A statement of the Press Service of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union on a different subject—that of armed forces—has already struck precisely the...

The arrival in Hong Kong of General Li Tsung-Jen, who since the Generalissimo's resignation nearly a year ago has been acting President of the Chinese Republic, is merely, as...

A week before the General Council of the Trades Union Congros issued its long-delayed appeal to the unions to restrain their wage demands, the engineers had decided to persist...

Nobody has ever accused the Food and Agriculture Organisatien of lacking breadth of vision. The proposal advanced by Mr. Norris Dodd, its Director-General, at the opening of the...

Dr. Weizmann is a great man ; until little more than a year ago it would have been possible to say a great Englishman, but with the establishment of the State of Israel he has...

The Trusteeship Council of the United Nations has no consider- able achievements to its credit; all through its existence it has been treated as a platform from which the more...

T HE House was unusually full for a Monday afternoon when Mr. Strachey rose to move a non-committal motion on the Report of the Overseas Food Corporation. Despite his patent...

the Spectator to all parts of the uorld.

The animadversions of the Minister of Civil Aviation on the report of the court which investigated the Prestwick air crash of October 20th, 1948, raise points of great general...

The fact that the Bill making provision for festival gardens in Battersea Park in connection with the 1951 Exhibition got its second reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday...

T HE debate on the groundnuts question in the House of Commons on Monday was little more satisfactory than the situation that gave rise to it. The debate originated in the...

Duty raises more interesting questions than I recently suggested. The clause in the Finance Act, 1946, making provision for such exemption enacts that the duty shall not be...

were almost galvanised with astonishment when they heard the Minister of 'Transport, in the debate on the Festival of Britain on Wednesday, referring lightly to the projected...

I T is, I suppose, inevitable that in the present circumstances the Burnham Committee should have rejected the appeal of the teachers' panel (the committee consists of a...

silly recreation of gibing at the Press. It might have been supposed that his own contact with the Press on one notorious occasion would teach him some discretion in that field...

a set of applications for Professorial posts at the new North Stafford- shire University College has been lost. That at least is how I should put it. The advertisement actually...

Scanning the front page of the Daily Express one day this week, I observed for the first time under the title a notice: "Controlling Shareholder Lord Beaverbrook." I might have...

By WILSON HARRIS, M.P. EXT Wednesday Mr. Winston Churchill will have com- pleted his third quarter-century of existence. There is no special sanctity about this particular...

By SIR WILLIAM CLARK* B ASUTOLAND, the Bechuanaland Protectorate and Swazi- land, the three Native Protectorates as they are generally termed (though not quite accurately,...

By C. H. LEWIS F EW things are more unnerving for a headmaster than the knowledge that his chemistry master's discipline is weak. Boys out of control in the physics laboratory...

By MARK ARNOLD-FORSTER Berlin, November 19th. S INCE 1945 the Russians have twice taken big risks in Germany. In June, 1948, they accepted the possibility that their blockade...

By ELIZABETH ‘VISKEMANN C ALABRIA seems something very remote and a little fantastic to the Englishman. Is it in Spain or in Italy ? Well may one ask! From Naples, which seems...

By MARY COSH R ECENT opinion, in the popular Press and in illustrated magazines, on the profesion of artist's model is so conflict- ing that there seems to be room for yet...

the coast, eats into the land, and brings down rock after rock, so the sea of trade is eating away the lands of our old nobility. Not long since, the titled Plantagenet was...

Candide in the Castle By G. A. HOLMES (St. John's College, Cambridge) T HERE was once a young undergraduate whom, for the sake of simplicity and a certain Central European...

By HAROLD NICOLSON A NYONE who had been passing down Regent Street at 3.25 p.m. on the last two Fridays might have observed me standing in a queue outside a shop. Had they been...

BORIS CRISTOFF'S Godunov at Covent Garden was a most remarkabk and beautiful example of the musical-drama art. His voice is fine without being outstanding in itself, either in...

ti The Forsyte Saga." (Empire, Boxing Day.)-- , . A Run for Your Money." (Gaurnont and Marble Arch Pavilion.)---.. The Mid- night Kiss." (Empire.) MEnto-GotowvN-Mavra evidently...

THE THEATRE 'The seagull. By Anton Tchekov. (St. James's.) M iss IRENE HENTSCIIEL'S production (now transferred from ersmith to the West End) has upon this admirable play a f...

But, inevitably, the Brains Trust seemed sometimes, by its haste, to fall short of the full reply to important questions. Friday Forum had a compromise solution ; the debaters...

B.B.C. covers, and in general how well!—there has been Professor Plucknett's series, Looking At The Law, which surveys one English institution about which we need feel no...

Here, where we found a broken pot, A handful of blue, splintered tiles, A Roman sat, and saw around His Samian vase, his well-loved scroll Of Pliny, and the silver lamp That...

How do you like your radio discussions ? Extempore, or set down on paper to be read ? There is much to be said for and against both. The Brains Trust, for instance, owed half...

For some time I have been feeling that television was missing its chances in the matter of documentaries ; and it was refreshing to be refuted last Monday by the second of the...

Sut,—In asking the question, "Would there not be room for a venture of this kind in Great Britain ? " the writer of the interesting article on holiday camps in France overlooks,...

Eire and 0.E.E.C. SIR,—I should like to make one comment on the article by Mr. Rawle Knox which appeared in the Spectator of November 4th on my proposals to the 0.E.E.C. for a...

cannot let your remarks under the above heading pass without comment. The 1944 Education Act safeguarded a parent's right to deter- mine the type of education received by his...

SIR,—One can always rely upon Col. Woodhouse to give a careful review of Greek affairs. His article Peace in Greece ? shows no departure from the rule. He does not burke...

18th contained mn further references to the relationships of S.P.G. with the Church of South India which call for some notice. The case quoted by Rey. R. P. C. Hanson, in which...

Conservative manoeuvrings." He agrees that Conservatives should stand down in certain seats, but asserts that that is not enough and that some general arrangement cannot be...

Sta,—My attention has been drawn to Mr. Martin Cooper's reference in the Spectator of November 11th to my chairmanship of a discussion between Professor Dmitri Kabalevsky and a...

SIR,—Continuing Mr. Frederick Jellinek's letter, may I add that even more incredible than "the ignorance of the original planners" is the way in which the optimistic estimates...

TO THE "SPECTATOR"? SUBSCRIPTION RATES. AIR EXPRE.SS. By Air to nearest Airport and then by ordinary mail. Canada and United States ... 4 10 0 2 5 0 Australia ... ... ... 5 0...

There has never been a year ' I should think, when so many rare birds were recorded in this island. Whether the wonderful summer Wai the cause, or the developing popularity of...

sit,—It is always hard to describe in words the abstract qualities of painting or music, and the terminology of both is now inextricably mixed (" orchestral colour," for...

Stn,—The combination of my bad typing and my failure to correct proofs led to my sending Barris to school at Nantes instead of Nancy,—Yours, Pet erhouse, Cambridge. D. W. BROGAN.

A strange example of the mentality of dogs has been seen in my locality. An Alsatian living in one part of the parish made friends with a mongrel in another part. While they...

IN the way of village organisation I was much struck by an experienc e republished from the hunable journal of the West Sussex Village Produce Association_ The member wrote,...

SIR,—The period of uncertainty in China, to which Mr. Talunankar referred in the Spectator of October 28th, was surely ended by the • declaration of the People's Republic of...

SIR, —In support of W. J. Hopkin's letter about the arrival of the Spectator by post, my own recent experience is relevant. Last _week my copy had not arrived by Monday, so I...

In this temperate climate of ours (and it is to be remembered thit climate is not the same as weather) quite a number of deciduous shrub, seem to be on the way to becoming...

of the pentstemon and its immense circulation. I now hear that there is2 Pentstemon Society in the United States with study and correspondence circles and conversaziones "where...

SIR,—Mr. Derek Lindsay has spoilt the effect of his letter headed "A Doryphore Complains" by a misquotation. What he calls "the opinion expressed by Ronald Firbank " is a...

SIR,—" For nearly two centuries the vocal music of Handel has been represented in England, for all practical purposes, by one work—Messiah." In response to Mr. Court's. enquiry,...

Adventures With Words Name into Word. By Eric Partridge, (Seeker and Warburg. 25s.) Mn. PARTRIDGE, in his philological work, always combines true scholarship with a pungent...

Rilke : Man and Poet. By Nora Wydenbruck. (John Lehmann. 18s.) THERE are moments in reading Rilke, especially the later Rilke, when one feels that one is not listening to a...

Into the Wind. By Lord Reith. (Hodder and Stoughton. 255.) LORD REITH created the B.B.C., and most mortals would consider this a suitable monument, judged simply by standards...

George III, Lord North, and the People. 1779-1780. By H. Butterfield. (Bell. 30s.) Tins book is a by-product of a life of Charles James Fox on which Professor Butterfield has...

The Last Romantics. By Graham Hough. (Duckworth. I5s.) "BY what he did, what he was, and what he failed to do," wrote Pater of Coleridge, he "represents that inexhaustible...

Shakespeare and his Critics. By F. E. Halliday. (Duckworth. 30s.) HAVING stimulated initial prejudice, this book does its own work of conversion. Mr. Halliday has set out to...

Nineteenth Century Drawings, 11150-1900. By Graham Reynolds, (Pleiades. 30s.) Nineteenth Century Drawings, 11150-1900. By Graham Reynolds, (Pleiades. 30s.) IT is strange that...

Trans- THE fourth volume of M. Mauriac's work in translation contains two shortish novels with a common theme. It is a theme which lies very close to the heart of his...

Cost Price. By Dornford rates. (Ward Lock. 10s. 6d.) THE whole heaven and the whole -earth were created in six days. Mr. Dornford Yates, .working more - slowly and on a less...

By CUSTOS HAVING made an appropriately cautious response to the sudden recovery in gilt-edged prices, markets have now relapsed into a lethargic condition. On yield comparison...

guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct inn of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week. Ei.imber 6th. Envelopes must be received not...

PLI I I -A P4 clnIk AT v i C U _ t tc R P1 i il W NI L A RIL AN D s E A R $ F4 A ri lE1 SOLUTION ON DECEMBER 9 The winner of Crossword No. 555 is S. Woon-H1LL,...