How far the advance made in the preliminaries of armistice negotiations in Korea is due to the approach made by the United States Government to Moscow a fortnight ago, and only...

T HE Four-Power proposals have been duly presented to Egypt and duly rejected. The rejection was expected, but the manner in which it was done has unpleasantly underlined the...

The performance of Dr. Moussadek before the United Nations Security Council at Flushing Meadow may conceivably have done something to correct the peculiar view of the Persian...

Who is going to steer the Muslim world away from the chaos into which it threatens to fall ? The assassination of Mr. Liaquat All Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, brutally...

The point that caught many Germans' imagination in Dr. Grotewohl's suggestion that free elections should now be held in both East and West Germany was that such elections might...

During the Army Manoeuvres which ended this week the evolutions of the 1st Corps were not at all stages characterised by a smooth precision. It would have been a great pity if...

T HIS is the last issue of the Spectator to appear before the votes are cast next Thursday. Now, therefore, is the time to consider the claims of the rival parties and strike...

of court are less so—and it is curious not only that two should have been reported in Tuesday's papers, but that both should have concerned the Daily Worker. In the first case...

of Sir Ralph Glyn, the Conservative candidate for Abingdon, is a portent, for if any man in England has Liberalism in the very marrow of his bones it is Gilbert Murray. It is...

Churchill as " almost rubbing his bands at the microphone because he had just heard of the trouble blowing up in Egypt." That is about the vilest thing that has been said in the...

earnest cogitation on a name for the helicopter landing-grounds which are expected to multiply in this country fairly rapidly., It is a subject on which I have already said...

as in 1950 ? On the whole the general verdict seems to be not quite." For one thing there was no Priestley for him to hit this time. For another no one believes that an...

likely to risk any con- fident prediction about the election. Still, with barely a week to go, there ought to be some conclusion to be drawn from various available facts. The...

By ROBERT WAITHMAN Washington W HAT is of peculiar interest depends a good deal on where you are sitting. It is probably unlikely that a fugitive sentence uttered by Mr. Attlee...

By Air Vice-Marshal W. M. YOOL A T the moment the main interest in the unilateral abrogation of the 1936 Treaty by Egypt is centred upon the political issue, and little...

BySIR NORMAN ANGELL I T is no secret at all, of course, that a great many in the Labour Party, especially on the trade-union side, regard Mr. Aneurin- Bevan as a far greater...

By OSCAR R. HOBSON OVERNMENT bulk-buying is doubtless not one of the major issues of the Election, but as it is intimately related to the all-embracing cost-of-living question,...

By EDWARD HODGKIN A NY visitor who landed in London last week-end would have found it hard to discover from external evidence which of the two forthcoming a ttractions—the...

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold...

By N. K. BOOT 0, you're by no means the last, Mr. Boot. We're expecting quite a gathering to meet Doctor Gong. My only worry is that perhaps there aren't going to be enough...

(Ties are advertised in red or blue bearing a portrait of Mr. Alike or Mr. Churchill) WHEN our fathers fought elections, their political connections Were apparent from the...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I N their desirable residence in St. James's Square the Arts Council are now holding an exhibition of English landscape gardening. They are justified in so...

Peach and Ian Hay. (Piccadilly.) THIS is rather like one of these awfully amusing ideas that are always turning up in Punch. What fun to have a nice family, father a...

Hoaowrrz easily filled the Festival Hall for his recital last Saturday, even at the very high prices. These unfortunately meant that com- paratively few young enthusiasts were...

0 4 Detective Story." (Plaza.) --“ Pickup." (London Pavilion.) “ The People Against O'Hara." (Empire.) HOLLYWOOD has a unique flair for making- documentary films out of...

THEATRE 1 " Women of Twilight." By Sylvia Rayman. (Embassy.) Miss RAYMAN has written her first play around a revolting character who makes a comfortable income by taking...

OCTOBER makes some amends for a summer of adolescent promise but . soon falling into a melancholic middle age and a soured eld. The late sun came shouldering through the rolling...

Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. (Cambridge.) SINCE last week the de Cuevas Company has presented three of its new productions, Skibine's Tragedy of Verona, Taras's Le Bal...

too abundant 2 Certainly in my garden blackbirds outnumber the song-thrushes with their more delicate constitu- tion by at least ten to one. And I am sure they are less...

The multicoloured geological display of Aust Cliff is a wonder. From the ferry it is red, with a band of greenish stone near the crest, and above that black earth with slabs of...

September gale more than deci- mated my fruit crop. An " act of God " ? Not so: the shelter-belts and wind-screens have all been cut down of recent years, and the rapacious...

FOR Picasso's 70th birthday the Institute of Contemporary Arts has arranged a retrospective exhibition of his drawings, from a careful study of a plaster cast, done at the age...

Here, between Oldbury and Aust Cliff, the beacon that signals the junction of Severn and Wye, is to be seen a hale old man busy at a basket-weir emptying the " foreweels " into...

Set byWirginia Graham A prize of f5, which may be divided, is offered for a political Ruthless Rhyme. The Rhyme should be four lines long—and not libellous. - Entries must be...

Report by Peter Townsend There is an acute shortage of newsprint, and the national daily papers have grouped themselves into an association to effect fair distribution. This...

am sorry Miss Major thinks me so ill-read as not to have noticed that the Eastern barbarians are, as has always been their habit, engaged in persecutions ; " the secular Press "...

SIR,—Surely in this Election Liberals in constituencies with Liberal candidates have a duty to vote Liberal and not just for a candidate of another party to keep out the...

inspection of foster-homes. I should. however, like her plea for the part-time paid employment of married' trai4ed social-workers to be extended beyond their use in Children's...

"the caryatids of the Erechtheum shrieked so shrilly when Lord Elgin sought to transport them to London that the Athenian workmen fled in panic." There is better authority for...

Believe it or Not SIR, —That suave essayist, Mr Harold Nicolson, who, like Mr. Ripley of Ripley's Believe it or Not, has " so amicable a manner that we are not for one moment...

SIR.—Might I suggest that one of the trends in this disappearance is the sinister liberalism that has for some time now been creeping into the minds of people with regard to the...

write so intimately of a. Princess to 'her readers in a women's magazine, it is surely in much worse taste for Janus to repeat what she - has written for all and smith - ) in A...

SIR,—As a constant though very unimportant reader of the Spectator may I be allowed to thank you warmly for your good management and generosity in having kept down the price of...

Sm.—I have always admired Janus, but never more so than in his comment on Miss Crawford. May a loyal subject most respectfully suggest to His Majesty, through your columns, that...

SIR,—William Baird (founder of the famous firm of Scottish Coal and Iron Masters) was born in 1796 and died in 1864, shortly before the birth of his youngest son. He.--is...

Sta,—It is no use bandying all these letters and initials about in front of your readers. We are quite determined not to ask you what they mean, and you will probably have to...

SIR,—Mr. Hugh Thomas, under the above title, has given a racy account of his adventures. He begins his article by stating, " We lay back in Alex's car." Near the end of his day...

SIR,—In the Spectator of October 12th Mr. Wilson Harris refers to the Importance of Being Anthony. I suggest that there is a deeper moral to be learnt from the contemporary...

SIR,—I am collecting material for a biography of the Rev. C. L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and should be most grateful for any reminiscences of him, for informaticin as to the...

Sia,—Janus in your enrrent issue implies—his words can have no other ' meaning—that it would in his opinion have been better to make war on Albania than to obtain the award of...

SIR,—Mr. Pearson, like Sunbury, shows astonishing confidence in his doctors. It happens that two letters reached me the other day, by ordinary than from overseas. One, from...

JOHN BULL is assuredly the .very incarnation of contradictions. He grumbles at war-expenses, yet rather likes to run the- risk of being drawn into wars. He denounces...

(From the New Canterbury Tales) WITH us ther was a minister of state That on ure pilgrimage was comen late, For he was let and hindered, soth to seye, At Chekkers as he cam...

A Traveller's Autobiography Last time the Spectator gave me the opportunity of reviewing a book of yours (Traveller's Prelude it was), I felt some diffidence and wrote you a...

DIE politicians will find it difficult to resist misusing this bOok. It shows that the percentage of the total population existing below the poverty line was 17.7 in 1936 and...

NINE hundred pages in two stout volumes contain Sir Charles Webster's account of Palmerston's foreign policy between - 1830 and 1841. This substantial contribution to history...

The Dam Busters. By "Paul Brickhill. (Evans. iss.) 617 SQUADRON of Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force was originally formed for a specific purpose—to breach the Moehne and...

Angry Young Man. By Leslie Paul. (Faber. i 8s.) THIS is a sensitive, serious and beautifully written book which traces the relationship of the experience to the thought of a...

My Dear Holmes. By Gavin Brend. -7 ,(Allen and Unwin. ios. 6d.) THIS is a very necessary book. A new biography of Sherlock Holmes. with careful attention to chronology, is...

MR. CHARLES ROSNER has had the interesting notion of showing, in graphic form, changes in typographical manner during the past century. Unfortunately, in developing his idea, he...

Twenty Tales. By H. E. Bates. (Cape. tos. scl.) MR. MAUGHAM has often and consistently reported what he folds to be essential in the technique of short-story writing. He has...

MIDDLESEX is the most difficult of all EngliSh counties to write about. The smallest county Of all, except Rutland, it consists of a kind of semi-circular fringe round the...

A. Lewis, the Rev. Michael Scott, Martin Wight and Colin Legum—are all known for their sympathy with, as well as for their knowledge of, the African native. That does not mean...

Geoffrey Chaucer of England. By Marchette Chute. (Robert Hale. 'Ns.) Om knowledge of the details of Chaucer's life being so defective and his poetry being' so sparing of...

THE addition of a volume of maps to the last edition of the admirable Everyman's Encyclopaedia is welcome, and for casual reference the volurlie will in most cases be found...

IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, October 30th, addressed Crossword, 99 Gower Street,...

MilE11 4 4M1111 ER:IMMO ri in 1E1 EMS 0 SOLUTION ON NOVEMBER 2 The winner of Crossword No. 646 is Miss S. M. GROVES, 4 Lyttchon Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, 14.

By CUSTOS WITH only a week remaining before the country knows its political fate investors are understandably acting cautiously. Those who, some little time ago, took an...