If it were possible to assess in cash the value to the Allied cause of Malta's resistance during the last war, or the potential usefulness of the island in the event of another...

The administrator of the Economic Co-operation Administration did not waste any time talking about emotional attitudes when he spoke in Paris this week on the state of the...

some cases all of them, in others a few of them—involved in O.E.E.C., the Brussels Treaty, the Atlantic Treaty, the British Commonwealth of Nations, it is obviously essential...

If strong words meant anything in present-day diplomacy it could only be inferred from the pronouncements of the past week that fighting between Yugoslavia and Russia was about...

It is understandable that the closest attention should be given by the Government to vast claims such as that which the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions now...

Figures showing the substantial rise in road accidents, fatal and otherwise, that followed the doubling of the basic petrol ration in June tell a deplorable story. For the plain...

h is not much use trying to find an explanation for last Sunday's coup d'etat in Damascus in the proclamations which the new Government has since put out ; these consist only of...

LL things considered, there is not much to regret in the A result of the West German elections. And there is at least one ground for considerable satisfaction—the number of...

Because they come in green, they turn yellow, and there isn't a straight one in the whole bunch. (Not this Government necessarily ; it serves for any

that the only features of interest in the first day or two at Strasbourg should have been disputes within the British delegation, transferring to an international stage that...

the Apostate, but the author of the classical Dictionary of Hymnology. That notable work, which stands alone in its own field, was first published nearly sixty years ago—in...

?, published this week, there is an astonishing footnote, Mentioning that " in 1802 every hereditary monarch in Europe was, as Bagehot reminds us',1nsane." I have no doubt that...

tively of my "healthy criticism" 'of The Naked and the Dead. Where can he get hold of a copy ? Could I send him one ? I could, but—. ' * * •* *

an acute shortage of hotel accommodation by requisitioning hotels right and left, should have had to improvise a hotel of its own at short notice for the benefit of national...

daily papers, is the season of Alpine tragedies. That particular noun is inevitable, for what could be more tragic than the premature and sudden death of young men, as almost...

By HORACE ALEXANDER T HE best part of a year has passed since Indian troops marched into Hyderabad and incorporated that large South Indian territory for all practical purposes...

By it. G. DAME:Ls Geneva T HE International Conference on the Rcd Cross Conventions, which has just concluded a four months' session in Geneva, had to revise the three...

By FREDERICK S. BOAS T HE publication of The Selected Writings of William Clowes, edited with an interesting introduction by Mr. F. N. L. Paynter (Harvey and Blythe), has...

By JULIAN PITT-RIVERS W E could see the tower of the church from the main road rising above the olive-orchards, the streets behind it sprawling up the hill-side, and over on...

By OWEN TWEEDY W HEN I was a little boy at my English Public School the Psalm I liked best was the one hundred and fourth. It reminded me of Sligo and of freedom. "The sun...

NIGHT SCHOOL By E. J. ANDERSON (London School of Economics) CC S that man educated ? " asked a former editor of The Times I as a new face passed him in one of those historic...

IN spite of grave assurances that there is no cause for fear, the aspect of affairs in France grows more and more unsettled ; and the country is so depressed, materially and...

By HAROLD NICOLSON i AM sometimes asked which of the many changes which I have witnessed, in the course of a long and well-spent life, I consider to have been most conducive to...

THE THEATRE Variety. (London Palladium.) A HOLLYWOOD director, faced—as he easily might be—with the task of making a film, part of which takes place in a contemporary London...

"Train of Events," (Gaumont.)---" A Song Is Born." (Odeon, Marble Arch.)—,--" My Dream is Yours." (Warner.) Train of Events relates the stories of four different sets of people...

WHAT is originality in a work of art ? Is it always a question of manner, of saying old things in a new way, or arc there really new things to say ? All the arts have lately...

I SHOULD very much have liked last week to listen to The Pilgrim's Regress, Mr. C. S. Lewis's allegory about "Christianity, Reason and Romanticism," because this is a mind that...

Nor had I seen the film (by Mr. Emlyn Williams) of The Last Days of Dolsoyn, the story of the doomed Welsh village. There is some- thing to be said for being a stay-at-home: I...

Happy the man whose country home With plumber's artifice abounds, Standing, with dignified aplomb, In its own grounds ; Whose grouse, and ghost in charnel gown Lure tenants from...

since pre-war days, it is still necessary to place a firm order with a bookstall manager or newsagent to ensure regular weekly delivery of the SPECTATOR. Newsagents cannot...

I cannot help wondering how long this melancholy business is to continue. We all know the apology for the highly variable reception of the Third Programme—that there is a...

Sot,—In her review in the Spectator of August 5th Miss Wiskemann is less than fair to General Anders, whether as the author of An Army in Exile or as a commander. When I read it...

Stit,—We are often assured that, owing chiefly to better feeding, the standard of health of our people has been considerably raised. If this be a fact, we may be grateful for...

SIR, — My letter has provoked replies from two of your readers. One correspondent from Worcestershire revealed with some pride that in his enlightened county they have the very...

THE PLIGHT OF THE TUBERCULOUS SIR, — As a physician with many years' practical experience amongst sufferers from pulmonary tuberculosis I welcome the letter from "Scottish...

SIR, — The suggestion, made in the Spectator of July 15th, that the Hiss trial be dropped because " no new trial will bring conviction of his guilt or innocence to the world"...

Stn,—I stand, in part, corrected. But Grigori Roshal devotes almost two pages out of three to Dovzhenko's major works—namely, Earth and the much more recent Chors (which Mr. Ray...

SIR,—A typist employed by us was recently unwise enough to steal a dress (valued at twelve guineas) from an Oxford Street store. She has been employed by us for some years, and...

SIR,—May I answer the questions that Mr. Herbert Ashley addressed to me in your columns ? (1) Why do I " rush to the defence of Com- munist regimes in Eastern Europe" ? The...

has been drawn to the note appearing in the Spectator of June 3rd regarding the treatment received by fifty Territorial Army officers at a Bourne- mouth hotel. No one can object...

SIR,—Onc of the traditional pleasures of railway travel has been the ability to look out of the window. As we rush, as we rush in the train, The trees and the houses go...

THERE is one very spacious common, long since named No Man's Land, which was covered with gorse not so long ago. Foxes used it as a covert, and gipsies were fond of the place as...

StR,—The reviewers hint belittling things of the intelligence of Dr. Wirmington-Ingram. But he did get a First in Mods and a Second in Greats, in 1879 and 1881, in the hey day...

Sift,—Anything written by Sir William Beach Thomas should be read with due respect, but is he correct in stating that " the Ministry of Agriculture has no legal powers to make...

SIR,—If your correspondents arc in any real doubt as to the pronunciation of the name Pougher, I can resolve it for them quite authoritatively, having often drunk Mr. Poughcr's...

One is not allowed in these times to say that birds are intelligent, at any rate in the human sense ; but they certainly do intelligent things. For example, on one golf links,...

The attention of our readers is drawn to the special air transport facilities offered to subscribers of the SPECTATOR overseas. These enable readers in many parts of the world...

Encouraged by a not ungenerous increase of grants for afforestation, more owners are "dedicating" their woodlands to national service. The movement is goad ; but it is to be...

is being much used in garden literature—or, as Lewis Carroll suggested, litter-aturc. The argu- ment is that certain plants flourish much more abundantly if they have congenial...

Dickens Once More Dickens: His Character, Comedy. and Career. By Hesketh Pearson. (Methuen. 18s.) BIOGRAPHERS may be divided, very roughly, into two clIsses. There are those...

The Divine and the Human. By Nicolas Berdyaev. (Bles. 18s.) THOUGH there may be Other works of Berdyaev still to be translated, it seems unlikely that we shall ever have a more...

There Was a Lad. By Hilton Brown. (Hamish Hamilton. 12s. 6d.) " I AM writing mainly," Mr. Hilton Brown tells us, "for those whose knowledge of Burns is slight ; the initiate...

IF at any time in the last twenty years you had asked a score of well-informed Englishmen for their estimate of Gandhi's place in history, I suspect the majority would have been...

Rilke and Benvenuta. By Magda von Hattingberg. Translated from the German by Cyrus Brooks. (Heinemann. 10s. 6d.) THESE memoirs, previously published in Austria, arc difficult...

The Unlit Lamp. Adam's Breed. The Well of Loneliness. B Radclytie Hall. (Falcon Press. 1st. and 2nd. 12s. 6d. each, 3rd. 15s. LOOKING in 1949 at these novels by Radclyffe Hall,...

PERHAPS one of the reasons why Irishmen are often said to wear history too close to the skin is that their history is visible, even audible, to them on every hand. Take a short...

Green. 21s.) CERTAINLY she was one of the most remarkable Englishwomen of her century. "Mother of Quakerism " is-here no tiresome cliche but the only possible designation. For...

Up the Garden Path. By John Rhode. (Bles. 8s. 6d.) So Many Doors. By E. R. Punshon. (Goliattcz. 9s.) The Double Death of Frederic Belot. By Claude Aveline. (Dennis Dobson. 8s....

F . :.g • 1 Ej., , ,Aw 4. _ 1 1si , 14 . C A 0.10 T P UIS' IE 12 _ t. it ult.. A iiiqe4 0 T A ' C 12'0 5 VI I s P le on . 1, t i Os ' e N 1 on a n '01 - 0 E tIN C 14 AIN...

for one guinea will he awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword so be opened after noon on Tuesday week, August 30th. Envelopes muss be...

By W. B. Honey. (Faber. 18s.) MR. HONEY is not merely an expert in ceramics ; this collection of reprinted broadcasts and essays discusses gardening and ballet, glass- blowing...

By CUSTOS How varied City views of the "crisis" and its investment implica- tions have now become is strikingly reflected in the current pattern of stock markets. One view—that...

a series of concerts which threatens to lose its original character now that it is deprived of a single guiding personality and the stimu- lating necessity of struggle. Mr....