T HE announcement that negotiations leading to a definite Anglo- French Alliance are to begin immediately is as welcome in London as in Paris and in Paris as in London. It is,...

That the conversations with Burmese delegates now taking place may result in the truncation of the British Empire is a fact that had better be faced since it cannot be ignored....

The meeting of the Foreign Ministers' deputies to begin work on the treaties with Germany and Austria, in preparation for the meeting of the Ministers themselves at Moscow in...

On Sunday Poland holds the elections which the Yalta and Potsdam conferences stipulated were to be "free and unfettered." There is every sign that they will be neither. There...

In the air the New Year has opened in the same disastrous fashion as the Old Year closed. It is true that at this season, when either fog or ice or bad visibility, are daily...

The announcement about "realistic" coal cuts made by Sir Stafford Cripps on Monday does not in reality carry matters much further. If there is a shortage it is no doubt better...

The signature of a pact of friendship between Transjordan and Turkey in Ankara is a notable success for King Abdullah. It also indicates that the Arab world, despite the...

T HE different issues underlying the Transport Strike—which remains unsettled as this is written, though an early settlement seems probable—must be clearly distinguished....

T HE question, what's wrong with English (not British) cricket, takes a lot of answering, but that it should be put, and put frequently and forcibly, is inevitable. One simple...

to the Daily Telegraph's comments on The Observer's announcement last Sunday of its Foreign Service in 1947. The Sunday paper has mobilised an impressive list of contributors...

Monday's Times) on the fact that at a time of an acute shortage of man-power something between 3oo,00o and 400,000 persons are employed in the betting trade I have the strongest...

a good time for a sit-down strike I sat down very successfully somewhere in Dorset. The sedentary posture was not, in fact, incompatible with a good deal of locomotion, which...

has taken his life in the past week because "he was being driven mad by insomnia" seems to me particularly distressing. Need this really happen to anyone? Prolonged insomnia, I...

from the British Weekly, the editorship of which he relinquished last September. It is as editor of that notable Free Church journal that he will mainly be remembered, but those...

a notable past. Known best in latter years as J. A. Spender's devoted wife, she was made familiar years ago to a wider public thrtiugh R. L. Stevenson's letters. As May...

By RICHARD GOOLD-ADAMS W HEN I was in British Columbia I once watched cattle being driven in from the open range. The man who was with me said, "You sometimes see pictures of...

By LORD AMULREE D URING the past forty years any increase in the population of this country has been due to an increased expectation of life rather than to a rise in the...

By AUBREY BUXTON T HE general public, having, so to speak, discovered Burma as a result of the war with Japan, must find it hard, if not im- possible, to fathom the political...

By SIR ALEXANDER PATERSON N the summer of 1906 I arrived for the first time at the gates of Dartmoor Prison to visit a young murderer from Bermondsey who had passed from Brixton...

By H. N. BENTINCK I N Trieste I knew a woman who wore red plush trousers ; she kept three Borzois on beds, and a rather curious man. The man she called "Maestro," though...

By HAROLD NICOLSON A LL those who, whether from stage or platform, have of late been faced with public audiences, will have observed that the British people, since October or...

THE main events of the week have been operatic—The Barber of Seville at the Cambridge Theatre on January 8th and Carmen at Covent Garden on January 14th. The New London Opera...

ALEXANDER COZENS was a poetic painter who lived a century before his time. Dissatisfied with the smug classical landscape tradition which he inherited, he anticipated,...

THE CINEMA "La Symphonie Pastorale " and Instruments of the Orchestra." (Curzon). —"24 Square Miles—C.o.I." (Non-Theatrical release.) —"Love Laughs at Andy Hardy."...

SILENCE falls like flakes of snow • *, On living coals of burning woe, Silence shepherds flocks of sheep In woollen river-drift through sleep. No grate and grit of nerve and...

OF all the Regionals the SConish seems fated to give least satisfac- tion. Faced with strong demands from popular and cultural institutions for more programmes of native origin,...

SIR,—The proposal to cut Civil Service staffs by 5 per cent. steps shows an odd lack of understanding of the problems of our administration. Business men with war-time...

Sla.—The statement in the paragraph under this heading in your issue of December 27th that "the plain intention of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, was that...

Slit,—For over a year I have been receiving The Spectator. At first I accepted it simply as a blessing from heaven, like we had accepted the " bombs " with foodstuffs the...

Snt,—The announcement of the tra.isfer of some notable estate or property to the National Trust occurs so frequently that we are getting to take it as a matter of course and...

Sia,—The Spectator has done good work in raising the question of the adequacy of ex-Servicemen's pensions. An equally urgent problem is that of the disabled ex-Serviceman with...

the " anonymous " P.o.W. made in his letter which appeared in your issue of January 3rd? I am surprised that he, being a keen student of the British Press, condemns the whole...

Sitt,—In your issue of January ioth Mr. E. P. Wright suggests that the right policy for the British Government to pursue — would be to inform the Security Council that...

Stn,—Your opinion that "the only remedy (for our overall insufficiency of production) is an increase in the duration and intensity of work" is, I think, mistaken. After so...

SIR,—In view of the fact that a restricted parcel-post to the whole of Germany (including the Russian Zone and all Berlin) is opening on January I5th, labels for parcels of...

Sitt,—The most important matter at issue in the correspondence that has followed my article on Friends or Enemies ? relates to the grading scheme for P.o.W.s. Mr. Driberg...

SIR,—Your contributor, Mr. M. H. Middleton, writing on " Art " in the January loth issue of The Spectator, states that the first eye-witness description of the Lascaux Caves...

Sta,—I read your paper for many years before the last war. When the Japanese come here I do not get it any more, but now the war is finished I get new copies again. I now see...

in Vence. He was, of course, but about ten years ago—I haven't a note by me of the exact date—his remains were exhumed, sealed in a casket, and sent by motor-hearse to...

Sta,—Professor Dingle, in his letter in The Spectator of December 13th, states that "there is no strict limit to the number of orbits in which the electron can move." Perhaps...

Snt,—Your correspondents on the " defenestration " of Prague refer to the piety of the toners, and to the convenient heal) of dung. Perhaps they and your other readers have...

a little surprising to read in many places ardent discussion" on the edibility of the grey squirrel. I well remember years ago "stopping off" at Albany in order to see that...

the household fire rises in value ; but it has other qualities than just warmth. Very few subjects, always excepting the weather, have had a greater attraction for writers of...

The nation's supply of food, and especially of vitamins—whatever they may be—was increased last year by the processing of 500 tons of hips, mostly gathered by village women...

SIR, —May I be allowed to say how much I appreciated Brigadier Frere's article which appeared in your issue of January loth? It was the best and clearest exposition of the...

It rejoiced me the other day to read two specialists in protest against old-fashioned pruning. Both said, in .effect, "Spur-pruning, except for cordons and such, is a thing of...

Unrepentant Fighter Bomber Offensive. By Marshal of the R.A.F. Sir Arthur Harris. (Collins. 21s.) WHEN Sir Arthur Harris faded quietly out of the scenes quorum pars magna fuit...

A Study of History. By Arnold J. Toynbee. Abridgement of Volumes 1—VI by D. C. Somervell. (Royal Institute of International Affairs : Geoffrey Cumberlege and Oxford University...

Tins volume of poems appears posthumously, and therefore the appropriate task of the critic is not to analyse it, but rather to survey the whole field of the man's work, of...

The Life of Llewellyn Powys. By Malcolm Elwin. (John Lane. 15s.) IN a postscript which happily disposes of 'the acknowledgments usually crammed into a prefatory note, the...

MR. A. L. READE represents, in a singularly splendid and indus- trious manner, the more academic side of the Johnson cult. In the patient accumulation of detail, in the...

Fundamental Theory. By Sir Arthur Eddington. (Cambridge University Press. 25s.) SIR ARTHUR EDDINGTON devoted the later years of his life mainly to the development of a theory...

" THE purpose of this essay," Mr. Nicolson writes, "is to enquire whether, in the wide landscape of the English temperament, there exists a special corner which can correctly be...

Tracks in the Snow. By Ruthven Todd. (Grey Walls Press. 12s. 6d.) THE romantic revival in painting, reinforced by war-time isolation from those external influences we...

Jealousy and Medicine. By Michal Choromanski. Translated by Eileen Arthurton. (The Willow Press. 12s. 6d.) Imperial Venus. By Edgar Maas. (Westhouse. 10s. 6d.) IN lealousy and...

A London Family. By M. V. Hughes. (Oxford University Press. 15s.) MRS. HUGHES' trilogy, A London Child of the Seventies, A London Girl of the Eighties and A London Home in the...

6d.) IF you do not quite believe what she claims, Mrs. Leyel has written a valuable and pleasing book. She is, of course, the high-priestess of herbs, a learned botanist and...

21s.) IN the category of completely useless books this must stand very high indeed. All, indeed rather more than all, that anyone needs to know about the first Lord Goschen is...

story in popular language of the life-work of five eminent doctors, John Elliotson, H. 0. Thomas, William Macewen, James Mackenzie and Robert Philip, with Robert Jones, Victor...

The State of Mind of Mrs. Sherwood. By Naomi Royde-Smith. (Macmillan. 7s. 6d.) THIS is a biography with a purpose. The life is that of the author of The Fairchild Family and...

A NEW novel by Michael Sadleir, called Forbrn Sunset after a phrase in a Henley poem, is announced by Constable. Like Fanny by Gaslight, it deals with London in the 'seventies,...

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 7crnuary 28th. Envelopes must be received not...

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By CUSTOS THE short view still dominates the long view in shaping the course of stock markets. Indeed, one can go further and say that the unfavourable aspects of even the short...