T HE Government policy on sanctions will have been announced before these words appear. Everyone knows what the decision is, but not the grounds on which it is based, or how far...

President of the Reichsbank, has been taking through Austria and the Balkan States, has greatly advanced Germany's economic penetration of South-Eastern Europe. Germany has...

of the strikes in France with their development in Belgium. M. Illum's Government did not conceal its sympathy with the strikers or interfere with their " stay-in " tactics ;...

British Government and employers at the International Labour Conference have opposed, at every step, the drawing up of a draft convention for establishing a 40-hour week in the...

presidential candidate the Republicans had little more hope of victory in November than when they ran Mr. Hoover in 1932, they may expect to find that the Governor of Kansas...

in Danzig are sinister. There appears to be no doubt that the aggressors were the Nazis, who are in a state of permanent anger at their failure, at the last elections, to secure...

have advanced to within 80 or 40 miles of each other, the " war " in China still remains diplomatic. Chiang Kai-shek's forces have now occupied strong positions in the South of...

Democratic party convention opening in Baltimore on Tuesday. The assembly has been preceded by an astonishing event, which is certainly, as the earlier Roosevelt would have...

in the House of Commons last Thursday was painful but dignified. It was impossible not to sympathise with Mr. Thomas, who felt his position acutely, or to deny the justice of...

unyielding this week in his attitude to amendments to the Finance Bill. The amendment for instance which would extend the income-tax allowance for a child at school to a child...

Minister in answer to a question on Monday that 35 per cent. of the men desirous of joining the army in England, Scotland, and Wales were rejected on medical grounds. Lady Astor...

irresponsible mood on Wednesday afternoon at question time. Perhaps the most foolish point was that raised by Mr. Ellis Smith who fiercely criticised the recent meeting at a...

Board on the first twelve months of its administration shows once again the necessity for the new regulations which the Government has delayed so long in promulgating. The...

is no reason to believe that the decision to abandon sanctions will create anything in the nature of a Par- liamentary crisis. All the sensational stories of Cabinet splits and...

Ecclesiastical Duties Measure, dealing with proceedings against incumbents charged with " misbehaviour," away to a committee. Since there were 180 amendments on the paper that...

Geneva the abandonment of economic sanc- tions against Italy may be taken as certain, for other and better reasons than Mr. Chamberlain's indefen- sible indiscretions in his...

P ROPAGANDA has served the dictators so well that the democracies also have begun to see its value. No one, indeed, would pretend that democratic governments do not already use...

W HEN Mr. Ramsay MacDonald tells a Peace Congress what the nature of the peace treaty after the next ar will be it is plain at least that he is anticipating a "next war." When...

By ADMIRAL SIR HERBERT RICHMOND I N the " Explanatory Memorandum " (Cmd. 5137) on the London Naval Conference it is stated that consultations will be initiated by the British...

By F. YEATS-BROWN [Mr. Yeats-Brown's ninth article, which will appear next week under the title of "Indian India," deals further with life in the territories ruled by the...

By E. C. BENTLEY A GIANT of English letters, and a man in whose personal society admiration seldom failed to grow to a far deeper feeling, has been taken from us with the death...

By ANTHONY BLUNT /FAKE Blake's anti-rationalism, add Lamartine's belief in the individual, stir in some of Coleridge's faith in inspiration, lard with Vigny's ivory-tower...

a compact body of journalists from every part of the Commonwealth, not only from the Dominions and India, but from isolated colonies such as Trinidad and Fiji. • At first sight...

By SIEGFRIED SASSOON " y ES, I've known some fairly complete failures in my day," remarked Aunt Eudora, " but the three most ambitious men I ever knew never succeeded in...

" THE SPECTATOR," JUNE 18m, 1838. METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS. Alderman Wood, on Thursday, moved for a Select Committee to consider the best plan of raising money to effect...

By BARBARA WORSLEY-GOUGH I FIND it difficult not to have a certain sneaking sympathy with the crew of the Girl Pat ' in their outrageous adventure. Outrageous it certainly is ;...

Commonwealth and Foreign By GEORGE SOLOVEYTCHIK T HE news of a fracas at a political meeting in Danzig on Saturday, resulting in the death of one Nazi and injuries to a number...

Russian Ballet at Covent Garden THE opening performance of Colonel de Basil's Russian ballet season at Covent Garden gained from the audience an unbounded enthusiasm. The...

MISS BETTE DAVIS won some kind of a gold medal for her acting in Dangerous : the cinema is a shady business and one would like to know more about that medal, who gave it. how...

" Figaro" at Glyndebourne THE performance of Le Nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne last week came as near to the ideal as anything I have seen or ant likely to see in a fallible...

[D'un correspondant parisien] DE quoi parler sinon des greves ? Mais autant vouloir peindre le flux et le reflux. Pour le moment toute synthese est impos- sible. Notons...

A pretty and unusual episode has been watched in a cottage garden, which is a great favourite with birds. Two years ago flycatchers nested in a Forsythia that grows the full...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, --May I be allowed to add to Mr. Somerset de Chair's excellent scheme for the improvement of the status of the unemployed ? Would not the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, --Anything written by Sir Arthur Salter gives food for thought. He is rightly recognised as one of the leading public men in Europe, and a...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR [Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reason ably possible.. The most suitable length is that of one of our "News of the...

SPECTATOR.) SIR,—M. Stalin's new draft constitution for the U.S.S.R. has received, as yet, so little attention from the Press in England that it seems doubtful whether this...

Leyton Richards writes that "the true alternative to frenzied preparation for war is constructive effort for peace," and suggests that your correspondent and I favour the former...

the article " The Consequences of Being Heathen," your contributor puts forward the remarkable argument that a Christian's position leads him to oppose dictatorships while a...

in your issue of May 29th, 1936, and wonder if you will permit me to contribute the following comments. He says, regarding discharged prisoners, " Human wreckage is being...

Sin,--May I point out that a confusion has arisen through an omission in my review of Dame Ethel Smyth's As Time Went On, as it stands printed in your issue of June 5th ? " The...

THE SPECTATOR.] S111,-- I read yesterday, at the Free Library, in your issue of June 12th, what appeared to be an attempt to discredit the Labour Party. Personally, I am not a...

Sin,—Travelling recently on business in Eastern Europe I was asked frequently, " What is England going to do about sanctions ? " The orthodox reply, " the future of sanctions is...

SIR,—Janus has been guilty of one of his rare injustices in taking a service in an expanding area as typical of British rail suburban services. If he realised how much care and...

SIR,—The querulous remarks by the writer of " A Spectator's Notebook " seem to call for comment by a regular traveller on the Southern Railway. Surely there must be many who...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Stn,—,Sir Arthur Salter, writing in your last issue on the Future, of the League, stated that Sir Norman Angell has conclusively argued that...

By C. M. BOWRA THE death' of A. E. Housman has started a lively debate on the merits, or faults, of his poetry. But scholarship was his chief concern, and for it he has received...

IN this little book Mr. Cruttwell has introduced the substance of the Lees-Knowles lectures which he delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1936. It is a useful clearing of...

Eyeless in Gaza. By Aldous Huxley. (Chatto and Windus. 10s. 6d.) Two things are remarkable in Mr. Iluxley's new book : the method and the moral. The method is what first strikes...

The Future of Marriage in Western Civilisation. By Edward Westermarck. (Macmillan. 12s. 6d. ) PROFESSOR WESTERMARCK, whose History of Human Marriage is a classic authority on...

Tuouon Lord Parmoor achieved distinction mainly in the sphere of law, his chief interest appears to lie in the field of politics. Nearly half his autobiography is devoted to the...

JOAN OF Aite, as Miss Sackville-West truly says, " makes us think, makes us question ; she uncovers the dark places into which we may fear to look." It was so almost from the...

Int. KARL GEIRINGER is the custodian of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. To this eminent body, with whom he had long been in friendly relation, Brahms bequeathed his...

Old Peruvian Art. By H. V. Doering. (Zweinmer. 15s.) WiTu characteristic European arrogance we tend to class the arts of all non-European races as savage or primitive. This is a...

THERE are too many books in the world already, and MO many come pouring out meth by month from all the presses of all the publishers. '1'lle disinterestedness of this statement...

We in Captivity. By Kathleen Pawle. (Cassell. 7s. 6d.) -Fires of Beltane. By Geraldine Cummins. (Michael Joseph. . 7s. 6d.) Ugly Brew. By Jake Wynne. (Chatto and Windus. 7s....

By WILLIAM PLOMER The General. By C. S. Forester. (Michael Joseph. 7s. 6d.) Education Before Verdun. By Arnold Zweig. Tr. by Eric Sutton. (Seeker and Warburg. 8s. 6d.) • The...

odd and enjoyable book (Faber, 10s. 6d.) is the auto- biography of a painter of bogus antiques—bogus, that is, only because of the claims made for them in the process of...

This is a sensible and objective study of Oscar Wilde (Constable, 10s.), which successfully avoids the extremes of rancour or panegyric which have coloured most of the books...

these reminiscences (Routledge, 12s. 6d.) was , not born yesterday. He was born, in fact, eighty-one years ago, and, amongst many other things, has learnt that reminis- cences...

Minister of Transport his job. He has, since his elevation to office, displayed the most laudable industry in attempting to reduce the accident rate on the roads and, if one is...

Finance PROBABLY there is no modern development in industry which in ordinary circumstances calls for more restraint than Government subsidies. It is a movement which to...

UNCERTAIN MARKETS. THE Stock Markets during the past week have moved somewhat uncertainly. All markets have bCen more or less dominated by anxiety with regard to the currency...

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK The winner of Crossword No. 194 is Miss M. Lloyd, Furrows, St. Ives, Huntingdonshire.

BY ZENO (.1 prize *Jane guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution o f this crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be narked Crossword Puzzle, -...