24 MAY 1935

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The Czech Elections The result of the general election in

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Czechoslovakia i3 of European importance. Its outstanding-feature is the success of the recently organized German Nazi party (known technically for electoral purposes as the...

NEWS OF THE WEEK

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H ARDLY less important than Herr Hitler's speech is the reception it meets with throughout Europe. On the whole the response has been good. The con- viction that, as Mr: Baldwin...

OFFICES:" 99 Gower St., London, W.C. I. Tel. : MUSEUM

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1721. Entered as second-class Mail Matter at the New York, N.Y. Post Office, Dec. 23rd, 1896. Postal subscription .308. per annum, to any part of the world. Postage on this...

The League and Abyssinia The gravity of the crisis created

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by the relations between Italy and Abyssinia does not diminish. Italian tactics at Geneva are not yet fully disclosed. It is possible that Baron Aloisi is empowered to _conform...

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Mr. Lloyd George on Public Works Mr. Lloyd George's article

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on another page effectually disposes of the principal arguments against an energetic policy of public works in time of depression. The question is not, as he shows, whether...

Paying Both Ways Mr. Chamberlain, in his somewhat arbitrary way,

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asserted last Tuesday that owing to the -change in our fiscal system the' proportions between direct and indirect taxation have ceased to have significance and are of purely...

Clearing House Follies An interesting and forthright report on the

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recent, mushroom growth of exchange clearing agreements was presented to the League Council this week by an unusually authoritative Committee. Clearing agreements are a...

China's Prestige The' decision of Great Britain and other European

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Great Powers to follow the example of Japan and raise their legations in China to the status of embassies is entirely to be welcomed. It will add to the prestige of the Nanking...

An Ambitious World Policy The United States Senate is rather

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strong in indivi- dualists, and not too much importance must be attached outside America to the comprehensive resolution on foreign affairs introduced by Senator Tydings on...

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Oil in Britain The regulations under which prospecting for oil

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in Great Britain may be begun and mining operations undertaken have now been issued by the Board of, Trade and laid on the Table of the Houses of Parliament. Licences must be...

Lawrence and the Arabs No one will question the decisive

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influence exercised by Colonel Lawrence on the war in the East. But for his personal prowess, his imaginative understanding of the Arabs, his shrewd choice of associates, and...

In all the conflicting currents of political rumour only one

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certain fact emerges. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald will shortly resign the Premiership, if he has not already done so. He made a hard fight to remain, but unfortunately for him he...

The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary correspondent writes : Members

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are sharply divided on the significance of Herr Hitler's speech. There is a minority who see in it -nothing but a very astute move to play off England against France. They...

Farmers and Factories The sugar beet controversy raises two distinct

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questions —the assistance, if any, to be given to the farmers and the assistance, if any, to be given to the factories. What- ever may be said of the farmers' claim it is at any...

The actual debate itself produced only a general de- claration

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of goodwill on the part of the Government towards the Reichstag pronouncement. It was obvious. that the Cabinet had not had time to give the necessary study to the proposals to...

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THE GERMAN PROPOSALS T HERE are only two ways of treating

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Herr Hitler's speech—to regard it as fundamentally insincere, a deliberate screen behind which preparations for war can be pursued ; or to hail it, as Mr. Baldwin did in the...

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF LONDON

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nuE homage has been paid to John Nash, the architect, in memory of his death a hundred years ago. The occasion should not be allowed to pass in mere praise of his work. This...

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It was my privilege to know Jane Addams in Chicago,

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in London and on the Continent over a long period. The point of a familiar saying is lost-if we say merely that she was the greatest woman of the United States. She was entitled...

The latest Epstein controversy is getting incredibly portentous. Consider its

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history. Mr. Epstein carves for the offices of the British Medical Association some statues eminently suitable for the offices of the British Medical Association. The B.M.A....

" I SEE HER AS AN EAGLE."

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" Lord Londonderry's peroration in the House of Lords : Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation . rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her...

In urging that Foreign Ministers should revert to the Old

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Diplomacy, as conducted habitually through Ambas- sadors, and forgo the new practice of frequent personal meetings at Geneva or elsewhere, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst raises many...

. Mrs. van der Elst may have a warm heart

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and a long purse—I believe she has both, and I wish her nothing but well in her campaign against capital punishment—but I think she could do with a little co-operation in the...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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E LABORATE as Herr Hitler's arrangements for the broadcasting of his speech on Tuesday night were, his advisers seem to have left the world outside Germany out of account...

How far is the right—not that any actual right can

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be claimed at all—of the descendants of famous men (or women) to veto a play about them to be carried. " Ros- setti," dealing with the poet and artist, is objected to by a Mr....

I see that both Sir Samuel Hoare and Lord Lothian

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are mentioned as possible successors to Lord Willingdon as Viceroy of India. Lord Lothian at present lacks one almost indispensable qualification for the post—a wife ; but it is...

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THE CASE FOR PUBLIC WORKS

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By the RT. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE, 0.M., M.P. wiry should. expenditure for Public Works and V borrowing for such expenditure be stigmatized by the timorous, the ,didactic and the...

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THE GERMAN CAULDRON : II. A BRITISH POLICY

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By H. POWYS GREENWOOD I HAD not intended to listen in to Hitler. It did not seem that anything he might say would affect the fundamentals of the European situation, with which...

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THE VENERABLE BEDE By E. E. KELLETT TWELVE hundred years

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ago, tomorrow -died one of J the best and greatest of English writers. Directly, we know little of him, and that little has to be-gathered from incidental hints of his own ; for...

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" THE ELDERS OF ZION "

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By S. K. RATCLIFFE A T Berne, on )lay -14th,.the astounding case concerning the so-called Protocols of . the Elders of Zion came to an end. Suit had been brought by...

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THE HOMEWORK PROBLEM

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By JOHN BELL (High Master of St. Paul's) T HE question of homework in schools has lately raised its head again in many quarters, and there are signs of a more persistent...

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LAWRENCE AS I KNEW I11111

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By F. YEATS-BROWN S O much has been written, and some of it so well, by the people who knew Lawrence long and intimately, that I only add my memories to those already published...

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MARGINAL COMMENTS

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By ROSE MACAULAY T ANTALIZING sums of money were bandied about the Law Courts last week. Though Miss Ivy Dawkins and other matrimonially disappointed young ladies failed to...

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STAGE AND SCREEN The Theatre

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"Hervey House." By C. R. Avery. At His Majesty's Tins play may best be described as a domestic Cavalcade. Its subject, forty years of the changing fortunes of a ducal mansion,...

The Cinema

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" Brown on Resolution." At the New Gallery IN spite of its title, which rather suggests a treatise by a Professor of Moral Philosophy, this is a film of naval adventure. A great...

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Vieux Paris

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[D'un correspondant fransais] LES necessites d'un urbanisme eclaire et rationnel viennent de conduire les Miles parisiens a faire disparaitre un assez grand nombre de vieux...

Music

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Opera Buffa at Covent Garden A BUBBLE of nonsense, iridescent, buoyant, alarmingly fragile yet miraculously unpricked—such was the first act of L'Itallana in Alfieri. There is...

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COUNTRY LIFE

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Ice Saints The year has upheld so drastically the reputation . of the Drei Eismiinner that some details about these ill-omened saints may be worth repetition. They have...

A common experience, which continues to surprise a good many

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people, was peculiarly emphasized:` The gardens in the valley, especially the drier valleys, suffered very much more severely than those on . the hill. I made a sort of census...

A Garden Catalogue

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The most interesting and :original experiment in rural arts and crafts that I know is being tried out at Dartington Hall in Devon. Research has been, and is being made into...

Careless Mothers Starlings will not nest except in a hole,

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and as holes arc in many places not frequent they are often in difficulties. They will enlarge nesting holes of boxes meant for tits and they will oust any hole-dwelling bird...

Western Nightingales -

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No little excitement has been roused in Hereford by the arrival of a very *beat nightingale. It has not been known in the past either in the west or north of England ; and the...

Frost or Fire?

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How does it come about that the frost has effects which suggest rather fire . than cold ? Green leaves look black— as indeed do the centres of the killed blossom—as if they had...

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THE GERMAN CAULDRON

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR. ] Strt,—It is a great pity that Mr. H. Powys Greenwood should allow his sympathetic nature to run away with his reason in writing on Germany...

THE FOREIGN SECRETARY [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,

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—I notice that your Parliamentary Correspondent, with his usual antipathy to the Foreign Secretary, is again trying to queer the pitch for him. I am convinced that what he says...

THE ATTACK ON THE BANKS

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[To the Editor of TIIE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Referring to the Marquis of Tavistock's letter in your issue of 17th inst., may I be allowed to say that no sound banker has ever...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week " paragraphs. Signed...

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The publication of that

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unfortunate document, the Greene Report (unfortunate because its supporters seem to have read only one sentence of it) has set the opponents of the Beet Sugar Industry active...

THE KING AS PRESBYTERIAN

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In his second letter Mr. Dudley Symon seems still -to hold that the Monarch is in some way the head of the Church of Scotland, though not...

THE BEET SUGAR MILLIONS

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sia,—The Sugar Industry Enquiry Committee found that the lowest cost of producing cane sugar is from £5 to £7 per ton : of beet sugar £12 to...

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A METHOD OF SOCIAL SERVICE

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rep LA 0 the Editor Of TIIE SPECTATOR] Sin,—Social Service offers an outlet for the enterprise and enthusiasm of the younger generation, which they have not • been slow to...

INDEPENDENT REVIEWING

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Janus's comment on the' choice 'by the 'editor of the Daily Telegraph of Sir Charles Petrie to review my book on England raises an...

CRITICS AND CRITICISM

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sm,—In case there should be any misapprehension with regard to the paragraph concerning this Opera House in your issue of May 10th, may I make...

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Victorian Reading

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By EDMUND BLUNDEN " Yea :.how dignified and worthy, full of privilege and happiness, Standeth in majestic independence the self-ennobled Author ! " Tim quotation is from one of...

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Why We Are Stupid

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HUMAN beings—the fact is, alas, only too obvious—are not very intelligent. They persist in believing in propositions which there is no reason to think true; and in embarking...

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Quakers _ in the. Bud

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A Sidcot Pageant. By Evelyn Roberts. (Dent. 3s. 6d.) " AND what, you may ask, is Sidcot ? To the geographer it is a village fifteen miles or so south of Bristol on the Exeter...

Historical Mysticism

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The Life and Writings of Giambattista Vico. By H. P. Adams. (Allen and Unwin. 8s. 6d.) Ix 1668 " the city of Naples itself, with memories going back to the ancient Virgilian...

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A Source of Merriment

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THE collaboration of two artists, who have created master- pieces of whatever kind, is always an interesting subject for examination, apart from any consideration of the nature...

A Citizen of the World

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Fifty Years of International Socialism. By M. Beer. (Allen and Unwin. 6s.) Tnis is an extraordinarily interesting little book. It is at Once a volume of memoirs, making very...

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Victorian Peep-Show

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CRINOLINES at the Crystal Palace, check - trousers- in the Mall, flamboyant whiskers in -the House of Commons, incredible solidities of plush and of polished mahogany in...

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Six Irish Plays

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More Plays. By Lennox Robinson. (Macmillan. 5s.) IN the Abbey Theatre and the Gate Theatre, Dublin possesses the two most important and - distinctive repertory theatres in the...

Leonardo da Vinci

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A Catalogue of the Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle. By Kenneth Clark. (Cambridge University Press. 90s.) THE...

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Death of a Terrorist

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ON July 13th, '179a, Jean-Paul Marat Was • assassinated by Charlotte Corday. The motive of the assassination was political. Charlotte Corday believed that Marat was the leading...

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Fiction

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i3y WILLIAM PLOMER Land of Women : The Tale of a Lost Nation. By Katharine von Dombrowski. Translated from the German by the Now that almost everybody writes novels, we ought...

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THE LOST LANGUAGE OF LONDON By Harold Bayley To vary

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Hamlet's phrase, one might say that there is nothing either true or false but thinking makes it so. Once adopt a theory, and it is remarkable how many plausible confirmations of...

THE BLUE TUNNYMAN

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By Andrew Andrews 'The Blue Tunnyman ' is a sailing yacht of medium tonnage and ideal appointments, suited to all weathers. Had she been the heroine of Mr. Andrews' book (Cape,...

THE KINGDOM OF THE CAMERA

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By Thorne Baker The Kingdom of the Camera (Bell, 7s. 6d.) is a tantalizing book, for Mr. Baker describes little known but exciting uses for the camera today without explaining...

Current Literature

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THE AGRICULTURAL MARKETING ACTS By H. M. Conacher , A handy commentary on the' Agricultural Marketing Acts And Marketing Schemes Was much needed. There is a good 'deal of...

MARINE GUNNER

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By Patrick Mee Mr. Patrick Mee has written a simple and attractive account (Cape, 7s. 6d.) of his- adventures. He devotes most of his book to an account of the twenty-two years...

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THAT word " useful " has no really special meaning,

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suggests • nothing you might not - expect hi the cars under review. Except for one thing, it need not have been used at all. Practically all modern cars are useful in one way or...

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Finance

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Economic War " There is one question which naturally must present itself today to thoughtful people who cannot but be aware of all the uncertain factors which exist in the...

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INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE.

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some interesting points were touched upon by Mr. W. H. Brown, the Chairman of the London and Manchester Assurance Company, at the recent annual meeting of that Institution....

Financial Notes

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NEW CAPITAL ACTIVITY. THE Stock Markets during the past few days have been quieter, dealers no doubt awaiting further political develop- ments, both local and international....

RAILWAY WAGES AGAIN.

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• Home Railway stocks are now hanging fire a little owing to a report of revival of demands on the part of the workers that there shall be a full restoration of the cuts in...

The Trade Returns for the month of April were of

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a fairly- encouraging character, especially when the quietude of international trade as a whole is considered. In fact, in this matter of slackness, of international trade,...

PHOENIX ASSURANCE.

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The Report of the Phoenix Assurance Company for the past year shows good results, especially as regards the Fire Account 'where there was an underwriting profit of £204,000 from...

With regard to conditions in Greece, the position has, of

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course, been gravely affected by the recent internal strife. and while, as Mr. Hambro said, the situation has been firmly and wisely dealt with by the Greek Government, it has...

HAMBROS BANK MEETING.

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At the recent annual meeting of Hambros Bank, the Chairman, Mr. R. Olaf Hambro, referred to a point with which I deal in another cqiumn, namely, the chaotic state of the...

A Hundred Years Ago

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" THE SPECTATOR," MAY 23RD, 1835. NATIONAL EDUCATION. Lord BROUGHAM called the attention- of the Peers, on Thursday, to a series of resolutions on -the subject or education,...

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SIALSIIC A

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A,131ERYS T C TIVEIWI Al I T HI MEEIRICIEMBILMAIO AI SI CIA DLI N AIY1.11 RI S1011C. IA 14 ll lAll Al PI CIIIRIH N • RI BiL4I01 A1Nl IIA G A R Al IT R NI Nil AM • SII N...

"The Spectator" Crossword No. 139

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BY ZENO [A prize of one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be marked " Crossword...