The fatal tendency to label every political movement as Black or Red is at work in France. It represents General de Gaulle's new incursion into politics as an attempt not to...

Nobody has ever pretended that the International Trade Con- ference at Geneva will have an easy task in agreeing upon a general convention to 'educe trade barriers and drawing...

T HE latest news from Moscow suggests that the Foreign Ministers have at last begun to agree on something. It is only the early, and least controversial, part of the Austrian...

A large number of law-abiding citizens, already made currency- conscious as a result of the Max Intrator revelations, must have been startled to read that British Forces on the...

It is difficult to know what benefit has accrued to anyone from Mr. Henry Wallace's visit to this country, apart from the pleasure which it may be hoped he has derived from it...

A very interesting interview with Don Juan, the claimant to the Spanish throne, in last Sunday's Observer clarified the political pros- pects, or at any rate the political...

Looking for a needle in a bundle of hay might appear to be a hopeful task compared with looking for blessings in the February coal crisis. Yet one blessing has appeared, and...

UDGET DAY is in many respects unique in the Parliamentary calendar. It is not only that there is a sense of expectation and excitement sharper than on normal occasions; not...

No week passes without its crop of instances that the trade unions are the most backward of the major industrial influences in post- war Britain. The fear of unemployment...

The report of Lord Gorell's committee on Nash's Regent's Park terraces, with a declaration of the Government's intention regarding them is, on the whole, a reassuring document....

M R. DALTON is an example, and a warning, of the nature of success. He demonstrates to perfection how much it is a matter of fine distinctions, of boldness which just stops...

Quarter Sessions raises the question, inherently interesting in itself and of great importance to the public, of the duty of innkeepers and hotel proprietors. The facts briefly...

to impede it. All the same, there are some exports one would gladly recall. One is the Encyclopadia Britannica, which, as most people know, crossed the Atlantic many years ago...

they share Mr. Henry Wallace's views or not, is to drive it deep into the understanding of every Englishman that Mr. Wallace in America represents no one but himself. That, I...

A Convincing Portrait "He looked strained and haggard .. . M. Vyshinsky in fact was in poor form."—Moscow correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. " Mr. Vyshinsky, who thrives...

'S NOTEBOOK fur EASURED by his own high standard—and so far as Budget In expositions go it is high—Mr. Dalton's speech on Tuesday was well below the best. The Chancellor has...

issued over the signatures of fifty Labour Members of the House of Commons, including four Ministers (and six from another place) contains one assertion which cannot be too...

By ROBIN MAUGHAM A T the moment British civilians are not allowed into Palestine. But I was given an honorary commission as a major in the Arab Legion, and my uniform and Arab...

By PROFESSOR J. L. BRIERLY* A RECENT decision of the Security Council makes it probable that the International Court of Justice is to have the British- Albanian dispute for its...

By IQBAL SINGH I T is certainly paradoxical that India, though so long baffled by the crucial task of resolving the problem of her own internal unity, should have taken the...

By LIONEL BRETT L E CORBUSIER'S Vers Une Architecture, recently reprinted in Mr. Etchell's English translation,* is more clearly than ever one of the half-dozen books on which...

By SIR - ALEXANDER PATERSON T HE Englishman is never in such a morass as when he attempts to explain to the visitor from the United States or Europe the different sorts of...

By PETER FLEMING I T may seem a trivial point to raise in an atomic age, but I should like to know why it is not compulsory for all ranks of all three Armed Services to learn...

By A. VICTOR MURRAY T HE headmaster's report was of inordinate length—eleven fools- cap pages—and he insisted on reading the whole of it. It was a regional survey rather than a...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T WICE upon this page have I vented my spleen against collectors. Except for the occasion when I ventured to suggest the taxation of football pools, nothing...

IT has not been an exciting week musically, and what had promised to be the big event was something of a disappointment to me. Before returning to Italy—though only for a time,...

AFTER all the Jezebel-painted, glossily suggestive musicals, after all the smug sadc slap-me-down thrillers, after all the chintzy, patronising small-town Hardy annuals—what a...

THE THEATRE "Call Home The Heart." By Clemence Dane. (St. James's). THIS is a play of some distinction. In the late summer of 1945 Lydia awaits, in her parents' country house,...

IT used to be an article of faith at the B.B.C. that no broadcast play should last longer than an hour and a half, the reason being, as Mr. Val Gielgud once put it, that " an...

IN his time, Mr. John Armstrong has experimented in a number of different manners ; of these it now seems clear that his own gentle brand of inoffensive near-Surrealism is the...

BRITISH CULTURE OVERSEAS Sm,—A great deal of attention is being paid in the post-war world to political developments and their effect on the relationships between one nation...

sut,--It is good, though disturbing, to read Sir Norman Bennett's protests against our reckless squandering of natural resources. His list is obviously not intended to be...

Sta,—On several occasions during the past year or so, you have done me the honour of publishing my letters on the need for a policy on which all progressive, non-Socialist...

Snt,—Brigadier Longrigg's regard for accuracy is sufficiently characterised by his describing the Jews, who have an historic connection with Palestine of 3,000 years and had the...

" militant Zionists " in Palestine have been condemned to death and too few executed. Is it right or seemly for any citizen here to put pressure on the Palestine Courts, the...

SIR, —Mr. Middleton does welt to emphasise the opportunity now offered to London " to assume the cultural leadership of Europe" so long held by Paris, but we should not forget...

Sta,—I am glad that my article on Cyprus, in your issue of March 28th, has given to Mr. Rossides the opportunity of expounding his point of view on the future of that island—a...

Snt,—Having only just had the letter from Mr. Smart, in your issue of March 7th, brought to my notice, I should like to put forward one or two points of interest which may not...

Snt,—Is there not another possible solution of the problem posed in Dr. Terry Thomas's admirable and timely article on " Grammar Schools' Fate "? The problem is how to maintain...

the experience which all forestry people have of rabbits, I admit readily they are an unmitigated curse both to forestry and agriculture. I admit also that, where warrening is...

SIR,—Your correspondent, I. M. Billik, in criticising the article Russian Science, by Dr. Trevor I. Williams, appears to be seriously mistaken in his facts. The Russian...

SIR,—I have just returned from a Bank Holiday week-end, and suffered with others the usual discomforts of overcrowding and delay which nowadays accompany such occasions. Are not...

SIR,—In your admirable article of 28/3/47, Trade Targets, there is just one point I would query. It was stated therein that the standard of living of all Asiatic peoples can and...

SIR, --Canon Marcus Knight's interesting review of Miss Dorothy Sayers's Creed or Chaos? is the first attempt that I have seen to face what is perhaps the most pressing dilemma...

Sta,—I do not propose to discuss the ethics of using steel traps, but if R. M. Lockley is trying to tell as that their use leads to an increase in rabbits, then he is just...

SIR,—With all respect, I cannot feel that the correspondence columns of The Speciator are an appropriate place in which to discuss in detail the composition and recruitment of...

Sta,—As a native of Ulster, I can regard with some detachment Colonel Burne's plea in your last issue for the use of " Englishman " as " a loose but convenient generic term for...

Sra,—It is a crazy land, this Britain of ours. According to an expert opinion, no less than one-fifth of the entire paper-supply now goes to official forms. These descend on us...

week, it was recorded that the first cuckoo was heard on April 17th. That happened to be the very date which has been most conspicuous in my annals (by the accident of a family...

campaign against the grey squirrel, which, in spite of the organisation against it, continues to increase, even rapidly. I see that its enemies include the best and oldest of...

his tractor long before he thought of the " tin Lizzy," which, of course, was the foundation of his fame and fortune. He showed something like excitement when I gave him some...

Sm, —Mr. Abigail's defence of the use or misuse of F.Z.S. and F.R.G.S. is singularly unconvincing. An F.R.S. is not necessarily a great scien- tist, but he is certainly one who...

Sra,—So far, no answering letters have appeared against my plea for a reduction in the truly exorbitant fee—or tax—of 21d. for a letter instead, I have read in your issue of the...

gardeners against a too rapid con- demnation of apparently dead bushes. The frost victims may be fewer than appearances suggest. You may say of certain shrubs, as of Kipling's...

The Poetic Image. By C. Day Lewis. (Cape. 8s. 6d.) THE creative and analytical faculties seldom enter into a happy marriage : they seem each equipped with a special gift for...

The Constant Meddler John Wildman, Plotter and Postmastir. A Study of the English Republican Movement in the Seventeenth Century. By Maurice Ashley. (Cape. 15s.) THERE are...

The Scot in History. By Wallace Notestein. (Cape. 16s.) CUT off by war from the British Museum and the Public Record Office, Professor Notesteiu, of Yale University, found it...

Defeat in the West. By Milton Shulman. (Seeker and Warburg. 15s.) ALTHOUGH we may admit that it will be years before the true story of the war can be written, it is much less...

Tim author served as an official or soldier in West Africa for eight years, including a year in French West Africa and a year in the Belgian Congo. His comparison of the three...

8s. 6d.) THREE of the above novels are by Americans and are concerned with American scene and character • they belong to three different schools of Current fiction, and each of...

THE Clarendon Press are shortly adding to the Oxford English Texts a three-volume edition of The Works of Sir Thomas Malory in a critical text prepared by Professor Eugene...

ENGLISH essayists go better into the fifty pages that this series allows than, say, English poets, for the great figures are fewer ; one feels, indeed, that the genre is not...

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for one 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 April 29th. Envelopes must be...

By CUSTOS IT is hard to think of Mr. Dalton as an orthodox Chancellor of the Exchequer and I calinot say that his decision to budget for a surplus for the current financial year...