OUNTRIES which enter into far-reaching commitments abroad, as this country has done with the general con- sent of its people, must possess the means to honour the commitments if...

content of any speech by Herr Hitler is completely profitless, and the prospect that repre- sentations by Sir Nevile Henderson would materially influ- ence the Reichstag...

N EGOTIATIONS aiming at the construction of a Peace Front in Europe have been progressing in London, Moscow and Paris, but little indication has been given of the results...

pro- vided for in the 26 decrees issued by the French Govern- ment to mobilise the national resources for defence and to meet an extra expenditure of £85,000,000 on armaments....

seem to testify to a fixed determination on the part of the Prime Minister not to raise the modest level of ability and distinc- tion in his Cabinet at any cost. Public and...

engaged this week in endeavouring to sap the foundations of the Little Entente and thereby open the way to a revision of the Balkan frontiers. The chief instrument is to be...

Lord Baldwin inaugurated the lectureship founded in memory of Sir Robert Falconer at Toronto University were characterised by a wise humanity. The third and last was concerned...

League's second Bulletin is an admirably lucid sketch of the general framework of civil defence as a whole, into which technical, social and economic problems fit. To achieve...

no one by surprise. The House was more crowded than for Budget Day, but when it became known that there would be a debate on Thursday, it was realised that the real hostility to...

They had come prepared for the worst, which most people envisaged as another 6d. on the income tax. But there was hardly any criticism of the Chancellor's pro- posals. Only the...

of controversy on Monday. Opinion was evenly divided between those who felt that this would be taken as a return to the policy of appeasement, and those who regarded it as...

55 have not yet carried their case. They have, however, persuaded the Committee on Pensions for Unmarried Women that there is a good deal to be said for that case. The...

Minis- terial appointments can hardly be said to have been received at Westminster with acclamation. Indeed, the announce- ment that Mr. Burgin was to be made Minister of Supply...

S IR JOHN SIMON'S second Budget has been received with approval but without enthusiasm. Some call it humdrum, others businesslike ; all agree that it is less painful than it...

T HE appointment of the Marquess of Lothian to suc- -1 ceed Sir Ronald Lindsay as British Ambassador at Washington lends considerable pertinence to an article on a later page of...

Slovakian affair likely before it happened, I am told that the Daily Worker stated on March 6th that the occupation of Prague would take place on the i5th. It may be so, and...

L ORD LOTHIAN has been mentioned in most informal discussions on the impending vacancy at the Washing- ton Embassy, but dismissed on the assumption that in such a position a...

as being one of the only three ships in the British Navy which could cope with the German pocket-battleships now cruising off Spain, may not go off to Canada with the King after...

but as a matter of interest I may, perhaps, transcribe a sentence from "A Spectator's Notebook" of June 4th, 1937. Re- ferring to the announcement of the Bishop of London's...

deserves, and will no doubt get, the serious attention of the Committee now sitting to propose changes in the law of libel. A young man of 24, who admitted in cross- examination...

to receive the freedom of the city last week three persons—out of three thousand—called out some- thing which, so far as it was audible amid the general en- thusiasm, was...

obviously means something other than what is meant when morality is spoken of in Germany."—Dr. Goebbels. JANus.

By GUENTHER STEIN Hong - kong, April. W HILE the Japanese Army is embogged in China, the Japanese Navy, almost unnoticed by the world, has made an advance far into the South...

By A TRAVELLER IN EUROPE T HERE is much to be said for the convention that mem- bers of the diplomatic service, like civil servants generally, shall be immune from public...

By ELIZABETH WISKEMANN T HE confusion of traditions, if not of races, in Yugoslavia is considerably greater than it ever was in the Czecho- Slovak Republic, for young King...

are published Herr Hitler will have delivered his Reichstag speech and the world will know what he thinks of Mr. Roosevelt's proposals. At the moment, most political observers...

By WILSON HARRIS I T is more than twenty-one years now since President Wilson's famous Fourteen Points were formulated, but they are still a storm-centre of forensic conflict....

By R. A. SCOTT-JAMES L 01W BALDWIN has always been at his best when stating the broad human issues which lie at the back of statesmanship, describing in terms of morality or...

By BERNARD DARWIN HEARD the other day of a great house where the major 1 domo said to the head gardener, "Keep the cuckoos away from His Grace's window in the morning." Whether...

[Von einem deutschen Korrespondenien] IM Kriege erschien ein Roman mit dem Titel "A," - der -grosses Aufsehen miter der Jugend erregte. Er hande:te von dem Auftreten eller...

the Fiihrer's speech of April A8th. It is perhaps unfortunate that Herr Hitler should have chosen as the medium of his reply to President Roosevelt a full dress oration from the...

By HAROLD NICOLSON HE House of Commons, when it reassembled on Monday, had more or less recovered from the shock dealt to it by Dr. Burgin's appointment and the consequent...

indeed that we may see some startling new appointments after April 28th. Yet there are those pessimists who contend that once the monochromatic system gets a firm hold there is...

Sir Nevile Henderson has hurried back to Berlin; Signor Mussolini has been purring to Lord Perth, and the Duke of Alba will relay to London the purrs of General Franco....

to the House. Mr. Burgin is much respected as a Minister and it is generally agreed that he is admirably fitted to inaugurate this Ministry of Supply. Captain Euan Wallace,...

that to the very depths of his soul he desires friendship with this country. It is painful for him to reflect that we possess in Great Britain no statesman of his own calibre....

down, savoured with humour and satire. For almost the first time the huge ambitious Denham studios have produced films of the year. Even the thickest of the ham—the old among...

reserved until the end of the season, for it means that they impression of a greater faith in their merits, and would enable the company to repeat them more often if the...

The Proud-pied Month We must all have felt (for at least a week in this April) 'iat England in "the sweet o' the year" is of peculiar loveli- ,ess. There are a good many...

of The Gloucestershire Countryside (St. Loe's House, Amberley) I did that excellent county magazine a certain injustice. It has a much longer past than I was aware of : it is...

It is partly bad, partly good news, that the supply of local craftsmen is becoming unequal to the demand. The virtual extinction of the apprentice system which survived for a...

Gifts from other gardens give an added pleasure, and for myself I await the flowering of the latest gift with excitement. It consists of bulbs of the new monbretias, hybridised...

" In England Now" • A good number of these plants are very nearly indestruc- tible. The wild cherry multiplies itself, almost as successfully as the elm. Gorse may be burnt or...

is also apparent in the periodic publications of the magazine of the Rural Industries Bureau (which incidentally has just changed its headquarters to Manchester Square, London,...

must feel grateful to the editor of The Catholic Herald for the tone and content of his letter. The dilemma which faces those who accept Christian values is clearly and forcibly...

de la Bedoyere in your issue of April 21st writes: "There is a great deal of moral indignation in the other camp at the virtual domination by two or three Great Powers of the...

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, — Two incidents have recently confirmed my opinion that our schools are seriously neglecting a very important subject— the history of the...

[Tothe Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Slit,—If the mischief done were not so great and the dan- gerous effect of their tactics were less terrible, there would be no little humour in...

SIR, — NO Christian can fail to concur with the spirit and aim of the letter which Mr. Michael de la Bedoyere addresses to you under the heading "Christianity and War." I fear,...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The comments in your columns on Lord Rothermere's recent book, Warnings and Predictions, imply that their writers have not read the volume...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—A member of the Government is reported to have said, "halt, major road ahead." These words were addressed to a member of a neighbouring...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The more one thinks about it the more one realises how much the international situation has deteriorated since Mr. Chamberlain became...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Mr. Worsnop is mistaken in thinking that the figures he quotes about the average age at death of total abstainers and of moderate and heavy...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sut,—As one who has recently worked and travelled for eleven months in all in the Negeb, officially called the Southern District of Palestine,...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—There is a truly remarkable omission in the Report by the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the prevention of road accidents. No...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Many must have compared, in a general way, our present situation with that of the Napoleonic crisis of 1803-05. Both have at least one...

The Great Chronicle of London (A. L. Rowse) ... 714 Matthew Arnold (Edward Sackville-West) 716 Jewish Champion (C. E. M. Joad) 718 Control of International Trade (Honor Croome)...

his resolution of them, however partial, a very important step in the integra- tion of Action and Contemplation. Mr. Trilling has seen that to tell Arnold's story usefully must...

MR. LEWIS, having in his own expression become "Jew- conscious," has written a book in which he very decently bids us treat Jews as if they were human beings. He discusses the...

IN these days when the conclusion of a trade agreement is hailed with as much enthusiasm, or regarded with as much suspicion, as that of a military alliance, when the freeing of...

Recusant Poets. With a Selection from Their Work. Vol. I. St. Thomas More to Ben Jonson. By Louise Imogen Guiney. (Sheed and Ward. as.) MISS GUINEY began this magnificently...

Irish Cavalcade. By M. J. MacManus. (Macmillan. 8s. 6d.) IT was a happy idea, and, as far as Irish history is concerned, an original one, to make up a book of source-material...

The History of Bedford College for Women. By Margaret J. Tuke. (Oxford University Press. nos. 6d.) NDIETy years ago Mrs. Elizabeth Reid, a widow who was neither very wealthy...

Records and Reactions, 1856-1939. By the Earl of Midleton. (Murray. I2S. 6d.) AT the age of 82 Lord Midleton, as a politician, belongs largely to .a past generation. In...

European News Agency, is just back from Prague, where for a year he was in closer contact with official quarters than any other journalist. His Eyewitness in Czecho-Slovakia...

trated, 10/6 net) might run thus : a mother and widow at t5—knew Rhodes, Barnato, Kruger and other famous South African figures of the '9os—trekked with baby son from Kimberley...

The Cruise of the Raider 'Wolf.' By Roy Alexander. (Cape. 8s. 6d.) THE ' Emden ' everyone has heard of ; her name has become a byword, and is even now upon the lips of our...

THERE have been various attempts to solve the riddle of George Borrow. His writings are autobiographical ; and yet it might almost have been easier to write his life if they had...

fantasia on the life of Professor J. R. Neave, otherwise known as Ironfoot Jack," and many of his London readers will feel, examining the portrait opposite the title-page, that...

IN this book Mr. Bronowski puts forward a theory of poetry as religion. He takes his stand upon Sidney's Virtue and Wordsworth's Nature against Shelley's view of poetry as...

Harrap's Standard French and English Dictionary. Part II. English-French. Edited by J. E. Mansion. (Harrap. 635.) WITH the publication of the second section of this dictionary,...

By KATE O'BRIEN The Village. By Mulk Raj Anand. (Cape. 75. 6d.) A Good Home With Nice People. By Josephine Lawrence. (Cape: 75. 6d.) Harlequin House. By Margery Sharp....

This entertaining book, subtitled "A Short History of the Shakespeare Industry," is a genial but ruthless survey of the process of commercially shrewd bardolatry which began...

Kenneth Scott Latourette In his first volume Professor Latourette dealt with the first five hundred years of the Church's life, her conflict with the Empire, and her expansion...

Everyone interested in mediaeval life, mediaeval sculpture and his own parish church should read Miss M. D. Ander- son's new book, Animal Carvings in British Churches (Cambridge...

A STUDY IN ENGLISH LOCAL AUTHORITY FINANCE By Joseph Sykes Mr. Sykes' book (P. S. King, 12s.) covers the post-War period from 1919 to 1935, with general comments ranging up to...

DEVON IF there be a man who has visited Devon and returned with disappointment in his heart I have yet to hear of him. On the other hand, it is sometimes wet, even in Devon and...

Europe is so agreeably neglected as the Seine, or for so little reason. If it were not for the well-known fact that every car-owner likes to dis- cover things for himself and,...

of the Bentley is to set a new fashion in which we have been disgustedly compelled to know as " Sports " cars, that horrible word will fall into disuse, or at least mean...

two highly important aspects, reliability of gadgets and sensible design of ceach- , work. It imposes little or no test on engines and chassis, even though hard driving must...

blame, for the type was demanded if not actually evolved by the public themselves, and it is very likely that he is now relieved at the prospects of sanity returning to his...

The R.A.C. Rally Whatever you say about the picnic it may be for the cars themselves, compared with the Monte Carlo, you will not deny that the drivers in the R.A.C. rally to...

and last year's is the geared-up fourth speed, called the overdrive. This means that at all speeds up to 75 miles an hour it is a three-speed car. When the road opens out you...

the most delicate greens and silvers, turning in autumn to curtains of gold and red and brown which are reflected in the broken surface of the water like the polychromatic...

NOBODY in the City expected a good Budget and everybody is now agreed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's solu- tion is not a bad one. It has been obvious that despite the...

I am afraid there is little in Mr. Robertson F. Gibb's review at the Union-Castle meeting to encourage Ordinary stockholders in hopes of early dividend payments. He em- phasised...

I see that at the Rand Mines meeting Mr. John Martin has confirmed my suspicion that the proceeds of the issue of reserve shares made last year were devoted to the pur- chase of...

Now let us turn to share markets which, so far, have taken the additional tax proposals without flinching. Many readers may be wondering whether the surprisingly large increase...

I feel that the gilt-edged outlook is no better and no worse after the Budget statement. Although the avoidance of a higher income-tax is a "bull point," it is also very clear...

UNION-CASTLE MAIL STEAMSHIP CO. PASSENGER BUSINESS WELL MAINTAINED MR. ROBERTSON F. GIBB'S REVIEW THE annual ordinary general meeting of the Union-Castle Mail Steamship...

KING LINE PROGRESS KING LINE is one of those tramp steamship companies which have done surprisingly well in the difficult conditions of 1938. not only repeating the 8 per cent,...

THE ROYAL LONDON MUTUAL INSURANCE SOCIETY, LIMITED YEAR OF SUBSTANTIAL PROGRESS THE seventy-eighth annual general meeting of the Royal London Mutual Insurance Society, Limited,...

CONTINUED PROGRESS THE annual general Court of the London Assurance was held on April 26th in London. Mr. R. Olaf Hambro (the Governor) said that the Life Depart- ment had had...

attractions as a lock-up speculation of the 5s. Ordinary shares of the Brush Electrical Engineering Company. Since the capital was reconstructed in 1938 no accounts have been...

KING LINE FIFTIETH YEAR'S TRADING JUBILEE BONUS TO SHAREHOLDERS SIR F. VERNON THOMSON ON THE OUTLOOK THE 50th annual general meeting of The King Line, Limited, was held on...

THE ALLIANCE TRUST CO., LTD. SATISFACTORY RESULTS OF DIFFICULT YEAR DIVIDEND OF 25 PER CENT. MAINTAINED THE annual ordinary general meeting of The Alliance Trust Company,...

INVESTMENT COMPANY'S STRONG POSITION Investment Trusts have not failed to feel the effects of last year's fall in security values and industrial recession. The Alliance Trust...

Shareholders in many rubber companies will take heart from the remarks of Mr. Eric Miller at the meeting of Mendaris (Sumatra) Rubber Estates last week, remembering that Mr....

DURBAN ROODEPOORT DEEP INCREASED OUTPUT MR. W. H. A. LAWRENCE'S REVIEW MR. W. H. A. LAWRENCE, the Chairman, presided at the annual meeting of the Durban Roodepoort Deep,...

World Auxiliary Insurance Corporation, Limited, was held on April 25th at Winchester House, E.C. Captain the Right Hon. C. C. Craig, D.L. (the chairman), said that with regard...

Notwithstanding the trade recession of last year, results from a number of engineering companies disclose record profits, and show that the recession has been a good deal less...

RAND MINES, LIMITED POSITION SATISFACTORY IN ALL RESPECTS DIVIDENDS MAINTAINED FINANCIAL POSITION FURTHER STRENGTHENED MR. JOHN MARTIN'S SPEECH Mn. JOHN MARTIN, the chairman,...

Mr. R. Olaf Hambro, the Governor of the London Assurance, gave it as his considered opinion at Wednesday's meeting that hull insurance premiums are still below an economic...

effort to improving the terms of in- dustrial insurance policies. The extent to which their efforts have met with success may be judged from the statement of Mr. John K. Wiseman...

General Sir Frederick Gascoigne, the chairman of the Army and Navy Stores, explained to the shareholders yesterday that it was due to the economies resulting from the regrouping...

(Continued from page 740) LEGAL AND GENERAL ASSURANCE Many leading insurance companies did a slightly smaller volume of new business in 1938 than in 1937. The Legal and...

ARMY AND NAVY STORES, LIMITED IMPROVED SHOPPING FACILITIES THE annual general meeting of the Army and Navy Stores, Limited, was held on Wednesday, April z6th, on the company's...

Once again Mr. W. H. A. Lawrence, the chairman of Durban Roodepoort Deep, was able to announce very encouraging progress when he presided at last week's meeting of the company...

CROWN MINES, LIMITED SATISFACTORY DEVELOPMENT RESULTS LARGER ORE RESERVES MR. JOHN MARTIN'S REVIEW THE annual meeting of Crown Mines, Limited, was held on April 21st in...

219th ANNUAL GENERAL COURT THE 219th annual general Court of the Royal Exchange Assur- ance was held yesterday at the Royal Exchange, London. Lord Bicester (the Governor) said...

Several insurance company chairmen have recently referred to the unsatisfactory conditions prevailing in marine insurance. Captain C. C. Craig, chairman of World Auxiliary...

" I do not remember, except for the period of the Great War, living through a year which from the point of view of general business anxiety, approached that of the twelve months...

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[A prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given w the sender of the first correc solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be marked...