T HERE is little genuine encouragement to be derived from the initial agreement on matters of secondary importance reached by the Foreign Ministers at their meeting in Paris on...

New and alarming outrages committed by Jewish bands in Palestine follow hard on the announcement that President Truman is sending a Cabinet committee to London to confer with...

General de Gaulle favours a new type of ivory tower, among whose fittings is included a powerful loud-speaker. His tour of the Normandy beaches, two years after his own arrival...

It is to be hoped that the settlement between the Persian Govern- ment and Azerbaijan is as satisfactory as the first reports suggest. That the general outlook in Persia has...

There is not much satisfaction to be got out of the debate on food- production in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Mr. R. S. Hudson was justified up to a point in accusing his...

The declaration of British policy on Spain at the Security Council's meeting on Monday will no doubt provoke fierce criticism from those sections of public opinion, more vocal...

The excellent statistics of employment and unemployment published each month by the Ministry of Labour have mostly good news to tell. The numbers employed in industry continue...

T HERE was just room for one more great speech on the horrible possibilities of the atomic bomb and the magnificent prospect of the peaceful use of atomic energy. At the first...

Cam- bridge for a second year follows as a matter of ordinary routine, but it has the advantage, among others, of giving further oppor- tunities for the after-lunch oratory of...

bring about the reversal of the Government's present foreign policy ' before it is too late '." So The Daily Worker. It has been too late too long. Even before Bournemouth the...

A N article by Mr. Christopher Hollis, M.P., in the current issue of the New English Review .on personalities in the present Parliament, contains one interesting and unexpected...

The Party meeting on Wednesday was the scene of shots that may echo round the world. It is over the Map Room in the Commons Library that the controversy rages. In the last...

I mean, not daily or weekly papers devoted to current news, but magazines dealing with local folklore, local history, local arts and the like ; Sussex, I fancy, has for some...

on Sunday night I caught at one point a singularly familiar echo. I think it was in regard to the despatch of food to starving Europe that Mr. Strachey observed that he was "...

By M. J. BONN W HATEVER the outcome of the Paris Conference is, it cannot restore the economic unity of Germany. The Potsdam Con- ference has destroyed it beyond diplomatic...

By GUY BOAS T HE problem of secondary education becomes ever more be- wildering as the views of those who pronounce upon it become more contradictory, impracticable and...

By FRANK SYKES T HE news that the domestic egg-producer's ration is to be cut has been greeted as a major calamity in many households. On the farm the position is hardly less...

By ERIC GEORGE O N the 22nd of June one hundred years ago this country was shocked to learn of the suicide of Benjamin Robert Haydon. He was then sixty ; and for over thirty...

Why not take out a subscription to THE SPECTATOR as Birthday gift for a relative or friend? Subscription 3os. per annum, or 15s. for six months. Special rate to Members of...

By HAROLD NICOLSON O PENING an illustrated paper this morning, I came across a page of photographs which aroused within me feelings of rage and sorrow. It depicted a sheet of...

La Boheme and The New Monte Carlo Ballet. At the Cambridge.— The School for Fathers. At Sadler's Wells. IT was with some misgiving that I went to the opening night of the new...

Grand National Night. By Dorothy and Campbell Christie. At the Apollo.—Love Goes to Press. By Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles. At the Embassy. You feel that the authors of...

Beware of Pity. At the Leicester Square. THIS is a distinguished film, a rare event these days, and although it lacks that intensity of style and purpose which alone can make...

THE master in these country matters, for whom I play locum year by year, wrote a few weeks ago about the effect of latter-day agricultural conditions upon the hird-life of...

early summer in the garden. The frequent rains have brought the lawns to perfection, following an experimental treatment with basic slag instead of the more usual lawn- sand...

" The electrifying announcement that Uranium, used in making atomic bombs, can be `de-natured,' so that it becomes in effect non- explosive, has ranked with many as second only...

the birds is their larger group gatherings and troopings, especially the blue-tits and all the hedgerow families. These gay little creatures followed in their myriads the early...

plus that of the men returned from the Services, the farmers have had the spring-clean of their lives. I have never seen the countryside so carefully trimmed and set. The...

Contemporary Italian Painting. At the Redfern.—American Painting. At the Tate. THE provinces may well envy the fortunate Londoner his unrationed opportunities nowadays to...

following comments on the letter from Sir Edward Spears in The Spectator of June 14th? Whether there was on the Arab side a bona fide belief that the McMahon undertaking...

" Portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Horns, Hama and Aleppo." He repeats what George Antonius has stated in 1938 (The Arab Awakening, p. 178) that...

SIR,—Please permit me to reply briefly to Mr. Arthur Manton, the author of an article Fascism in Burma which has appeared in your periodical recently. I am sure Mr. Manton has...

DILEMMA IN PALESTINE Sm,—In discussions of the Palestine situation, a basic fact which is some- times forgotten but which is of great importance to the Arab world is that Great...

issue of May 31st, Mr. Nicolson has been impressed by the new beautiful Swedish liner, the ' Saga,' by the Heidsieck Monopole, 5934, and by the feeling that " something in this...

Sia,—May I lodge a protest against the increasing misuse by modern writers of the word " nostalgia"? Used in its proper sense it means a yearning for home, but nowadays it...

on the subject of the proposed destruction of the French film, Le Jour se Leve. There are two points connected with this outrage, about which some of your readers can perhaps...

confirms that the situation in that country need not have arisen but for a first-class piece of bungling " and that the issues which the new Union policy were designed to meet...

of too,000 Polish veterans from Italy to England for demobilisation and " absorption " into civilian life may relieve a difficult international situation ; but it raises other...

for pigs, poultii and . milking cows raises the question whether the allotment of oats for race- horses ought not to be reduced in . Optober. If racing is to be - limited...

. East and West The Far East Must Be Understood. By H. Van Straelen, S.V.D. (Luzac and Co. 10s. 6d.) A STRIKING passage in this book, quoted from Christopher Dawson, attributes...

France Between the Republics. By Dorothy M. Pickles. (Contact Publications. 10s. net.) ONE of the great difficulties of the present moment is the ignorance, the muddle and the...

Bernard Shaw : W. B. Yeats : Letters to Florence Farr. Edited by Clifford Bax. (Home and Van Thal. 7s. 6d.) IN July, 1912, the actress Florence Farr, who had played Rebecca in...

English History and Ideas in the Twentieth Century. By H. V. Routh. (Methuen. Ils. 6d.) To attempt to approach the subject of literature—and especially contemporary...

As a means of livelihood the occupation of typographer came into being after the 1914-1918 war ; now there must be hundreds work- ing at it. Printing became conscious of the...

Land. By Liam O'Flaherty. (Gollancz. 9s.) IT is a long time since Liam O'Flaherty last published a novel. Famine, a great book which appeared before the war, has been...

Public Speaking. By Richard Acland. (Gollancz. 5s.) NOBODY can be good at public speaking unless he enjoys it. The pity is that so many people enjoy it who are no good at it,...

the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, poly 2nd. Envelopes must be received not later than first post that...

XEEP E ' PP t 11 A G A S A T R C A 1.1 I A R M A,L AD E A B .1) t. '1- 8! I D • E T H E T E2 - iE B.-. N T T A U R A S • E ASE R A IS E P LEME SOLUTION ON JULY 5th The...

,By CUSTOS SOONER or later Mr. Dalton will discover that it is bad policy to beat the big drum all the time. In recent weeks he has given us several examples of his...