E RESH from his discussions in Paris with the European Marshall Aid countries, and fortified with his proposals for the allocation of $2,950 million for 1950-51 ($687 million,...

Only the more determined students of that recurrent and fascinating French phenomenon, a Parliamentary inquiry into a scandal, will have followed all the convolutions and traced...

M. Bidault's task would have been hard enough at the present time, even if there had been no impact of the "Case of the Generals" on inter-party relations. But that impact is...

The decision of the teachers' panel of the Burnham Committee to give a year's notice of the termination to the present agreement on teachers' salaries is neither unexpected nor...

The aspect of Communist treason trials, such as that just staged in Budapest, which probably puzzles British newspaper-readers most, is why the accused confess. In countries...

The pastoral letter issued by Cardinal Griffin and read in all Roman Catholic Churches last Sunday has a significant bearing on the vigorous and highly-organised demand for more...

So much nonsense has been talked about food subsidies both before and during the election campaign that it was only a matter of time before some competent economist came out...

When Mr. Churchill guessed last Saturday that the Soviet Air Force had more than 25,000 aircraft in commission he was possibly giving an uninstructed audience a rather...

(These notes were of necessity written before the votes were cast.) T HE end of the Election broadcasts has left the balance of performance slightly in favour of the...

T t‘ HE King's Government must be carried on " ; and carried on it will be, no matter what Administration may be in office next week. That still remains undis- closed as these...

Lagos native to assassinate Mr. Hugh Mackintosh Foot, the Chief Secretary of Nigeria, brings the whole family into the glare of that fierce light which beats upon a Foot. Mr. H....

Daily Herald's pages instead of the Evening Standards for three weeks. I wonder if he feels satisfied with the change. Low, of course, is always Low, and in his own field...

the Messiah' in Court yesterday. As a result Judge Louis Goldstein declined to sentence him to death in the electric chair." —New York Herald Tribune. The bananas, or the...

a very great leader for the past four and a half years—Christopher Addison ; but he is eight, and we have got to strengthen them."—Lord Alexander as reported by the...

my recent story of the Holy Family, the rendering (as depicted by an infant artist) "take the young child and his mother and flea into Egypt," I filed it doubt- fully for future...

F ROM time to time I am consulted about private news-sheets, obtainable by subscription only, and claiming to supply information of high importance to persons who in their sim-...

of Ph.D. of the Academic Internationale. He is "the well-known psychologist and hypnotic healer, Mr. Boris Dmtri, of Park Crescent Terrace, Brighton." Mr. Dmtri has also just...

under-statement: Here (that is to say, in the Divorce Court) is a gentleman who In 1937, at the age of 21, took a substantial interest in a garage, and married the daughter of a...

carpet. One reason is that when someone I know went to look at it on Monday the waiting-time at that stage of the queue was an hour and a quarter. This is an interesting...

With heartfelt thanks to several correctors. JANUS.

By MAX BELOFF M R. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S plea for a further approach to Moscow "at the highest levels" was one that was bound to be made as soon as the significance of the...

By GILBERT McALLISTER, 0 UR first impression of Robertsfield was highly favourable. We had spent the previous night at Abidjan on the French Ivory Coast. Our hotel had been...

THE rusty gate had been chained and padlocked Against the grass-grown path, Leading no-whither as I knew well, In a twilight still as death. Once, one came to an old stone...

By N. K. BOOT T HERE was somf thing gluttonous about the capacity of our ancestors to absorb the printed word. At the age of four William Morris was "deep in the Waverley Novels...

By C. ROMANNE-JAMES . S OMEWHERE below a bell struck—the signal that the day's work was ended. Perspiring with the effort of trying to master an exercise in English, Nai Sai...

NEW WORK BY THE AUTHOR OF "VANITY FAIR." On the 28th instant will be published, is. No. 14 of PENDENNIS. By W. M. Thackeray, author of The GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND, &c. With...

SUBSCRIPTION RATES '52 ORDINARY EDITION d by post to any part of the World 1 10 0 AIR MAIL (World-wide distribution by Air) To all countries in Europe except Poland ... 2 7 6...

Crisis Comments By JOHN DAVY (Trinity College, Cambridge) C RISES are all the rage just now ; and if we are to believe Sir Walter Moberly, there is one at the university today....

By HAROLD NICOLSON W HEN on Friday morning you open this benign and unsullied weekly, the General Election of 1950 will have come to an end. Some of the counts will have been...

CINEMA "Madeleine." (Leicester S q uare.)—“Morning Departure." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.)—“ Three Came Home." (Odeon, Marble Arch.) THE strange case of...

IF there are those to whom all abstract art looks the same, let them consider Messrs. Miro, Leger and Miss Barbara Hepworth. Miro you can see at the London Gallery. It is not a...

RICHARD STRAUSS'S symphonic poem, Thus Spake Zarathustra, and lbert's opera-farce, Angelique, both of which have been given in London during this last week, represent two...

My Garden's Scrap Book, has been issued by the editors of My Garden (the most literary of the garden papers) who half suggest that such a book may at times be a "substitute for...

several agencies that are meant to benefit the country. The National Parks Bill has received the Royal Assent. The central idea is perhaps a good one ; but it is regarded with...

THE gales that February stole from March, that set our barometers jigging up and down, that disarranged our creepers and roared, with the noise of railway trains, in our elms,...

There is a little old house, almost a cottage, at the edge of a village-town. The garden is large and incidentally, as I well know, a peculiar favourite of birds and squirrels....

"Don Quixote." (Covent Garden.) A NEW ballet by Ninette de Valois invariably causes keen anticipa- tion. First, because choreographic works by this remarkable woman are...

Set by Richard Usborne The theory is that there are three stanzas missing between the sixth and seventh of Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." A prize of £5, which may be...

Report by Derek Hudson "The child is father of the man." To illustrate this, write a school report, not exceeding 200 words, for any one of the following between the ages of 6...

SI11,—I do not seem to have made clear the poini which I wished to make in my last letter. In your editorial comment you quote the Ministry of Education's view to the effect...

Native Labour in South Africa SIR,—Your article on the recent riots in -Johannesburg has naturally attracted a good deal of attention here, and I should be glad of the...

SIR,—May I enlarge on Janus's recent and welcome note on General von Falkenhausen? Falkenhausen has been in prison, in either German or Allied hands, since shortly after the...

SIR,—My delay in criticising your leading article, The Third Programme, of February 10th, is occasioned by my desire to raise this question after the general election is over....

not yet been touched upon. It is a fundamental rule of the Roman Catholic Church that the child of a Protestant parent must be brought up as a Roman Catholic if the other of the...

the Spectator, I always valued your journal for its unvarying fair-mindedness. But now your persistent hostility against the Catholic schools, as evinced in editorial comment...

SIR.—In the last paragraph of Professor D. W. Brogan's excellent article The Dilemma of the French Left, the old gibe should have read: "The situation in Berlin is serious but...

SIR,—I have read Mr. Harold Nicolson's interesting comment on Lord Vansittart's article The Decline of Diplomacy. As regards the period between the two wars there is a point...

! " would be neither dignified nor useful. I suggest to him that he makes a practice of scanning the correspondence columns of any daily paper favoured by the Left (e.g., Daily...

Sia,—I am grateful to Mr. Chancellor who reviewed my book, The Maritime History of Russia, 848-1948, for drawing attention to certain errors in this. There are, however, some...

agreement, and I have yet to speak to a grammar-school master who is satisfied that present methods of selection for grammar schools are a complete success. There are admittedly...

Stit,—I was very glad to see your warm appreciation of George Sampson in the Spectator of February 10th. We readers owe him a great deal, if it were only for his Concise...

SIR,—A. H. Brown's letter in the Spectator of February 17th has not had to wait long for an authoritative answer. According to the Observer of February 19th there appeared on...

SIR,—" The second Prayer Book of Edward VI. . . did not contain the rite of confirmation, and made no reference to confirmation. . . . The rite of confirmation first appeared...

SIR,—I am writing the life of Thomas Hood (1799-1845), and should like to hear of any letters, in'public or private hands, to or from him or his wife, including those used by...

The State of Europe. By Howard K. Smith. (Cresset Press. Its.) WHEN bright young Romans inspected Greece at about the time of the incorporation of Hellas in the Roman Empire,...

Poet, Prophet and Playwright "Do not we English hear daily for the last twenty years that the Drama is dead ? " The question was Carlyle's. Today Peter Ustinov finds "the...

Ilex and Olive. By Michael Swan. (Home & Van Thal. z6s.) As its title suggests, this book is an account of a journey to the South, through France and Italy—a record which...

The Private Diaries of Daisy, Princess of Pless, 18)3-1914. Edited by D. Chapman-Huston. (Murray. los. 6d.) THE glamour that invests great ladies in hoops or crinolines has not...

Nineteenth Century Studies: Coleridge to Matthew Arnold. • By Basil Willey. (Chatto and Windus. ifs.) WHILE Lytton Strachey enjoyed the exhilarating task of unmasking...

Switzerland. By Andre Siegfried. (Cape. 12s. 6d.) WHO has not sometimes felt with Gide that Switzerland is too tiresomely exemplary ? " Honnete peuple suisse ! Se porter bien...

Henry Plumdew: His Memoirs, Experiences and Opinions, 5938- 1948. By C. E. Vulliamy. (Michael Joseph. t 2s. 6d.) HE would be a dull or a lucky fellow who had no recollections...

held in London during the wa,r, make a speech which stood out from all the rest by its sincerity, its imaginative energy and its realism. These qualities, manifest in everything...

will remember Michael Roberts, schoolmaster, philosopher, Alpinist, husband of Janet Adam Smith, who before his death in 1948, at the age of forty-six, was a fairly frequent...

the subject is picnics it is permissible to concoct a pie containing larks. Mrs. Battiscombe has evidentry revelled a little in her venture, but felt her obligations. The...

Designers in Britain is a "Biennial Review of Graphic and Industrial Design," and includes work not only by members of the society responsible - for the compilation, but also...

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By CUSTOS As I suspected, the Stock Exchange has not indulged in any eve of election fireworks. There has been support for "Conservative victory" shares, such as Prudential...