18 AUGUST 1939

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NEWS OF THE WEEK

The Spectator

T HE tension over Danzig increases, and that for several reasons. In the first place, it is clear that Herr Hitler's intention is not merely to scamp Danzig, but to dominate...

The Unbridged Gulf

The Spectator

How much Herr Hitler knows of the temper of Britain and France no one can tell. He would appear to be in a neurotic mood in which any sudden decision is possible. He has had his...

The Tokyo Talks

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The British Government's decision to hand over to Japan the four Chinese suspected of complicity in the murder at Tientsin has inspired considerable indignation in some circles...

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The Future of Croatia

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The future of Yugoslavia will be decided as much by her own internal problems as by the strong pressure exerted on her by the Axis ; a settlement of the Croat problem especially...

Alarm in Budapest

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During the week-end Budapest was disturbed by rumours that Germany intended a sudden drive against Hungary ; their source is to be found in reports of the meeting between Count...

Staff Talks in Moscow

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No communiqués will be issued during the Anglo-French- Soviet military conversations in Moscow ; their progress will be cloaked in even greater darkness than the diplomatic...

Palestine Hardship

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Even those who have accepted the Government's White Paper on Palestine as defining the only policy practicable in existing circumstances are growing increasingly uneasy about...

A Warning to Mexico

The Spectator

The dispute between the Mexican Government and the oil companies whose property was expropriated two years ago has now entered a stage which, in the words of Mr. Sumner Welles,...

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Parliament and the Colonies

The Spectator

A leading article in The Times has initiated a valuable discussion in its correspondence columns of the suggestion that a Committee of Parliament should be established to survey...

The Railwaymen's Claims

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The meeting on Monday between the general managers of the four main railway companies and the representatives of the National Union of Railwaymen resulted in a deadlock, and...

Too Light Darkness The great black-out of last week is

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old history now, but it took place after The Spectator went to 'mess, and it cannot be allowed to pass without comment. So far, at any rate, as London is concerned, it was an...

Mr. de Valera and the I.R.A.

The Spectator

One of the most unfortunate consequences of the I.R.A.'s campaign of terrorism in this country is the popular anti- pathy to Irishmen as such that it has inspired. Yet the...

Afforesting the Wilderness

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The report of the Committee appointed by the Minister of Health in January of last year to consider " the restoration of land affected by iron-working " raises some interesting...

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THE WAR OF NERVES T HE prediction that a period of

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crisis was in imme- diate prospect is not being belied, the Berchtes- gaden conversations of last week-end and repeated contact between Count Csaky, the Foreign Minister of...

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FAIR PLAY FOR THE TERRITORIALS S INCE the beginning of August

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the British public has been regaled with news of the joys and sufferings of the Territorial Army during its annual period of train- ing in camp. Press and news film combine to...

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Echoes from Territorial camps come drifting in. The last Friday

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in most camps is pay-day, and the men are more than ready for a little relaxation, and the money to pay for it. Last Friday a certain battery, which had been hard at work since...

" Visit the Czechs: Bohemia-Moravia, the country of living art,"

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runs an invitation in the window of the London office of the Germanised Protectorate. Or, if you prefer, " Czech the visits: Bohemia-Moravia, the country of living

With all respect for Mr. Hamilton Fish I think there

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is a danger of his pilgrimage through Europe being taken a little too seriously. Mr. Fish is not an American Senator (as one or two London papers have styled him), of whom there...

Death is said to be a great leveller, but there

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seems to be no special reason why the Oxford University Press should be the same. No doubt adjustment to the idea of anything so democratic as the publication of threepenny...

At a time when the calibre of British diplomatists abroad

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is being searchingly scrutinised, and rightly, the appoint- ment of Mr. Rex Leeper to the post of Minister at Bucharest will give universal satisfaction. He has had useful...

I am glad the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of

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the strike that won the " dockers' tanner " in 1889 has not gone unnoticed. It is astonishing how long-lived the leaders in that struggle are. Of the four most...

A doubled coincidence, trivial though it may be, is perhaps

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worth noting. I mentioned three or four months ago in this column that I had been lunching with a friend at a London club and asked him about Roman Dmowski, the Polish...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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T HE fact that fire should have broken out in two British air liners within a week—in the one case with disastrous results, in the other not—is on the face of it alarming. But...

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IS BRITAIN DEFENDED ?

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By NIGEL TANGYE I N all but one important respect the Air Exercises of last week revealed the strength of our defences. A year ago they revealed our weakness. We can therefore...

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WHAT NEXT IN AMERICA ?

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W ITH Congress adjourned, what may now be expected of American policy? First, President Roosevelt and Secretary Cordell Hull will continue their efforts by " methods short of...

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BACK TO THE HOME IN RUSSIA

The Spectator

By MRS. CECIL CHESTERTON Moscow, August T EN years ago, when I was first in Soviet Russia, the home was in a bad way. Even in the villages, where family ties are more cohesive,...

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REFUGEES ERRANT

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By PROFESSOR NORMAN BENTWICH O NE of the most tragic aspects of the refugee problem is the shiploads of exiles wandering over the seas and rejected at port after port. They...

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THE CASE FOR A CHANNEL TUNNEL

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By RAOUL DAUTRY [M. Dautry, who is Chairman of the French Channel Committee, was formerly Director of the Chemin de Fer de l'Etat] W HY has the Channel Tunnel never been built?...

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THE COLOURED COUNTIES

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By BERNARD DARWIN N OT long ago I was sitting in a 'bus next to a middle-aged and apparently peaceful citizen. We stopped for a moment by a boy selling evening papers and my...

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BOMBING-RAID

The Spectator

By GRAHAM GREENE HAD been reading Halevy's Epilogue to his History of I the English People on the way to the aerodrome, bump- ing through the fiat salty eastern county when the...

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Commonwealth and Foreign

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THE NATIVE COUNCIL IN SOUTH AFRICA By SENATOR EDGAR BROOKES W HEN the Cape native franchise, in its orthodox liberal form, was abolished three years ago, a very interesting...

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This chance remark sent me back to the poems with

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a fresh surmise. I felt bound to admit that there was some- thing in what my friend had said. The Dorian strain does certainly lend itself readily to regrets for undergraduate...

My friend, delighted though he was by my grudging acceptance

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of his major premise, refused to allow that In Memoriam was in any sense composed around the theme of A. H. H. Here again, he said, one had the elegy upon the poet's own lost...

Then there are his letters. Some years ago, when lectur-

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ing to a women's college in the United States, I was con- ducted over their library. I asked them to show me their particular treasures. There were the usual collection of first...

I was shocked by this suggestion. In my own generation

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there were many inheritors of unfulfilled renown who, were they alive today, might not perhaps have lived up to their own legend. I was willing to admit that King might have...

PEOPLE AND THINGS

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By HAROLD NICOLSON I ENJOY desultory conversation, since it leads to chance remarks and since chance remarks may often tempt one to alter the furniture of one's mind. We are so...

Was Hallam dull? I wish I knew the answer to

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that question. The figure which emerges from Mr. Gladstone's heavy eulogy, as indeed from many passages of In Memoriam, is on the priggish side. Moreover, Monckton Milnes did...

My friend began by stating that our best memorial verses

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were elegiac verses, and that no strictly memorial verses could be called great poetry. I suggested that Tennyson's Ode to the Duke of Wellington was very nearly great poetry...

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STAGE AND SCREEN

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THE THEATRE 4 , In Good King Charles's Golden Days." By Bernard Shaw. At the Malvern Festival. THE first week at Malvern, which began so badly, improved by careful leaps and...

THE CINEMA

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.4 March of Time " and " Shipyard Sally." At the Gaumont. —" Blind Alley." At the London Pavilion.—" There Ain't No Justice." At the Paramount. THE new March of Time includes a...

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MAIDEN UND MADEL

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[Von einem deutschen Korrespondenten] FRUHER gab es nur eine Bezeichnung fiir die heranwachsende weibliche Jugend; man nannte sie Miidchen. Heute ist das anders geworden. Die...

MUSIC The Promenade Concerts

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SIR HENRY WOOD entered upon his forty-fifth season of promenade concerts last Saturday after the packed audience had performed their usual ceremony of acclamation, graded in as...

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COUNTRY LIFE

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A COUNTRYMAN who had just journeyed across a section of the East Midlands plain gave me a grim description of the laid crops and the discoloration of the straw. I went a walk...

The Electric Fence

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A number of inquiries have reached me—from Canada as well as Britain—about the electric fence that is now becoming popular, for the good reason that it is cheap and efficient. A...

The Lure of Cox's

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Birds, to my thinking, are the most delightful creatures to watch and study, and should be most rigorously protected ; but it has to be confessed that they may also be a good...

Lock and Keys

The Spectator

In a treasure-hunt recently enjoyed by a number of W.I. members a dozen botanical specimens had to be collected. The one that stumped most of the competitors was " hornbeam...

Ant-Eaters

The Spectator

The ants themselves are not safe from those animals that enjoy formic acid as a food. During the last few weeks the lawn of a small country house has been frequented daily by a...

A Standard Compost

The Spectator

The research work, practical and scientific, into the making of a cheap and universal fertiliser seems at last to have reached a standard success. No garden need be short of...

Indian Pioneers

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The method is not very different from what is known as the Indore system, which has been practised in India and other parts of the East for centuries ; but in this no chemical...

In the Garden

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A writer on shrubs (in The Times) has said that the queen of the autumn-flowering species is the Euchryphia, which he associated with a late flowering species of the Deutzia. To...

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must...

WHICH IS THE PEACE PARTY ?

The Spectator

Six,—Mr. Reid finds it difficult to understand why, at this moment, I should accuse the Labour leaders of " war-monger- ing," and says that, had I taken up this attitude...

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GERMANS IN SHANGHAI

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Snt,—An aspect of the refugee problem which is scarcely realised in England is the influx of German refugees into Shanghai. By reason of the present war in China, Shanghai is...

THE UNEMPLOYED

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Sut,—In your last issue the secretary of the National Associa- tion Against Unemployment, which would not be a bad title for the House of Commons itself in these days, defines...

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HISTORY FOR GERMAN YOUTH

The Spectator

Sta,—I have lately come across a German history primer, published last year, some notes on which may interest your readers. The author, Herr Walther Gehl, entitles his book...

WHAT COLLECTIVE SECURITY MEANS Sta,—It surprises me that Sir Norman

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Angell should not see the difference between the " collective security " proposed by the founders of the League of Nations and the grouping of the nations into which we have now...

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SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY PRINCIPALS Snt,—Your dramatic critic, Mr. Alan Dent, criticising

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M r . James Bridie's What Say They? remarks of Scotland that it is " a country where University principals are invariably nearer eighty than twenty-five." It is, in almost every...

RAILWAYS IN BLACK-OUTS

The Spectator

SIR,—Your editorial note " Playing at Black-outs " reminds me of an experience during the early autumn of 1916. An air-raid was expected late one evening whilst I was in my...

THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY

The Spectator

SIR,—When, some time ago, I discussed the Companies of Service plan with Mr. McArthur and a number of other London headmasters I realised he was unsympathetic ; I did not...

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PRISON FOR CRITICS Sta,—Having just read your comments on the

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Prime Minister in "News of the Week" in last week's issue of The Spectator, I write to convey most heartfelt regret at the dissatisfaction expressed by a paper of its standing...

MOSQUITO DAY SIR,—Sunday, August 20th, is a date that should

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be remem- bered as the British Empire's most important anniversary. It is the date that the late Sir Ronald Ross named " Mosquito Day," because on August loth, 1897, he first...

WAR GUILT

The Spectator

SIR,—In The Spectator of August nth, in the article headed " Peace Front Terms," you demand that " the war-guilt clause in the Treaty of Versailles should be spontaneously and...

RECEIPT STAMPS

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SIR,—The letters which have appeared in The Spectator under this heading show such a strange difference of opinion that it might not be inappropriate to quote the relevant...

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Books of the Day

The Spectator

A Srunv OF HISTORY, E. L. Woodward • • THE WHIG SUPREMACY, Professor L. B. Namier THE DILEMMA OP OUR TIME, A. L. Rowse To Loan BYRON, Edward Sackville West THIS IS MY COUNTRY,...

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Names and Realities

The Spectator

The Oxford History of England : The Whig Supremacy, 1714 - 1760. By Basil Williams. (Clarendon Press. 12s. 6d.) BOOKS in this series are meant to cover every aspect of...

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The Dilemma of Our Time

The Spectator

Mn. COLLINGWOOD has written the most interesting book that has come out of Oxford for some time. Himself a distin- guished ornament of the Oxford scene, an eminent authority on...

The Eternal Schoolboy Again

The Spectator

To Lord Byron. By George Paston and Peter Quennell. (Murray. z2s. 6d.) THIS book, which is a valuable weapon in the hands of those who find themselves irked by the fierce...

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Boost for U.S.A.

The Spectator

This Is My Country. By Stoyan Christowc. tRobert Hale 125. 6d.) AT a time when native American writers have, on the whole, been knockers of the land of plenty, two immigrants...

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President Wilson in War

The Spectator

Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters. By Ray Stannard Baker. Vol. VIII. (Heinemann. 2 Is.) THE eighth and last volume of Mr. Ray Stannard Baker's voluminous work (he dealt with...

Balkan Affairs

The Spectator

Bulgarian Conspiracy. By J. Swire. (Robert Hale. us. 6d.) MR. S WIRE is his own worst enemy as a writer. His deplorable preface goes out of its way to give its readers the...

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The Good Queen Caroline THE good Queen Caroline has had

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two excellent pioneer biographers in Doran and Greenwood, neither of whom is mentioned in Mrs. Arkell's bibliography. Mrs. Arkell has drawn upon a formidable list of archives,...

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THE VALUES OF LIFE By Ernest Barker

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Professor Barker has reprinted the articles which he con- tributed last autumn to The Spectator, with what a composer would call variations on each theme (Mackie, 3s. 6d.). H e...

TURGOT AND THE ANCIEN REGIME IN FRANCE By Douglas Dakin

The Spectator

Mr. Dakin's scholarly work (Methuen, 15s.) is the first thorough account of Turgot's policy to appear in English. It illuminates the financial and economic abuses that helped to...

Current Literature

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SCOTLAND UNDER TRUST By Robert Hurd The National Trust for Scotland, founded in 1931, has been less concerned with acquiring beauty-spots than with preserving paces notable...

THE OPEN WAY By E. Graham Howe and L. Le

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Mesurier Dr. E. Graham Howe, whose psychological teachings wield a steadily growing influence, has now published a book in collaboration with a distinguished woman writer, Mrs....

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MOTORING

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IT is pleasant to realise that no matter how often you do it, how familiar you are with the whole exciting business, there are still very few thrills left so satisfying as...

The 14 Vauxhall

The Spectator

Few of the popular cars with which one has been familiar over several years have undergone so great a change between one year and the next as the 14 Vauxhall. Its engine is the...

Speed and Power

The Spectator

Well over 70 miles an hour is to be had if needed (by indicator) and the cruising speed of the car is a very ready 55. Steep hills are tackled in proper fashion, though I...

A Really Quiet Car

The Spectator

The new Vauxhall has torsion-bar independent front springing, which gives it very smooth riding indeed, as well as excellent road-holding. For the type and price of car I do not...

Byways in France

The Spectator

August is a much maligned month for continental touring. If you are going to follow the standard routes to the Mediterranean or Brittany you will certainly meet with a great...

The Alps in Three Countries

The Spectator

In the Alps themselves, in France and Italy and Switzer- land, there are scores of pleasant byways where you may drive unharassed by crowds. They are byways, of course, only in...

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COMPANY MEETING

The Spectator

GAUMONT-BRITISH PICTURE CORPORATION, LIMITED THE twelfth annual general meeting of the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation, Ltd., was held on August loth, in London. Mr....

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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As most of us expected, August has brought markets back to the old tug of war between economics and politics, and so far the strong pulling from the political side has been very...

INSURANCE SHARES FOR RECOVERY

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I have been examining an interesting survey of the progress of our leading insurance companies in recent year... Here are some of the facts brought to light: gross profits in...

GAUMONT-BRITISH PROBLEMS

The Spectator

Year after year the accounts of the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation are the target for criticism, and year after year the chairman soothes the troubled breasts of share-...

COLLIERY SHARE SWITCHES

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It is disappointing to find Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries, after its recent reconstruction, announcing a dividend of only I per cent. for the half-year to June 3oth on its...

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Venturers' Corner High yields are not hard to find among

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the shares of the small and speculative type of industrial company, especially when there is no long financial record to go on, but I feel that in many instances present prices...

COPPER QUOTA RAISED

The Spectator

The climax of the recent activity in the copper market occurred with the announcement last week that the quota is to be raised from 95 per cent. to 105 per cent. by August i6th....

FINANCIAL NOTES RECORD STEEL FIGURES

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SIDE by side with the stagnant share markets there is ample evidence that an exceptionally high level of industrial activity is being maintained, thanks very largely to the...

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COPPER COMPANY EARNINGS

The Spectator

Although the principal copper mining companies in the Rhodesian field, Rhokana, Roan Antelope, and Mufulira do not declare their final dividends until September nor issue their...

SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD No. 23.

The Spectator

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK The winner of Crossword No. 23 is Mrs. E. Playfair, New Copse, Wootton Bridge, I.W.

THE SPECTATOR " CROSSWORD

The Spectator

SECOND SERIES-No. 24 [A prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes...