The veto question is officially being considered in two places at once. In the Political and Security Committee of the United Nations Assembly (not to be confused with the...

T HE demonstration by Mr. Bevin's critics in the House of Commons last week could do, and did, no sort of good to anyone. The " rebels " themselves made an unimpressive show. By...

• It has not been easy to get Austria on to the agenda of the Council of Foreign Ministers, and it will be even more difficult to get it off. The Report of the Select Committee...

There is some danger that the world food question will again degenerate into a string of disconnected scares. The sudden revival of anxiety about the ration in the British zone...

The interim statement by the Secretary of State for War in the House on Tuesday on the reconstitution of the Territorial Army confirms much that had already been anticipated,...

Medical men throughout the United Kingdom will, it is to be hoped, reflect seriously before they follow the lead—or the very clearly implied lead—of the British Medical...

The Chinese puzzle is beginning to take on a discernible outline as each new piece is fitted—or more often forced—into place. The Kuomintang, shored up by American support and...

The British trade union movement has been built on the assertion of working-class rights and maintained by the defence of those rights. There is now a danger that its hard-won...

T HE best flavouring for the Parliamentary dish is the spice of surprise. When it is likely to be included in the menu you can sense an appreciative upturning of political...

WE deeply regret to announce the death of Mr. Walter Turner, Literary Editor of The Spectator, which took place last Monday, November 18th. Mr. Turner, who had lately returned,...

T HE attitude of the Government towards the Curtis Report on the Care of Children, as declared by Mr. Arthur Green- wood in the House of Commons on Tuesday night, is most pro-...

L. Gandar Dower's seat at Caithness and Sutherland will, I should imagine, take a lot of answering. Mr. Gandar Dower stood as a Conservative against a Liberal (Sir Archibald...

plans for which were disclosed by Mr. Attlee on Monday, had gone through it would have come up against something stiff. The in- vaders would, it appears, have swept northwards...

the Nobel Prize for Peace might well feel hard put to it, and the decision just taken is in some ways surprising. I have in the past known both Dr. J. R. Mott and Miss Emily...

£5,000 to the indirect descendants of Lord Nelson will get its second reading within the next day or two, and an interesting little debate may result, for an Opposition Front...

from The Daily Worker, but that paper's Parliamentary Correspondent gives so instructive an annotated picture of the Government's attitude on the Curtis Report as to deserve...

M OST people have a shilling to spare, and everyone who has ought to spend it at the earliest possible moment on a copy of the Penguin Hiroshima, by John Hersey. This is a...

statue of President Roosevelt in Grosvenor Square is certain of a swift response. But I hope still that Sir William Reid Dick's design for the statue will be reconsidered. He...

By SIR HAROLD BUTLER r the prisoner released after years of confinement I suppose the ediscovery of the world he used to know must be the keenest Joy of liberty. To see with...

N OBODY in America seems happy at the Congressional elections. The uncertainties of the future under a Government whose executive remains Democratic while its legislative has...

By ABDULLA BEY KHALIL• T HE Sudanese have been greatly disappointed on hearing that the sovereignty of the Sudan has apparently been almost decided exclusively between the...

T HE installation piece by piece of the new French constitution leaves the parties about two months for reflection and manoeuvre before they need reach agreement on the...

By VISCOUNT SAMUEL B ERTRAND RUSSELL has rendered a great service by coming forward as a populariser of philosophy. Science has long enjoyed the advantage of interpreters, at...

By R. S. JENKINSON T HE sermon meandered on jerkily, like a river whose course is broken by rocks and pebbles. I could understand only a word here and there, for the priest was...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HE Fourth Report of the Select Committee on Estimates which was published last Friday deals with the problem of British expenditure in Austria. It has...

THE THEATRE "The Day of Glory." By H. E. Bates. At the Embassy Theatre. MR. BATES, in his first play, sings of war and its tragic effect on family life, and he accompanies...

I WOULD willingly watch Olivia de Havilland playing all the parts in a film. She looks and behaves like an attractive young woman, and this makes the attitude of all the men in...

ANY note of originality is welcome in the round of repetition of familiar masterpieces which the large majority of concert pro- grammes represent. At the present moment...

"THE programme is running a little late, and the items which follow will begin approximately ten minutes later than the adver- tised times." Calmly, almost casually, the...

WHILE writing last week of Frances Hodgkins I was tempted to underline another interesting juxtaposition achieved by the Lefevre and Leicester Galleries, since the latter are...

THE NATIONALISATION OF ELECTRICITY Sta,—In "New Tasks at Westminster," in your issue of November 15th, you say: " In the case of electricity supply not much need be said. There...

SIR, —The B.B.C. has released the news that British soldiers in Germany are arranging to give up part of their rations to provide a Christmas treat for German children,...

I saw that Orley Farm was on the programme of the B.B.C., I got down my copy of the three- volume Tauchnitz in which edition my father had smuggled the whole of Trollope. I had...

SIR,—Mr. Peter Woodard's letter in your last issue is such a travesty of the facts that it is difficult to know where to begin to reply to it. I am assured by the chairman of...

Sta,—There is, these days, much public concern over the retention of German prisoners of war in this country, and the undesirability of employing forced labour is usually...

Sta,—It greatly distresses me to think that every time Sir Stafford Cripps gets into bed he puts his toes through a hole in the sheet. May I suggest that, so as to be repaid for...

Sta,—The L.M.S. railway, who sold me a first-class ticket from Stockport to London, but failed to provide me with a first-class seat (only 27 such seats were on the train), has...

SIR, —Many of those who are interested in education will have found food for thought in Mr. A. Victor Murray's article. There is one point, however, which he seems to ignore,...

SIR, —In his remarks (November 15th) on the fecundity of the French Canadians, Janus says that the example he quotes reaches him " from a perfectly reliable source." No one who...

SIR, —Lady Spears (Miss Mary Borden) has with the greatest courtesy challenged my own accuracy in assailing hers. She cites the Chief of Staff of the 1st Free French Division...

Stn,—I am sure that many teachers of current affairs were as delighted as myself when it was announced about a year ago that A.B.C.A. would be continued. Since then the civilian...

Snt,—Dr. Martyn Sanders, in his letter published in last week's The Spectator, wrongly attributes the verse: "How odd—Of God—To choose—The Jews," to Monsignor Ronald Knox. Its...

Sot,—The note on sheepdogs by Sir William Beach Thomas in The Spectator of November 15th recalls the intelligent behaviour of these dogs at sea which might be emulated by some...

I see that objections are being raised to one, at any rate, of the new satellite towns by river conservators, who fear for the purity of the waters. They are very likely...

Though we are continually being surprised by the plants and creatures seen in London, such as Canadian ragwort and black redstarts and libel- lulae, there are some common things...

It is often asked which flowering bushes are best for a very small garden. I would claim a special place for Berberis Wilsonae, if only for its mass of red berries which—in my...

A VERY good observer of objects of natural history spending a day in London stopped for a moment as she came out of Bond Street into Oxford Street. Before her astonished eyes a...

SIR, —Mr. Vulliamy will, I am sure, be sorry to have misled your readers. He substitutes apprehensive for appreciative in Hurnard's line: "Which her acute appreciative mind,"...

into my article on this subject? It is, of course, the Institute of Christian Education that is concerned with this matter and not the Institute of Education (University

sm,—I must apologise that owing to a typing error in the draft of my article in your issue of November 15th, the figure giving the appropriation for scientific purposes from the...

Stx,—As a Liberal with Left-wing sympathies I give my support to many of the things that the present Government do, and propose to do. The very vigorous opposition to all forms...

Snt,—I refer to the second paragraph of your Notebook in The Spectatcr of November 8th. You may be interested to know that provision exists in Scotland for the issue of an...

W. H. Hudson. The Vision of Earth. By Robert Hamilton. (Dent. 10s.6d.) LIKE a cloud the size of a man's hand, there is appearing on the literary horizon a tendency to depreciate...

Gesta Dei per Francos Peguy and Les Cahiers de in Quinzaine. By Daniel Halevy, trans- lated by Ruth Bethel'. (Denis Dobson. 12s. 6d.) THERE are authors and men who are so...

Moondrop to Gascony. By Anne-Marie Walters. (Macmillan. 8s. 6d.) " I KICKED and kicked until the parachute opened completely, and sailed down the cold-and brilliant night." . ....

The Lamp. By Richard Church. (Dent. 6s.) Desert Wells. By Dorothy Wellesley. (Michael Joseph. 6s.) " THE LAMP " is a strange poem. It is a simple story about a young girl, the...

The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience. By G. F. Nuttall. (Basil Blackwell. 15s.) MEN are still apt to judge Puritanism by the negations and cultural limitations of...

Syria. By Robin Fedden. (Robert Hale. 21s.) FEW countries in the world have seen so many armies of occupation as Syria ; few have preserved so many imprints of their passage....

" Arch of Triumph." By Erich Maria Remarque. Translated by Walter Sorel and Denver Lindsey. (Hutchinson. 10s. 6d.) " Marguerite Reilly." By Elizabeth Lake. (Pilot Press. 10s....

The Vision of Cecil Rhodes. By Frank Aydelotte. (Oxford Univer- sity Press. 8s. 6d.) THE Rhodes scholarships were a great experiment, and Dr. Aydelotte does well to emphasise...

will all be pleasing to a child, say, of seven or eight. Modified and adorned versions are pleasing ; but the originals, gathered from past ages of violence, are ferocious,...

Guttersnipe. By Sam Shaw. (Sampson Low. 12s. 6d.) THE author of this autobiography began life in one of the poorest quarters of Birmingham ; at the age of ten tramped to London...

well chosen and the introductions provide just the right amount of information and critical comment. What gives distinction to these books is the delightful format, the good...

oddly titled, is a biography of Isaac Butt, the spirited Unionist and Protestant proselytiser of the eighteen-forties and fifties in Ireland who, by 1867, the Fenians' great...

EVERY year, around Christmas time, Methuen's have made it their excellent practice to publish a number of low-priced humorous books, often by Punch authors, that have more than...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, December 3rd....

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By TERENTIUS HOME railway nationalisation has been the principal market in- fluence and subject of controversy. There are many angles, but on the whole it is thought that, if...