T HE Danzig situation, the subject during the past week of persistent rumours and emphatic denials, remains confused and uncertain. Arms and soldiers or potential soldiers are...

of the Overseas Forces, arrived in Warsaw on Monday on a four-day visit, during which he discussed with Poland's military and political leaders measures to co-ordinate her...

were initiated by a meeting last week between the British Ambassador, Sir Robert Craigie, and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr. Arita. Their conversation was to be resumed on...

Commons last week the Prime Minister announced amid cheers that 12,000 Naval Reservists will be called up on July 31st and that Reserve ships will take part in the combined...

Greece were signed last week ; they cover a total amount of Z7,5oo,000, of which £5,500,000 is for Rumania and £2,000,000 for Greece. The agreements take the form of a British...

The real defence of the Bill introduced by the Home Secretary on Wednesday to strengthen his hands in dealing with I.R.A. terrorists is that when a body of lawless men declares...

Geoffrey Lloyd outlined the Govern- ment's proposals for the control of coal consumption in time of war. There is a thoroughness about these measures which suggests that the...

cannot press his neutrality proposals on the Senate this session with any hope of success must be deplored as much by the President himself as it will be everywhere in this...

£580,000,000, in Sir John Simon's Budget would be exceeded in the course of the financial year ; but the Supplementary Estimates of Liso,000,000 have surpassed expectations....

Development Bill on Tuesday for a minimum weekly wage of £2 for agricultural workers brought about a welcome change in the Chamber. Members debated with conviction and vigour to...

weeks, it is difficult to see how a General Elec- tion can be held this autumn. Yet it is being confidently asserted, in some quarters, that an election will be held, and that...

Horsburgh that his was no idle promise not to bear resentment against those who disagreed with him over the Members' Pensions Bill. This and the fact that more Con- servatives...

the Govern- ment's Bill for the compulsory insurance of ships, cargoes and commodities against " King's Enemy Risks." Within the self-imp9sed restrictions of the Bill there...

is being forecast as the date of the next crisis, but the majority of the House are in optimistic mood and, in current fashion, are prepared to stigmatise any predictions of...

the first 30,000 Militiamen began their six months' term of service ; and they will reap the benefits of the period in which Mr. Hore-Belisha was multiplying recruiting...

T HE return of a Liberal to Parliament—for a seat that was Liberal before, but by an increased majority—is an event sufficiently rare to provoke certain reflections. No one can...

is reviewed on another page of The Spectator this week ; but some of the larger issues with which it deals deserve further attention here. For apart from Captain Liddell Hart's...

useful, and might result in a considerable accretion of revenue to the Exchequer. I have just paid annual (in one case half-yearly) subscriptions to three different institutions...

external policy, and the attribution to Stalin of a strong pro-German attitude, ascribed to an alleged Soviet General Krivitsky and published in the Saturday Evening Post of...

is announcing that Adolf Hitler Platz in Munich shall hence- forth be known as Mussolini Platz, some c! the current com- ments by German writers on various aspects of Italian...

I HAVE often said that if ever a Ministry of Information were created in this country Commander Stephen King- Hall ought to be given a prominent position in it. In the light of...

always easy to come by it is worth while to draw attention to a statement just issued by Mr. Howard Kershner, an American Friend, who is Director of Relief of Child Refugees in...

By ROBERT POWELL Berlin. B RTTADI'S dear and insistent statements regarding its attitude towards any German attempt to change by force the status of Danzig have begun to make...

By SIR EVELYN WRENCH F OR the first time in my life I have left Italian soil with a sigh of relief. Hitherto holidays spent in Italy had always been a joy undiluted. It was...

By F. C. HAPPOLD (Headmaster of Bishop Wordsworth's School, Salisbury) ERE may be good grounds for criticising or even con- I demning the ideals of the totalitarian States ;...

By D. R. GILLIE M R. HAROLD NICOLSON in his recent remarkable lecture on Franco-British relations at the French Insti- tute in London made one remark which is certainly truer...

By FRANK ZIEGLER T HE possession of an army, unless it be a very large one, may not always rank as a blessing: it encourages power- ful neighbours to intervene on the pretext...

By PROFESSOR C. M. YONGE A NIMALS are possessed of many strange powers ; they can fly through the air, change their colour to harmonise with different backgrounds, and they can...

By F. J. SUTHERLAND M ADRID was very depressing. We had been there only four days, but already we felt the need of a break. Two and a half years of war had left the city...

MR. ROOSEVELT'S NEUTRALITY DEFEAT By ERWIN T HE great contest between President Roosevelt and the Congress over control of foreign policy has marched to a sudden and...

and Travel Society, the aim of which is to mitigate these illusions. Gifted Francophiles, such as Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill and the late Sir Philip Sassoon, conceived the idea...

relief from questions regarding Gibraltar or the Alto Adige, and partly because the subject is one which has always interested me and around which I have woven a pet theory....

conduct a party of these delightful Parisians round a typically English garden. They had already visited, and been suitably impressed by, the show places of South-Eastern...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HE French, being insular by temperament, do not always realise that there can exist types of culture different from their own. One of the main causes of...

who at that stage changed the sub- ject. " And what," he asked, " do you feel about the Ciano communique?" I told him. " And as regards the Tyrol . . ." he continued.

reached the end of my lecture. One of them suggested that the real reasons why our gardens were preferable to those of other countries were (a) because we had no sense of archi-...

scarcely have differed in design from the gardens of Egypt and Persia ; and the old " hcrbers " or arbours, the trim garden-plots in which was grown the meadowsweet which Queen...

BALLET Paganini Rhapsody No executive musician, with the possible exception of Liszt, has ever seized the general imagination so firmly or held it so long as Paganini. His is...

" Hostages." At the Paris.—" Undercover Doctor." At the Plaza.—" The Modern Miracle." At the New Gallery. " Man About Town." At the Carlton. ACADEMIC critics are apt to refer...

[Von einem deutschen Korrespondenten] WER Deutschland liebt, muss heute daran leiden. Was s1ch hinter jenem Westwall abspielt, mit dem sich das Dritte Reich von der ubrigen Welt...

Bat versus Ball No more nonsense will be talked this season about cricket being a dull game. What with Ames' hurricane-hitting against the Oval clock ; the University match a...

be the issue of natural selection, and displayed chiefly for the purpose of attracting the admiration of the hen-bird. It would be rash to dispute with the Darwinians, but the...

Peacock Pugnacity There is a certain country house in a delectable western valley whose groves and meadows and ponds are very thickly populated with birds, domestic and others,...

is planting time as well as flowering time. What a number of things ought to be put into the earth now or a very little later. In " fantastic summer heat " we must, in spite of...

On the subject of peacocks—a particularly mean form of pilfering has been frequently practised on the outskirts of a famous park where many pheasants have their being. Motorists...

Cosmetic Botany A clash of ideals (associated with ardent co-operation and mutual esteem) is still dividing in some measure the authors , and begetters of the Roads Beautifying...

to say bumper, there is one exception: the bees have not enjoyed recent weather. The honey-flow about apple-blossom time was rich and the hives (weighed daily in one apiary at...

Common Rarities Since writing the other day of the fate of a young bird, a lesser spotted or barred woodpecker, I have come upon much evidence that this once rather rare bird...

[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...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR) SIR,—I do not often have the privilege of seeing The Spectator. Penny and twopenny weeklies come to this part of London more easily. But...

who have thought about the matter will quarrel with Dr. M. L. Jacks' contention that religion in our schools and universities should not be treated as merely one subject amongst...

SPECTATOR] SIR, —Major Reynolds, in referring last week to my letter on this subject in your issue of July 7th, remarks : " . . the evidence of one's eyes, no less than the...

SPECTATOR] Sta,—Mr. Edinger's article in your issue of last week on " The State of Franco Spain " took what must seem to many to be an unduly optimistic and vague view of the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sta,—Professor G. R. Driver, in his review of Mr. Jeffries's book, Palestine: the Reality, writes that the policy of the British Government...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, — As it was a letter of mine which you kindly inserted in your December 3oth issue, 1938, which really led to this discussion, perhaps you...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, — It is true, as Mr. Arthur Pollok Sym writes, that it is possible to contract an irregular marriage in Scotland else- where than at Gretna...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] have seen it frequently stated, and again in a letter from Mr. Rupert Lee in your issue of July 14th, that it is not possible for an ordinary...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—I am very sorry if Mr. Casson thinks that I have written a quibbling and unintelligent review of his excellent book. At the same time, I...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sta,—The interest of your correspondence columns is, to my mind, that they contain such a variety of views from a variety of writers. Mr. R....

calls for some reply from me, or, if reply is not possible, at least for comment. He puts a difficult case, and says, I believe rightly, that it is representa- tive of a good...

PAGE PAGE The Defence of Democracy (R. A. Scott-James) 99 Kilvert's Diary (C. E. Vulliamy) 102 The Dear Monster (E. H. Carr) ... roo Robbery Under Law (William Gower) .....

Modern Science. By Hyman Levy. (Hamish Hamilton. ns.) Tins is a formidable book of loo-odd pages, in which Pro- fessor Levy sets out to sketch the landscape of modern physics...

The Dear Monster. By G. R. Halkett. (Cape. ms. 6d.) SLNCE we are all more or less preoccupied nowadays with the problem why we get on so well with Germans and so badly with...

The Defence of Britain. By Liddell Hart. (Faber and Faber. 12s. 6d.) A BooK by Captain Liddell Hart on this subject cannot fail to be of interest at the present time. His was...

Plomer. (Cape. rzs. 6d.) THOSE who served in the Great War can remember—for it was the common experience of all—how distant, how unreal, were the happy and irrecoverable days...

should have made a most unfavourable impression on Mr. Waugh, conservative and good Catholic as he confesses himself to be. Yet some of its manifold charms took hold of him, as...

The Prospects of Civilisation. By Alfred Zimmern. The British Empire. By H. V. Hodson. " Mein Kampf." By R. C. K. Ensor. Economic Self-Sufficiency. By A. G. B. Fisher....

In addition to the obvious relationship between their subjects, these two books bear another similarity—each is badly titled. Rightly or wrongly, the adjective " modern," in an...

By KATE O'BRIEN THERE are two historical novels to be discussed this week, and it occurs to me that some who consider themselves " choosey " about fiction-reading, and who...

The New Minister on Accidents To the lay mind the problem of reducing the fatalities on the roads is always complicated by the extraordinary conflict of evidence on the prime...

SWISS HOLIDAY ONE lamentable result of the present division between nations is that the holiday-maker finds the desirable field of explora- tion narrowed down by the exclusion...

Financial Supplement No. 5795 FRIDAY, JULY 2 1 , 1 9 3 9 [m]

By R. F. HARROD REARMAMENT may be divided into two phases, the phase of moderate activity, in which we are at present, and the phase of intense activity into which we may be...

Further Fall in Deposits Total NOBODY expected that any of the " Big Five " banks would find any cause to alter their interim dividend rates, and, in tact, no changes have been...

IN the " quasi war economy " which has grown up in this country in the past twelve months fate seems for once to have dealt a stronger hand to industry than to finance. On the...

How will the holders of life policies be affected by the present crisis in international affairs, through the reactions of that crisis on business, on the financial markets, and...

DESPITE the increase in the prices of annuities in recent years and the drop in security values in the past two years, making the exchange of investments for annuities slightly...

THE relatively high and " tax-free " rates of interest offered by building societies for money deposited with them or invested in their shares is prompting many people to...

Two developments occupy the City's thought: one is the Chancellor of the Exchequer's revelation of the Govern- ment's Defence borrowing requirements, the other is the sudden and...

As for the raising of the £35o,000,000 by public loans ; this is obviously a pretty tall order. Estimates of the annual national savings are admittedly tentative, but I doubt...

ANOTHER RECORD YEAR THE seventeenth annual general meeting of the United Dominions Trust, Ltd., was held on July 19th in London. Mr. J. Gibson Jamie (the Chairman) said that it...

The latest accounts of Philip Hill and Partners, covering the fifteen months ended June 3oth, amply confirm the hopeful views I have expressed in recent notes. Net profits, at...

As a send-off to its new financial year Philip Hill and Partners is to put through a deal between Beechams Pills, one of the big companies in the group, and the County Perfumery...

PHILIP HILL AND PARTNERS INCREASED INCOME Tim seventh ordinary general meeting of Philip Hill and Partners, Limited, was held on July 18th at The May Fair Hotel, London, W....

The winner of Crossword No. 19 is Miss E. P. Woodward, Alexandra College, Westcliff-on-Sea.

There is inspiration as well as information in Mr. J. Gibson Jarvie's address to shareholders of the United Dominions Trust. Mr. Jarvie is one of those dynamic City men who...

of interest at last in the coal-share market where, as I have been arguing in recent weeks, quotations are unduly depressed. Pease and Partners Jos. ordinaries, I see, are up...

[A prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to th, sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be marked...