all you prize, And freed yourselves from compromise, With all its futile pacts: until You gain the mastery...

ordering " The Spectator " regularly, since newsagents can no longer be supplied on sale-or-return terms.

THE SPIRIT OF MAN By CHARLES AIORGAN W HEN opinion grows hot and language violent, whoever ventures to discuss in public contemporary events and ideas, hoping to be read...

first tin. of the importance and charm of vegetables. In March apparent resolve to win the war by means of the onion was great that it became almost impossible to obtain seed....

The petunia, like the fuchsia and the pelargonium, has gone a little out of fashion. Yet many of the plants which have re- placed it in favour—zinnia, antirrhinum, nemesia—are...

Pavilion.—"Every- thing Happens at Night." —At the Regal. FOR various reasons (most of them highly mysterious) docu- mentary films have not been largely to the forefront since...

Hudson, in perhaps the most famous passage ever written about the cuckoo, calls attention to the remarkable indifference of a robin to her own ejected nestling—" slowly and...

A two-hour night-patrol with a Lee-Metford, guarding a small automatic country telephone exchange, aroused a few disturbing reflections. Between the hours of eleven and one the...

SIR,—As a Dane, now living in London, I cannot help feeling very sad when reading a paragraph in " A Spectator's Notebook " inviting to regard the Czechs as allied. I often ask...

it is essential that letters on these pages should be brief. We are anxious not to reduce the number of letters, but unless they are shorter they must be fewer. Writers are...

Sut,—There are a considerable number of factories and a large number of artisans in the woodworking trades whose help has not yet been adequately enlisted in the war effort. In...

SIR,—In your issue of May 24th you say " It would be a thoroughly sound step " to send Sir S. Cripps to Moscow. I wonder if you realise how many people in this country—including...

Stx,—Someone should protest against all comments of the kind which Mr. Derek Verschoyle made last week in criticising -Mr. Louis MacNeice. The heading was " Another Lost...

SIR,—At the present time of grave conflict between the armed forces it may be helpful to turn our minds to the problem of the greatest magnitude that will face us in the years...

attention to the dangers of the present wholesale increase in working hours. Let me speak of what I know. In the Ministry in which I am temporarily employed, as in others, a...

SIR, —With reference to your note on Conscientious Objectors and the Land, which appeared in your issue of June 7th, although I should be very ready to believe that in many...

Stx,—Dr. Henry Guppy's article on " Twice-Raped Louvain " in your number of May 31st omits to signal a characteristic feature of the broad humanitary mind reigning in that...

SIR, —I have just noticed that Mr. H. E. Bates, in his " Country Life " column, mentions a prejudice which exists against duck eggs. As no aspect of the food problem is now too...

that Dr. Mallon thought fit to reply to my letter if he can think of no better " argument " than a reiteration of one already exploded by me, and a sneer at the poor publicity...

English Religious Verse The Oxford Book of Christian Verse. Chosen and edited by Lord David Cecil. (Oxford University Press. 8s. 6d.) LORD DAVID CECIL. in an admirable...

EVERY now and then, though all too seldom, a book appears embodying a thesis which, though the moment it is read it appears self-evident, has in fact for years escaped the...

Hitler et Moi. By Otto Strasser. (Grasset. zr frs.) " I WANT something really horrible," said the lady next me at the bookstall on Reading Station, running through the serried...

Wito on earth could possibly tackle any of these books today? Most people's reading is limited to a hurried, fearful glance through the latest newspaper, and perhaps a chapter...

Economic Problems of Today. By W. A. Lewis. (Longmans. 4s. 6d.) MR. LEWIS has succeeded brilliantly in a field where failure is lamentably frequent. He has written a book...

Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack, 1940. Edited by Haddon Whitaker. (Whitaker. 5s.) ALTHOUGH it has been perfect cricket weather these past weeks, the events of the last...

MR. R. C. HUTCHINSON has been highly praised by some distin- guished critics, and wrote, among other novels, The Shining Scabbard. His new book is long and ambitious, with a...

GERARD DE NERVAL is said to have explained, when asked why he took a lobster out with him on a lead, that he liked its nature and it never barked. Prizes of book tokens for £2...

Token for one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to b. opened. Envelopes should be marked " Crossword Puzzle," and...

THE usual prizes were offered for a list of suggested familiar names for various famous London buildings and institutions. Some of the names suggested seemed so obvious that it...

E 13 13 f o" 0 1 R C A E A R - 0.. IN o; !.:ku , 5 SOLUTION NEXT WEEK The winner of Crossword No. 66 is R. Saunderson, Berwick St. James, Salisbury.

BOOTS PURE DRUG CO., LIMITED THE fifty-second annual ordinary general meeting of Boots Pure Drug Company, Limited, was held on June 6th, 1940. The Rt. Hon. Lord Trent,...

By CUSTOS NEITHER the German advance in France nor Italy's entry into the war has made the slightest dent in the financial front. Investors have just gritted their teeth and...