The Italian Prime Minister has said that the new agreement on Trieste will be administered in a spirit of " friendly understanding." It is certainly as a result of this spirit...

T HE extortion of political concessions by holding hostages to ransom is a favoured technique of present- day Communism; indeed, the technique is one that has become so well...

Dr. Malan appears bent on driving South Africa into crisis. His Bill dethroning the Supreme Court so far as constitutional questions are concerned is now through the House of...

Mr. Butler was fully entitled to point out in the debate on purchase-tax in the House of Commons on Monday that the Douglas scheme for a revised purchase-tax "came from the...

Mr. Walter Lippmann is as far removed as possible from the under-the-bed, inside-information school of foreign commen- tators. The raw material of his articles is the common...

It is to be hoped that the truth and all the truth about the origin of the canard published by the Paris journal Le Monde, which is virtually a successor of Le Temps, regarding...

A month ago the British Government addressed a courteous but anxious memorandum on the subject of tariffs to the American State Department. An answer which will relieve some,...

Whatever the precise tally of gains and losses in the local elections held in the past fortnight—the party affiliation of some candidates who labelled themselves neither...

The Bishop of Willesden talked some exceedingly sound sense about gambling at a meeting of the Churches' Committee on Gambling on Monday. He is not alone in finding it strange...

T HE Opposition was much less ebullient about its victories at the borough polls than at the results of the county council elections. That is conformable to the nature of...

W HATEVER may be said of the latest Allied Note to Russia as a whole, it certainly makes an admirable beginning. To aim at "the unity of Germany, the election of a free...

two ago in hearing a particularly competent American authority put the coin- . plications of the American Presidential election campaign in a nutshell. What it comes to in a...

of the London Missionary Society, held in connection with the annual assembly of the Congregational Union, and I was very considerably impressed. Westminster Chapel, which holds...

but I find that their specious activities do arouse some interest. I may therefore give passing mention to tho Western University, domiciled in one room in a small wooden hOnse...

to assume now and then rather much of the characteristics of a platform. I have read with interest the newspaper reports of the sermon preached there last Sunday by a coloured...

Anglo-Egyptian relations may have been a con- tributory cause of Sir Cecil Campbell's tragic death in Cairo on Sunday can only be conjectured. Sir Cecil was one of a...

posal to decentralise the railways as far as possible. It is more than a matter of administration—on the advantage of decentralisation opinions can differ—it is a matter of...

By ROBERT WA1THMAN Washington. T HE fact that some people will believe anything has been demonstrated with great thoroughness during the second quarter of the twentieth...

By MAURICE CRANSTON O N Sunday Bertrand Russell will be eighty. He ought, by this time, to seem "venerable," especially as he is, after all, a 'philosopher, and indeed the...

Chinese writer to an English friend.] I CAME here to find work, but it was not possible for me to escape from my responsibilities to my country and my people, so when I later...

Here lies Sam Smith, who never could make out Whether the world-to-come was all illusion ; A motor bus resolved his honest doubt And brought him to a definite conclusion. M. D. H.

By C. K. ALLEN, Q.C. T HE animal kingdom, to which so many of my readers belong (as G. K. Chesterton nearly wrote), is a very powerful realm in Britain. There is probably no...

Studio Life By J. M. WELBANK (University College, Iondon). I N a non-residential university an architectural student has something more than a slim locker in a basement that...

By HAROLD NICOLSON M R. A. J. BALFOUR was regarded as a dispassionate man, who, although he listlessly entered politics, was interested mainly in the patterns of music and the...

THEATRE After My Fashion. By Diana Morgan. (Ambassadors.) LEAVING the theatre I heard someone say, "More in this than the usual," and that, considering the queasy condition of...

THE revival of Alexander Balus at the Festival Hall on May 8th was a great act of Handelian faith, on which John Tobin, the London Choral Society and the Kalmar Chamber...

LYDIA BAILEY is a lavishly coloured Haitian saga directed by M. Jean Negulesco 's skilled hand, acted by Mr. Dale Robertson, Miss Anne Francis and a host of coloured artists...

IT would be ungenerous to attempt to weigh the relative importance of the three women painters currently accorded a joint memorial exhibition by the Arts Council and the Tate...

Something made me look up at the particular moment that a jack- daw flew on to the crags above me, and I watched it enter a hole. It did not come out, and I set off up the slope...

My grandfather always insisted that a mountain sheep had a better flavour because it fed on the finer herbs and grasses that grow in inaccessible places. The sweet herbs made...

by the man whose job it is to see that the waterfowl are allowed to nest and breed in peace. He was particularly glad to see us, because moorhen and duck have young and are at...

THERE is something wonderful about the peace of a Sunday morning in the country. The cottages and farms are only half awake, and the roads are almost deserted. We were on our...

Plant out salvias, asters, stocks, antirrhinums and other bedding plants that provide a show when the last of the tulips have gone and the aubrietia bloom is fading on the...

Set by John Usborne A prize of £5, which may be divided, is offered for the best native comments on British weather in one triolet stanza, beginning either "it's bound to stop...

Report by Mervyn Horder "Ah well, I must stop now, as the watch said when the little boy filled it full of treacle," wrote Lear in one of his letters. A prize of £5 was offered...

THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION Among the subjects of invention two stand pre-eminently forth as something more than inventions in the bare current acceptation of the term—as...

SIR,—Mr. Harold Nicolson has every right to disapprove of Spenser's Irish politics and to resent the boasts of those who claim to have read all the Faerie Queene in their...

SIR,—Mr. Grigson says, truly, that "the fritillary has gathered a good many names." Most of them he enumerates. "In Matthew Arnold's Oxfordshire," he says, "the classic county...

Sut,—Branch-lines do not pay because of extravagant administration. Instead of putting one ticket-seller on the train, the railways man every wayside halt with a booking-clerk...

problems of film distribution, and should like to offer a little comment. Any cinema manager will tell you that, should there be further cuts in tilt import of American films,...

Keeping Films Going SIR,—I am glad to note the comment in your,issue of May 2nd that the President of the Board of Trade will need to be "tough and wary" in his deaFrigs with...

Sut,—In your note "Back to Bedlam" you use the word " complaisant " exactly in the sense of "complacent." I know Americans do so; but surely you can appreciate the difference...

Stn,—I shall be glad if you can allow me a space in your widely read journal for pen-friends. I am a boy of 14 years old, attending a day school in Lagos, the capital of...

Snt,—An elderly gentleman in England kindly sends me his Spectator when he is finished with it. We much appreciate this gift, but I have lost his address. Could you publish this...

SIR, — The letter from the Chairman of the General Executive of the Queen's Institute of District Nursing is, of course, a very valuable contribution, and I am anxious to reply...

have read your article The Germans and Rearmament with the greatest interest. I have had discussions—and still have—with hundreds and hundreds of Germans from about eighteen to...

SIR, — It is true, as Col. Gold says, that the Michelin Guide to Britain had a classification of hotels and restaurants, but this classification was based on appointments and...

Portrait of Europe. By Salvador de Madariaga. (Hollis & Carter. 18s.) IN the last fifteen years the English have thought, written and talked more about Europe than ever before...

Protestant and Papist The Anglican Dilemma. By The Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Slesser. - (Hutchinson. 12s. 6d.) THE practice whereby distinguished converts to the Roman Church publish,...

" Deutschland ist Hamlet," the poet Freiligrath wrote more than a hundred years ago, likening Germany brooding over its lost freedom to the unhappy ghost which walked the...

Life in a Medieval College. By Frederick Harrison. (John Murray. 21s.) CANON HARRISON'S book has nothing to do with Oxford or Cam- bridge, nor does it deal only with the Middle...

The Next Million Years. By Charles Galton Darwin. (Rupert Hart-Davis. 15s.) IT is told of a temporary resident in one of Her Majesty's more luxurious free hostels that, a few...

Mr. Van Wyck Brooks' admirable history of American literature from 1800 to 1915. In this volume he covers the period from 1885 to 1915, ending very cogently with what he calls "...

Collector's Progress. By Wilmarth Lewis. (Constable. 30s.) MR. WILMARTH LEWIS'S account of his career as a collector will delight his numerous friends and acquaintances on this...

Dearest Isa : Robert Browning's Letters to Isabella Blagden. Edited . by Edward C. McAleer. (Nelson. 25s.) Ever a Fighter : A Modern Approach to the Work of Robert Browning. By...

Diana Wakefield. By Michael Figgis. (Macmillan. 12s. 6d.) MR. MACKEN 'S new novel has, as they say, everything, or at least everything that could properly be expected from a...

(Canadian Magazine Post) Id.

MR. WOODHOUSE is unusually well qualified to give us a new study of the Greek War of Independence. An exceptional classical scholar gifted with a fine command of modern Greek,...

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[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, May 27th, addressed Crossword, 99 Gower Street,...

movement in markets has come up against hard facts. Gilt-edged, which have latterly been thriving on optimistic assumptions about the strength of sterling, have found no comfort...