M R. BEVIN'S statement in Parliament last Tuesday, rein- forced by Mr. Churchill's notable speech the next day, shows that he and the Government are fully alive to the concern...

T HE capture of Tobruk—and, indeed, the success of any enterprise Sir Archibald Wave11 may set his hand to— has been so much taken for granted that the importance of the actual...

The findings of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the actions of Mr. Robert Boothby, Member of Parliament for East Aberdeenshire and till last Tuesday Parlia-...

The speeches made in the Tokyo Parliament by the Japanese Premier, Prince Konoye, and Mr. Matsuoka, the Foreign Minister, may be read as appeals to the United States or as...

The arrival at Sofia of Colonel Donovan, the trusted repre- sentative of President Roosevelt, is most timely, for the aititude of Bulgaria is now the critical point for Hitler's...

The situation at Vichy is as potentially important as it is per- sistently obscure. Last Saturday Marshal Petain made an un- expected journey to a small station on the...

and drew from the Prime Minister a brilliant defence of his new Cabinet organisation. It remains to be seen how the new system works. Mr. Bevin read a long speech, which was...

debate in a full House. Once again he created the great occasion, and with flashes of humour and invective he dominated the whole scene. Speaking with the experience of one who...

and Mr. Shinwell apparently want a much wider use of com- pulsory powers over persons and property. It was difficult to pin them down to . precise points, and several Labour...

of Defence who was neither Prime Minister nor in fact Head of the three Service departments would be powerless. So much for Ministers of Co-ordination of Defence. The new...

In making new provisions for fire-fighting the Government ave very wisely taken even wider powers than are needed fcr the immediate purpose, and propose to apply the principle...

affecting wages and compensation and, ot course. financial policy. The House will judge by results, which is the yardstick preferred by the Government itself.

It is not more essential for this country to look ahead in the matter of shipping than in the supply of aeroplanes and muni- tions. Indeed, the two go together, for we cannot...

It would be strange if many of the improvisations to which we have resorted under stress of war did not teach us much that could be of value in peace-time. Mr. Malcolm MacDonald...

Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : The House gathered after the recess in a mood of expectancy. Captain Margesson made a successful debut with a long list of ques- tions...

Postage on this issue: Inland std. Foreign and Imperial ta. ranad., id

I T may argue some disproportion that in a week in which President Roosevelt has delivered the only Third In- augural in the history of the United States the American who is...

0 journalist can feel happy about the suppression of any newspaper, however repugnant he may personally find its ews. Freedom of the Press is one of the ideals we are defending...

maintaining national unity, meaning a National Govern- ment, for three years after the wat is very interesting. Mr. Churchill, who, if I remember rightly, was one of the...

destruction of five German bombers in the raid on Sunday night—the last to be reported as I write. Five is not a large number, but it was not an extensive raid ; so the...

look at me hopefully and cry 'Daddy.' "—Mr. Malcolm MacDonald (on residential nurseries) at Cheltenham. "He sez about every child he meats calls him Par, and he takes it for...

G. ells is outraged to find 'Rome still unbombed. What on arth has the R.A.F. been up to in his absence? By Rome r. Wells (whose emotions fill in about half a page of the inday...

he is to make anything of a success in the defence he proposes to put up in the House of Commons. The House cannot vindicate him without throwing over its own Select Committee,...

By STFtATEGICUS Some navies do not like the aircraft-carrier. It is true that it appears to meet a distinct need. It is in effect a portable aero- drome; and when this is said...

By THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK HE first half of the twentieth century is likely to be regarded by those who have lived through it and survive a later period as the Age of...

By THE HEADMASTER OF RUGBY T AM not here concerned to " defend " the Public Schools. 1. Defence may be both necessary and desirable, but the last to undertake it should be...

By OUR AIR CORRESPONDENT A NEW phase of the war in the air is about to begin. It will probably turn out to be as distinctive and as separate from what goes before and what...

By A. L ROWSE S 0 life passes for William Carnsew. He was anxious to do his best for his boys, writing to Lord Mountjoy, who seems to have been a family connexion, on behalf of...

.• Dear Brutus" At the Globe Mn. JOHN GIELGUD'S production of Dear Brutus is the kind of theatrical " event " which we had almost forgotten: an all-star caste, a play which...

varieties. It contains three things, omatoes, melons and rhubarb, which are perhaps more strictly fruit, though they are extremely useful foods. Mr. Berry, and he various...

The effect of snow on birds is often to make their habits m new and even fanciful. Rooks, ordinarily great travellers, aming the countryside in crafty reconnaissance parties,...

Think for Victory The chairman of the Allotments and Gardens Committee, Mr. H. Berry, whose criticism of me appears in The Spectator of last week, refers to "Mr. Bates and...

The Sadler's Wells Company THE Sadler's Wells Ballet have returned to London, not to their own home but to the New Theatre, which is a more convenient site in these days of...

Escape." At the Empire—" Dawn Guard." At all cinemas. WHEN did you last see Nazimova? Probably at the old Shaftesbury Avenue Pavilion in Salome, moving under a great semi-circle...

Sm,—Depressing but hardly convincing—that, I feel, is a not unfair summing-up of your article, "The Cabinet and War-Aims." We are fighting the second great war in twenty years,...

Sts,--It is indeed only too true that as a nation we are lazy thinkers. In his letter, Mr. Fyfe shows himself to be a conspicuous example. He apparently fails to understand the...

Snt,—A vote of thanks to the Rev. James Johnston for his letter in your issue of last week. What he says is both true and opportune. No one who knew the conditions of the weekly...

SIR,—The best way to economise space is to present this letter as a series of propositions, and to leave it to your readers to think out their arguments, for and against, so as...

SIR,—I think it is time that someone should take up the cudgels on behalf of the billet-snatchers referred to in The Spectator. Many of these so-called " drones " have been...

[In view of the paper shortage it is essential that letters on these pages should be brief. We are anxious not to reduce the number of letters, but unless they are shorter they...

Snt,—May I take the liberty of answering Sir Herbert Kealy's letter in your issue of January r7th? To take Sir Herbert's questions as he has raised them: (r) Some of the...

Snt,—Mr. Trevor Dannatt, discussing flats of the future, refers to the absence of reliable data on the preferences of slum dwellers and adds, "Mass-Observation please note." May...

SIR,—Of recent years, in contradistinction to the totalitarian States, we have fallen into the habit of counting ourselves a democracy. This is surely regrettable if it tends to...

SIR, —In his letter, published in your last issue, commenting on Prince Vladimir Obolensky's clear-sighted article on America and the Far East, the pro-Japanese sentiments of...

and the Far East" demonstrates Japan's ambitions in directions to which we, as well as America, should give heed while there is time. If she succeeds in absorbing China—or being...

Sm,—" Janus" suggests that reading for black-out evenings might be thought out. There is one series which I found of great interest. While reading Carlyle's French Revolution I...

am afraid I cannot see Mr. Graham Greene's review of Eric Gill's autobiography in focus either with the man whose book he is reviewing or with contemporary English Catholicism....

SIR,—It should hardly be necessary to point om the sophism in the strange argument of the Duke of Bedford, which seems designed to show that there is very little difference in...

Sni,—Poets have fallen upon bad times, so there is no need for the reviewer to be deliberately- unjust and seek to make matters worse. But this is what Mr. Geoffrey Grigson...

of January 17th, I suggest that an excellent book for any one who is looking forward to having plenty of spare time for reading is Frederick Harrison's Choice of Books. I know...

Sik---To kill cockerels as soon as they are hatched would indeed effect a saving in chicken feed, but-surely -this I, impracticable for most of us at any rate: As enthusiastic...

The Sense of the Past IN his introduction to this collection of papers by the late Bishop of Truro, the Dean of Chichester says : "He was a better liturgist because he knew and...

Sea of Destiny. By H. Dyson Carter. (Hutchinson. los. 6d.) THE " Sea of Destiny," whose history, commercial and strate- gical importance form the subject of this book, is...

Russia. By Bernard Pares. (Penguin Special. 6d.) THAT a completely new full-length book on Russia, from the dawn of history to the latter half of 1940, by the sanest and best-...

Town and Country Tomorrow. By Geoffrey Boumphrey. (Thomas Nelson. as. 6d.) IF the physical replanning of our towns and our country is not already a topical issue, or does not...

The Streets of London Through the Centuries. By Thomas Burke. (Batsford. los. 6d.) Jr you expect a book on the streets of London to tell you some- thing about the streets built...

EVEN allowing for the distractions of war, this book has appeared at a very appropriate moment. Simultaneously with the war has come a very important change in Britain's...

Translation. from Horace, Juvenal, and Montaigne. By R. C. Trevelyan. (Cambridge University Press. 75. 6d.) IN speaking of his translation of two of Montaigne's essays, printed...

Devotes of the short story—among whom "include me out," as Sam Goldwyn used to say—would probably tell me that Miss Elizabeth Bowen's gifts are very well suited to it; and it is...

IF it means anything at all to him, the name of Edward Hanslick suggests to the average musical reader the embodiment of academic obscurantism and of a peevish opposition to the...

MR. CHURCFM I has written a short. foreword for this 194o edition of Pitt's War Speeches. The comparison -between these days and the time when Napoleon's invasion-army waited on...

to say that her travel book on the Rhodesias and Nyasaland is. easy to read, and has a fresh and sympathetic approach to many human problems, African and 'European. She has a...

6d.) SIR FREDERICK O'CONNOR is not a particularly good writer, but at least half of this autobiography makes agreeable reading because of the Very substantial interest of its...

IN 1924 Stalin delivered a series of lectures at Sverdlovit University under the title Problems of Leninism, in which amogf other things he followed current orthodoxy by...

NATIONAL PROVINCIAL BANK LIMITED STATEMENT BY THE CHAIRMAN, COLIN FREDERICK CAMPBELL, ESQ. RELATING to the accounts to be submitted to the one hundred and eighth annual...

LLOYDS BANK LIMITED ADDRESS TO THE SHAREHOLDERS OF THE BANK BY THE CHAIRMAN, THE RT. HON. LORD WARDINGTON IN order to shorten the formal business at the annual general meeting...

STATEMENT BY THE HON. RUPERT E. BECKETT THE annual ordinary general meeting of Westminster Bank, Ltd., will be held at the Head Office, 41, Lothbury, E.C. 2, on Wednesday,...

Campbell, R.D. (Chapman and Hall. 58.) "I HAD just written a story," so Commander Campbell begins his guileless little book of B.B.C. gossip, "which I proposed to send to the...

By " CUSTOS " THESE are not the days for ritualistic company meetings or for pee.rings into the trade horoscope. Everybody will therefore approve the banks' decision to reduce...

THIS rather odd collection of historical incidents is only partly explained by the misty Teutonic foreword on the subject of history—" the spiritual mirror of nature," whatever...

MIDLAND BANK LIMITED STATEMENT BY THE CHAIRMAN, THE RIGHT HON. R. McKENNA Is view of the circumstances in which the annual meeting of share- holders is to be held, on January...

BRIT1SH-AMERICAN TOBACCO CO. iNCREASED TAXATION AFFECTS PROFITS THE thirty-eighth annual general meeting of the British-American Tobacco Company, Limited, was held on January...

for one guinea will be given to the sender i the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be j,n ed.Envelopes should be marked with the words "Crossword " and...

The winner of Crossword No. 96 is A. M. Abbott, The Old icaraee, Moulsford, Berkshire.