17 MARCH 1944

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T HE Finnish Parliament has rejected the peace terms offered by

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NEWS OF THE WEEK the Soviet Government, and on the shoulders of its members will fall responsibility for whatever lot may now be in store for the country. There will be no...

The Trial of M. Pucheu

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The trial of Pierre Pucheu, former Vichy Minister of the Interior, by a special military tribunal at Algiers, has been watched with mixed feelings by Frenchmen who passionately...

Eire and the Enemy

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Eire has kept within the letter of her strictly legal rights as a neutral in rejecting the request of the American Government that she should remove the diplomatic and consular...

Page 2

Muddle, Anarchy and Lost Coal

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It seems that reason is slowly beginning to prevail among the • South Wales miners7o per cent. of the strikers on Wednesday were back at work, and it may be hoped that the...

Conservatives and Uthwatt

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Among the worst of the sins of omission on the part of the Government has been its failure to reach decisions about the development and control of land and its consequent...

Civil Aviation

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In returning to the question of civil aviation, recently debated in the Air Estimates, the House of Commons showed its appreciation of the importance of full preparedness in...

Control of Secondary Schools

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There was an important and, it may be hoped, fruitful discussion in the House of Commons last week on Clause 16 of the Education Bill, dealing with the position of governors of...

Page 3

THE DANGERS OF DISUNITY

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A MESSAGE cabled to the News Chronicle on Tuesday by Professor Einstein contained a warning which, particularly coming from such a source, demands serious and considered atten-...

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A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK

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T HE economic consequences (to say nothing of the cultural conse- quences) of being uneducated are forcibly dealt with by Sir Ernest Simon in a pamphlet he has just written.*...

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WHAT THE UKRAINE VICTORY MEANS

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By STRATEG ICUS M ANSTEIN, the only German commander who has retained his command in Russia, is fighting with a skill' that can only be appreciated by a full recognition of the...

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FROM THE MIDDLE WEST

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By J. L. HODSON St. Louis, Mo. I SAT at dinner in Chicago University the other evening with a group of distinguished men—and most likeable men—whose names included Ulrich...

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CHINA AND THE WAR II

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By IRENE WARD, M.P. I T is rather di ffi cult to give a well balanced description of the Chinese people on the basis of a, stay of some weeks in Chungking and a limited amount...

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HOSPITALS OF TOMORROW

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By DR. W. A. R. THOMSON A S was expected, the recent White Paper on a National Health Service contains far-reaching recommendations for the reorganisation of the hospitals of...

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VOLTURNO CROSSING

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VOLTURNO river, hush thy song, Now gently lead thy flood among Grey banks, wan meadows, moonlit trees ; List to my pleas. I found a friend embracing thee. He lay as drowsy...

THE PLEBS AND THE MINERS

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By ERA GRAY (The Plebs are workers employed at a munitions factory some- where in England.) T O say that the Plebs are disgusted with the Welsh miners in their present dispute...

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MARGINAL COMMENT

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By HAROLD NICOLSON I T must be admitted that public opinion, both in Parliament and outside, is becoming perplexed by the confusions and contradic- tions which obscure our war...

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SPRING IN WAR-TIME

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YESTERDAY, Stark Winter crossed the fields with death; And paralysed the stirring trees With cruel breath. And Spring was in an iron tower Upon the hill, when snow came down...

THE THEATRE

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PRIZE-WINNING plays, like prize-winning poems, or prize-winning symphonies, are never works of great originality, but Mr. Peter Powell's The Two Children, which won the prize in...

THE CINEMA

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MR. JOHN BAXTER'S best work comes always as a salutary reminder that spit and polish is not everything. Even when this British producer is wrestling with the problem of...

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ONE WAY WITH GERMANY

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SIR, —May I reply briefly to your three correspondents who criticise my book, Our Settlement With Germany, in your last issue? Colonel Minshall writes...

Sta,—I read with grateful appreciation your article on my old

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friend Brailsford's plea for psychiatrists rather than policemen to cure German aggressiveness and brutality. Brailsford is a man with a kindly heart, inclined to judge masses...

Sitt,—Lest they should pass without comment, and in the hope

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of evoking a protest from abler pens than my own, I write to express disagreement with the views of Messrs. Brailsford and Shewell and endorsement of those of Mr. Wilson...

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INDUSTRY IN INDIA Sta,—All the facts cited by Sir Stanley

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Reed in his letter are no doubt correct, and yet there must be many living, like myself, among the villages of India, who would consider that Wing-Commander Grant- Ferris, M.P.,...

FINLAND AND RUSSIA

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ta,-41r. Bryan Bevan's letter on " Finland and Russia " in your issue f March Path calls back to mind the last passage in Hitler's proclamation o the German people, broadcast at...

THE BY-ELECTIONS

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ta,—One of the reasons, and I suggest a major reason, for the appear- e and increasing success of independent candidates at by-elections the wide difference between the...

YOUTH AND THE NEW ORDER Snt,—I do not think Lady

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Lothian yet grasps the problem of the future in its vastness and essential unity. Everybody agrees that the world must be born anew. The human spirit must take to the air again....

a HOLES IN THE CHARTER "

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Six,—There has recently been a lengthy correspondence in the Press, as you are doubtless aware, as to how Germany should be dealt with after the war. It has filled me with...

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BRITISH SHEPETOVKAS Sta,—The article " Shepetovka " in your issue

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of February 25th gives a vivid picture of the backwardne;s of a Ukrainian village in 1909. In one important matter, however, the condition of rural Britain in 1944 is not one...

THE SUBSTANCE OF SOIL

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SIR,—I should like very briefly to reply to Mr. A. H. Brown's letter in your issue of March loth in which he quotes figures from his farm on Hayling Island which he considers...

SOLDIERS' PAY Sta,—I notice in your issue of March Toth

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that you say it would cost £4,600 million to raise the pay of British soldiers to the American level, &c. Are you sure this figure is correct? If, as I strongly suspect, it is...

A SPECIAL plea is being made to the Ministry of

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Agriculture to revok the Rook Order, published in 1940. That order condemned the root and branch, supporting a common superstition. Now a g Hungarian farmer and ornithologist, a...

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The Beginnings of Literary Criticis

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English Literary Criticism : . The Medieval Phase. By J. W. Atkins. (Cambridge University Press. 12s. 6d.) Tins book is a valuable and long-needed study of the earliest pen in...

BOOKS OF THE DAY

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Seeking Without Finding Tolstoy : His Life and Work. By Derrick Leon. (Routledge. 258.) HERE is a new%iographical study of Tolstoy that should be of special interest today when...

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Tooth and Claw in China

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Battle Hymn of China. By Agnes Smedley. (Gollancz. 7s. 6d.) THE publishers claim that this is "one of the really outstanding books on modern China ": that " in breadth and...

Our Merchant Marine

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"CAPTAIN SHAW "—reports the publisher's blurb on the jacket of this book—" is perhaps the greatest authority on sea-warfare today." I am glad of the " perhaps " • it gives...

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Your First Baby. By Anne Medley. (Faber. 6s.) Tins book

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purports to answer all the questions that may occur a woman expecting and bringing up her first child. In general, 11 follows the Truby King method for feeding and training an d...

Fiction

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The Sea Eagle. By James Aldridge. (Michael Joseph. 8s. 6d.) We Poor Shadows. By Countess Hermynia zur Miihlen. (Frederick Muller. 8s. 6d.) The Educated Pin. By Marjorie Mack....

Shorter Notices FIELD-MARSHAL Loan WAVELL'S anthology is very much what

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would expect from an enlightened soldier. His tastes are consen ; tive, and he tells us that his son, who shares his love for poet 1 thinks them a little old-fashioned ; but...

Beddoes, Christopher Smart, Flecker, Robert Frost, Peace Hopkins and Thomas

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Nashe. It is natural that Browning •. 6 Kipling shall be his favourites, and it is With the shock of inter• that one reads that neither Wordsworth nor Tennyson made impression...

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tt THE SPECTATOR " CROSSWORD No. 262 (.4 Book Token

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for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct clown of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, forth 28th. Envelopes should be...

SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD No 260

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The winner of Crossword No. 26o is Miss BATES, Hill Top, Red Hill, orcester. SOLUTION ON MARCH 31st

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R.A.S.C., as narrated to Major John Dalgleish. (Gollancz. 4s. 6d.)

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THE way this book has been written is by no.means a novelty. In the past the rather inarticulate British soldier has often needed an intermediary to help him put his experiences...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By CUSTOS eI a IN its search for explanations of unusually small turnover Stock Exchange has naturally seized on the coming savings dris Institutional investors, it is...

Transformation. Edited by Stepan Schunanski and Henry Treece. (Gollancz. 6s.)

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—War -Time Harvest. Selected by Stefan Schunanski and Henry Treece. (Staples. 3s. 6d.) EVERYONE interested in contemporary literature should be grateful to those untiring...