The Burmese Government has acted with exemplary speed and firmness, and there is no reason to believe that the situation is other than well in hand. Nonetheless the murders last...

T O judge by the published statements on the fighting in Indonesia, the only thing which is really clear about it is that nobody wants it. The Dutch authorities, who were the...

It was perhaps symbolic of the traditional Cinderella status of thl'Territorial Army that it was accorded only the rump of Monday's House of Commons debate after the question of...

The debate which Mr. Clement Davies succeeded in forcing on the newsprint question elicited from the Government no sort of convincing defence of its latest attack on the Press....

Wednesday's long proceedings in the Commons on the Lords' Amendments to the Transport Bill, and Lord Llewellin's interest- ing speech in the Lords on Thursday on the Third...

It is to be hoped that the Government will waste no further time before translating the recommendations of the Hobhouse Report on National Parks (Cmd. 7121) into action. For too...

That clause of the Anglo-American loan agreement which forbids the United Kingdom Government to administer quantitative import restrictions in a discriminatory manner, and which...

It is good to find that, amidst thd press of varied problems com- peting for Parliamentary attention, an M.P. has seen fit to ask for elucidation as to the respective rights of...

I T is perhaps appropriate that this column should take a backward glance over the week-end at the Adjournment Debate which Mr. Clement Davies succeeded in initiating on...

The report of the Catering Wages Commission on tips for workers in unlicensed places of refreshment, issued at the end of last week, gave the only possible answer to a difficult...

A T Morpeth in Northumberland last Saturday 5o,000 miners and their families, attending a gigantic gala, picnic and band contest, paused to listen while three Cabinet Ministers...

of course quite chimerical vision of the first meeting of the Economic Planning Board, which was addressed early this week by Mr. Herbert Morrison. I see them arrive—the leaders...

elapsed since I last spent any length of time in bed, and during this period many new things which affect the well-being of the patient have been invented. Among these is...

U NDERSTUDIES, I know, are potentially figures of romance, and the widespread disappointment caused last week by Janus's announcement that he was going away on holiday may in...

on August 15th will cease to represent the King-Emperor in an ancient but compara- tively little-known Indian State, " eight weeks in which to sort out, burn or otherwise...

By G. B. THOMAS T HE refusal of the Soviet Government to take part in the Con- ference of European Economic Co-operation which took place in Paris earlier this month makes it...

By OWEN TWEEDY OST - WAR problems—international or domestic—are today a common heritage all the world over. The international variety with its wider implications—is more or...

By MARGOT WOOD C ZECHOSLOVAKIA'S recent acceptance of the Anglo-French invitation to Paris to discuss the Marshall plan .was greeted with such relief, and one might almost say...

By MICHAEL LANGLEY Juba. T HE astonishing thing is that such a place exists outside the realm of fiction, that friendly blacks should be walking about in nothing but a few...

By N. M. ROBERTS T HE Welsh accents begin at Chester, and schizophrenia sets in with them. The corridor is full of rucksacks and climbing ropes ; the compartments of those dark,...

to place a firm order with their newsagent. or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold copies are non-return- able....

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HE decision of the Government to restrict the import of news- print has aroused what is known as a bad Press. Newspapers of every shade of opinion have...

THE THEATRE " Men Without shadows " and " The Respectable Prostitute." By Jean-Paul Sartre. (Lyric, Hammersmith.)--" Trespass." By Emlyn Williams. (Globe.) THE two Sartre...

" The Hucksters." (Empire.)—" Down to Earth." (Gaumont, Haymarket, Marble Arch Pavilion.) FOR those who enjoyed The Hucksters as a novel, the film of it will aggravate as much...

I REMEMBER all the music of the Ages, Pipes of Pan, Or songs of Man, The music of the Sirens And poems of Lord Byron's- All the music of the Ages, I have heard it, I remember it...

season at Covent Garden on July 22, has been the subject of much speculation amongst balletomanes. This gr4ndchild of Diaghilev's famous troupe, which claims legitimate descent...

entertaining, pro- grammes of the week was City Fathers (North Regional), a recorded excerpt from a meeting of Kingston-on-Hull city council. For forty minutes we heard these...

IRE-LAND Sia,—h is a sad and depressing sign of the times that a T.C.D. man can be found capable of inflicting on you the melancholy trash contained in Mr. Douglas Brown's...

of our lives to trying to bring about a better feeling between Northern and Southern Ireland cannot help regretting the deplorable tone of the letter of that typical Irishman,...

Spectator of July 18th, calls for two comments. (1) A casual reader of his letter might assume (quite wrongly) that all the Field-Marshals he mentioned belong to Eire. May I...

SIR,—In your note on the Home Health Services you refer to the state- ment in the circular by the Minister of Health to local authorities that there may not be enough dentists...

Sia,—May I offer a few comments on the criticism, in a letter published in The Spectator of July 11th, written by my friend Sir T. Vijayaragha- vacharya, of my article on the...

Sta,—Mr. Wechsler's letter in your issue of the 23rd May drew attention to action taken by the L.C.C. in depriving 80 London schoolchildren of places offered to it by...

Stn,—Being one of the few people in this country to have read the Balkan Commission's Report, I am horrified at the way in which the -Press is suggesting that the whole...

am astounded that the B.B.C. should sanction this glorification of a spectacle which it would be illegal to promote here. Of the excitement prevailing, Edward Ward says, " I...

of the Founda- tion for Research in Education is 79 Wimpole Street, W. 1. Mr. Hard- man's secretary inadvertently gave me an address six months old, and the Foundation (from...

SIR,—I am grateful to my friend Mr. Heckstall-Smith for his courteous, informative and critical letter in your issue of July 11th. I agree with him that the subject of...

SIR, —I have been most interested by Lady Iris Capell's article Effort on Offer, and find myself in a glow of agreement that Acts of Parliament alone are rarely able to bring...

Snt,—I am in full agreement with the Headmaster of Middlesbrough High School in his insistence on the value of the discipline of languages and mathematics for those pupils in...

What is the commonest bird? Those who have especially studied the statistics of the subject say the blackbird and the chaffinch, which exceed in numbers, so it is said, even the...

A CERTAIN leadership in the campaign, which becomes more vigorous, against the pollution,of our rivers, is being given by the British Society of Field Sports. It is wise and...

This year more than ever before I have enjoyed feasts of wild straw- berry, both in the raw and in jam. They have fruited in the wild in unusual profusion ; and I am convinced...

Aneurin Bevan's claptrap about the Will of the People and his feeble.. threats to the House of Lords recall the observation of a great member of that House and a great Prime...

ThOse excellent drinks, cider and perry, brewed widely in England for some 800 years or more. need-special varieties of apple and pear, because . these contain more tannin as...

Sm,—Can it be that such a man or god as Janus is not a member of the Society for Pure English and does not know its thirty-sixth tract, published in 1931 and ccntaining a...

Sta,—Mr. Moore-Bennett's statements in your issue of July 11th about the cost of living in Cyprus astonished me. I lived in that island from May, 1945, to the end of March,...

SIR, —In a reply in the House recently Mr. Bellenger stated that the annual rate of venereal disease per 1,000 troops in 1946 was 32.8 for the British Army in Britain and 158.6...

The Real Soviet Russia. By David Dallin. (Hollis and Carter. 18s.) THE approach of these three authors to their subject could hardly be more varied. Mr. Edward Crankshaw, whose...

Clark on Ruskin No English writer of equal distinction and importance is at the moment more neglected than John Ruskin. For a few shillings the second-hand book-seller will...

MR. 0:3G is primarily a historian, and history and biography are not identical. Mr. Ogg begins by stating that Dr. Fisher was born in 1865. He then adds that "in the annals of...

Tins book has been a labour of love, and in it Mrs. Holdsworth has put together what might be called a short history of the Quakers from about 165o to 1695, with emphasis on the...

Sing ip Barren. By Edward Dahlberg. With a Foreword by Herbert Read. (Routledge. 12s. 6d.) " How droll and sorrowful it is to hear again the names of those Venus-Poetasters whom...

IN the last decade of the fourteenth century, rebuilding of the nave of Canterbury Cathedral led to reconstruction of the cloister, which adjoins it to the north. This was...

THE author of this book lived in Russia during his childhood, at the time of the 1917 Revolution. He was Deputy Press Attache at the British Embassy to Russia during the war. He...

As a magnum opus of bibliography within small compass, no praise could be too high for Dr. Fussell's very handsomely produced book. Our farming literature is enormous for the...

THE PILGRIMAGE OF ARNOLD VON HARFF, the Hakluyt Society's publication for 1946, is one of the most interesting of the travel journals which that society has so ably brought -...

Chatterton Square. By E. H. Young. (Cape. 9s. 6d.) Happy Now I Go. By Theresa Charles. (Longmans. 9s. 6d.) GENTILITY may, or may not, be the curse of English life ; it is cer-...

LORD HARDINGE OF PENSHURST spent more than forty years in the public service. At the outset of his career he served at Constanti- nople, Sofia, Berlin and Washington....

[A Bock 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 August 5th. Envelopes...

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By CUSTOS LESS than a year ago few people would have predicted that the gilt- edged market, whose brilliant performance was then a most powerful stimulus to the rise in...