W HAT stage the negotiations between Finland and Russia have reached is not entirely clear, for semi-official pourparlers appear to have been in progress through intermediaries...

One piece of good news from the " still-vex'd " Balkans is that the rival sections of Greek irregulars in Greece have ended their differences and arc uniting to fight the...

The transfer of territory in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia from Allied to Italian jurisdiction is the first experiment in the handing back of conquered territory in Europe...

The real question under consideration when Major Lloyd George met the mine-workers and then the mine-owners on Wednesday was to what extent should the nation—that is to say, the...

In his speech in the House of Lords on Tuesday Lord Woolton was in effect answering some of the questions which were put in the Commons debate last week, ,though he did not...

Last week a second reading was given to the Bill which extends for another year the Act enabling M.P.s to retain their seats while serving in certain offices abroad. There was...

The report entitled "The United States in the World Economy, - published by the United States Department of Commerce and re- printed in this country by the Stationery Office, is...

The debate initiated in the House of Lords on Wednesday by Archbishop Lord Lang on the bombing of historic buildings led. and could lead, nowhere. It is a misfortune that war...

ROM the very fact of remaining unsettled the Russo-Polish dispute becomes increasingly disturbing, and it is not sur- prising, though on many grounds unfortunate, that M. Miko-...

additional censorship, over and above the ordinary machinery, is needzcl, which I doubt, why not have messages to America censored by competent Americans? They would know much...

By STRATEGICUS I T is perhaps a good thing that we cannot read the immediate future and are discouraged from speculating too particularly about the Allies' intended use of it....

By DENNIS BARDENS The Services, as one would expect, maintain the largest Public Relations staffs, the Air Ministry, Admiralty and War Office having on January 31st, 1944, 371,...

By BASIL WRIGHT T AST week I discussed in The Spectator Canada's position in the world. Canada in herself, Canada at home, is a subject at least equally deserving of attention....

By D. G. DODDS The predominance of smaller ships has caused a sharp rise in the proportion of officers to ratings, a rise which is likely to continue. In the junior ranks...

By L. G. WICKHAM LEGG T HE great convent of Monte Cassino, swept by the surge of war, will soon cease, if it has not already ceased, to exist. The fact irresistibly recalls a...

THE throng who brake, on that hill-head, The herd-boy's loaves of barley-bread And small Lake-fishes, knew that they Were fed in no accustomed way. Nor now are we! Here let us...

By HAROLD N1CoLsON O N the morning of St. Valentine I watched the birds below my window with special curiosity. They had had a rough night of it, these little Kentish birds,...

Hamlet." At the New. I MUST confess that I went to see Robert Helpmann's Hamlet antici- pating a disastrous failure, and this cannot be considered surprising, since his only...

"The Lodger." At the New Gallery.—t , The Partisans." At the Tatier.-4 , Ills Butler's Sister." At the Leicester Square. LURID colour is lent to my recent fear of a revival of...

The Lefevre Galleries and the Society of Antiquaries. CECIL COLLDIS, who shows drawings and paintings at the Lefevre Galleries, is an artist who has been biding his time (he is...

Sut,—I should like, if I may, to express the pleasure and entire agreement with which I read Mr. C. S. Lewis's vindication of the place which in the last forty years or more the...

in the repre- sentative system to see why, if the arguments in support of the electorzl truce are valid, by-elections should be held at all today. At the present moment all...

machinery of repre- sentative government is to result from the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Reform, will not the Conference have to face the question whether the...

enough she hits back and wipes out her misusers. This has happened often in history, as witness many man-made deserts that once blossomed as the rose. It is an actual fact that...

SIR, — It is unfortunate that an article on youth's outlook should appear to have been reduced to a dispute upon the respective membership of Oxford's political societies....

SIR, — The letter from "Officer's Wife" in Your last issue discusses a dilemma which has probably confronted many parents during the past four years, but she and her husband...

SIR, —However strongly I disagree with "Janus," who takes for granted the permanency of the annexation of the Baltic States into the U.S.S.R., I welcome his insistence on...

SIR, —In his review of my book, Can We Afford Ix? Mr. Alan Phillip, badly misrepresents my views on the relation between ethics and business. He charges me with maintaining "the...

of the sentences in my article on "Canada and the World" in your last issue went somewhat astray. As printed it read, "An increasing inhibition, in Ottawa and elsewhere,...

in his remarks in your issue of February 4th on Mr. Shaw's letter to The Times (evidently written with his tongue in his cheek), is quite fair, because he only states half the...

of your issue of February 11th Mr. Basil Wright tells of "a world which is busily revising all its map-projections to meet new facts of global strategy." He then says "Canada...

AN altogether surprising popularity is being extended to the Agricultural Brains Trusts that are being organised in many county towns. The sessions are amusing as well as...

Great Britain, France and the German Problem 1918-1939. By W. M. Jordan. (Oxford University Press. iss.) THIS scholarly book of 23o well-indexed pages falls exactly within its...

Russia Revealed Survey of -Russian History. By B. H. Sumner. (Duckworth. 16s.) HISTORY written backwards is rather like a detective story where the solution is given before...

IN this book Dr. Leavis states the educational conclusions implici in his theory of literary criticism. He defines education as a pre- paration for life in society as it is and...

THE synoptic Gospels have been subjected to a minute examination without parallel in the history of literature, and if scholm of the front rank, such as Dr. Manson, do not break...

Mad Grandeur. By Oliver St. John Gogarty. (Constable. ros.) Ugly Anna and Other Tales. By A. E. Coppard. (Methuen. 8s. 6d.) Green Afternoon. By Margaret Duley. (Methuen. 8s....

book on a subject which has become urgent in view of the Speaker's Con - ference on Electoral Reform He is concerned to prove that the practice of democracy in this country...

1.4 Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct w;uuon of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, Fd - niary 29th....

winner of Crossword No. 256 is Major W. K. Miller, attacks, Brecon, S. Wales. The

a bungalow in a tea-garden fifteen miles from Darjeeling, Miss Rumer Godden walked on the hills and looked at the Himalayas: "Sometimes I feel my eyes mist get b.g with seeing...

Post Office Workers. 2S.) MR. FRANCIS ANDREWS, who incidentally is Editor of The Post, reveals himself in this volume (proceeds from which are in aid of the Second Post Office...

wrote about English inns before Thomas. Burke. His verdict, it will be remembered, was that Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh...

Life and Notes ' on his Paintings and with an Essay on his Art by R. H. Wilenski. (Faber and Faber. 2 is.) LILLIAN BROWSE has written a most admirable concise and informa- tive...

(Phaidon Press. 20S.) THIS excellent book contains about 200 illustrations, including all Leonardo's genuine paintings, as well as numerous others ascribed to him, of which 150...

By CUSTOS THE peak of the tax-gathering season passed, markets are again showing signs of improvement. Although nobody is going to lec out much speculative sail while big...