HE question of the status of Formosa has been eagerly seized on by all those in this country who are tempera- mentally or doctrinally opposed to the idea of accepting American...

It was a pity that the atomic bomb should have dominated tho debate on civil defence in the House of Commons on Monday. If war should break out the chances are that it would be...

has filled half of his ibjects with enthusiasm and the other half with gloom and irrita- on. The terms of his return are uncertain ; so far nothing has been tid to show whether...

In a month's time the extraction rate of flour for the national loaf will be reduced to 80 per cent. This means that bread will be whiter, keep better, cut better, and be...

One of the more curious beliefs held by Lenin was that industrial and social problems of the most intractable kind could be rapidly solved by the use of electricity. There was...

The best excuse that can be made for the resolutions for the Forty-ninth Annual Conference of the Labour Party, published this week, is that they were drawn up before the attack...

On the eve of the defence debate in the Commons some light was shed on the position regarding technicians in the Forces. The light, it is true, was not very strong, and the...

The fine-art trade—the great auctioneers and the dealers in tiq ties and works of art—awaits with some interest the results of Stafford Cripps's recent promise to review the...

T HE adjournment prompts some thoughts on Ministers' fortunes during the session. Only one Cabinet Minister's reputation stands higher now than it did at the beginning of the...

To become a literary legend it is not essential to be old, but ere is no denying that age helps. Mr. Shaw, who on Wednesday lebrated his ninety-fourth birthday, and Mr. Belloc,...

S INCE the day when the North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel a whole range of authorities have asserted, in tones varying from confidence, through hope, to panic. that...

are sensible and constructive. But the general effect is of a large number of small- minded people with little grasp of realities, scant sense of responsi- bility,...

French artist was recently assessed for tax purposes on an income last year of 600,000 frs., or about £600. His own impression s that he had, in fact, earned rather more than...

me a picture of two of these birds which forms part of a full-page advertisement inserted by the North Thames Gas Board in the programme at the London Hippodrome. The caption...

depressing docu- t than the Resolutions for the 49th Annual Conference of the boar Party. I find it impossible to believe that the majority of British Socialists are as pompous,...

uninformed as to how they should be treated." This pleasing and dignified sentence, which I quote from the Oban Times, was followed by the statement that guidance in the matter...

HE dispatch of British troops to Korea has been an obvious possibility for the last four weeks. A very easy and a very economical way of averting or anyhow delaying the decision...

ence, Mr. Strachey said : " It is perfectly possible that the burden uld be spread justly among all classes, and that the well-to-do their full proportion and share."...

Washington I MAGINE if you can a continental nation of 150,000,000 people ranging from Atlantic to Pacific and from Lakes to torpid Gulf of Mexico quietly composing itself in...

y PETER FLEMING N a special communiqué issued from Tokyo on July 20th, the substance of which was reproduced in his report to the Security Council last Tuesday, General...

By SIR EVELYN WRENCH M Y first meeting with Mr. Mackenzie King remains a vivid memory. I was staying with Lord Grey at Ottawa, in 1906, and he introduced me to Mr. King, not...

Dordogne. O R perhaps 20,000. Or perhaps 25,000. The artists of that day did not date their pictures and the archaeologists of this day have not much better means for hitting...

By BERNARD FERGUSSON T HERE is no lovelier island than Crete. From the snowy tops of Mount Ida through the vineyards to the mouths of the turbulent rivers that topple into the...

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged 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...

hange of Status J. H. MORRIS (Christ Church, Oxford) UST a year ago, when I was working as a journalist in the Cairo office of a news agency, I announced that I was going to...

By HAROLD NICOLSON A FRIEND of mine has lent me an unusual book. It is the correspondence between Paul Claudel and Andre Gide, published by Gallimard, and edited with strength...

last review the New York City Ballet has staged several more ballets new to London, the majority of which have been created by M. George Balanchine. The programme on Monday,...

THEATRE ister Roberts." By Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan. (Coliseum.) far as I was concerned—and I realise how unkind such a gement must sound—the authors of this play lost...

Sylvia and the Ghost." (Academy.) 'ERYBODY knows by now how three British officers escaped from l ag Luft III through a tunnel they had dug, through the course four tired...

ORCHESTRAL.—Columbia issues two of the great classical con- certos. Szigeti plays Beethoven's violin concerto, with the Symphony Orchestra of New York under Bruno Walter, and...

The total of birds and other animals killed on the roads is considers at this season. The road-sense differs much in different species. Blackb in the experience of some...

I must confess that the range of colour in both pentstemons a petunias is new to me ; and a nurseryman mentioned that it was new him in respect of the newer French-bred...

Ma g azine Post) Id.

It has often been noticed and said that the interior of a young cuckoo mouth is of a brilliant orange tint ; and this is held to be one of t reasons why birds cannot refrain...

A FARMER has said that no farmer was ever ruined by laid crops. arg that these were usually heavy crops, which paid for the extra ex of harvesting. It is a brave statement, and...

large number of Jews had assembled at the House of Commons to witness . the demand by Mr. Rothschild to be sworn in as the elected representative in Parliament of the citizens...

Report by Daniel Farson A prize of £5 was offered for a letter applying for admission to college at Oxford or Cambridge from one of the following, stating hr they now feel the...

ONCE, lightfoot, with what ardent vow He visited the sacred hill Summer by copious summer ! Now The days close in, but still His windows, ere the light grow dim, Open on...

Set by N. K. Boot" The eightieth birthday of Mr. Hilaire Belloc which falls this week, seems to be a good opportunity for considering what happened in the passing years to the...

SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. Rymer, seems to have missed the point both of Mr. Ray's article on South Africa and also the statement by Dr. Schweitzer, which he quotes. Nobody...

your issue of July 21st that he did not enjoy hisjOurney in the restaurant , car. The "tavern" restaurant car in Which he travelled is one of eight which were Introduced as an...

SIR,—Mr. Jacks' letter seems to me to beg all the important questions. (a) What has age to do with mental age? Why not choose weight or height as a criterion? (b) The...

The Arab Refugees SIR,—At a press conference last week Mr. Moshe Sharett, Israel's Foreign Minister, declared that Israel was not prepared to take any further steps to open...

SIR,—Mak I be allowed to support G. Kirkbride's well-founded com- plaint about the new melancholy, depressing English railway dining- cars. Formerly one could mitigate the...

SIR,—Your correspondent, E. F. Davidson, does well to call attention to the injustice meted out by the National Health Service to private patients. I cannot see why a private...

these columns denounced the laws by which " biological aberrationals" are tried in our courts and sent to prison. May we ask what these critics would like to substitute for...

Sta,—There is one remedy which has not been tried. Let the law provide for the automatic suspension for long or short periods of driving licences on conviction for offences...

SIR.--I was interested in the attempt by Dr. Yapou, the Press Attaché of the Israel Legation, to refute your remarks on the position of Arabs in Israel. I should like to point...

SIR,—In H. J. Massingham's review of Dorset by Eric Benfield appear the words: " Poundbury is Danish, not pre-Roman." Might I call your contributor's attention to the report of...

SIR.—Mr. Rossiter certainly " sees pedantry where none is meant." I wasn't being pedantic about " ambivalent." Pedantry requires more learning than I have. I thought it odd to...

Sta.—The Oxford Mission to Calcutta has decided that the most fitting memorial to the late Father Douglass will be a hostel at Behala for boys employed in Calcutta, which thus...

SIR.—There have been two literary references in the Spectator recently to harvest fields, one querying the appropriateness of Tennyson's epithet " happy," the other quoting a ."...

GREAT dramatist, Ibsen, the liberating and tutelary genius A of what the text-books call modern European drama, and yet how hard it is to warm to him! What exactly is it that...

Rolling Down the Lea. By Oliver St. John Gogarty. (Constable. t SS.) IT was, of course, the Liffey that was lolling down the lea, though since the poet Spenser said so the...

Escape Story I Walked Alone. By The Earl of Cardigan. (Routledge l find Kegan Paul. i as. 6d.) A " VINTAGE " escape story, this—one which, besides offering all the usual...

Happy Odyssey. By Lt.-Gen. Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, V.C. (Cape. i 2s. 6d.) AT the turn of the century General Carton de Wiart, then a Belgian citizen decamped from Balliol,...

Morals Since 19oo. By Gerald Heard. (Dakers. 12s. 6d.) THIS is a book whose title admirably indicates its contents. If con- tains a description of British moral practice, of the...

The Curious Traveller. By H. J. Massingham. (Collins. 12s. 6d.) THE need for a reverent approach to nature has long been the burden of Mr. Massingham's song ; for his rounded...

English Cathedrals. Photographs and introduction by Martin Midi- mann, with descriptive text by Peter Meyer and foreword by Geoffrey Grigson. (Thames and Hudson. 305.) ENGLISH...

An Invasion that Failed. By Commander E. H. Stuart Jones, R.N. (Basil Blackwell. 2 is.) " Tun occupation of Ireland might lead to the end of the war. Investigations are to be...

A Broken Engagement. By Betty Askwith. (Gollancz. 8s. 6d.) The Desert in the Bed. By Royston Morley. (Methuen. 9s. 6c1.) Such Darling Dodos. By Angus Wilson. (Secker and....

1 3" i 2 o . e S c 1p A.I'F ! 0 :E R T 7 E ' a Baca NuA Eit- , g. _.e.A.'ssg WC £ 12 p E o , 4:1_ ,V VE N N yM $3 L iik. ,, ,. mill N 10i R 5 E 'A 12 A N . E.. I D Ar4 41 N.■...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded in the sender of the first correct solution to he opened after noon on Tuesaav week. August 8th.] ill•il•1111111•11•1111 1111 • • •...

By CUSTOS To the superficial onlooker the Stock Exchange now presents an odd spectacle. -While prices of existing securities drift downward there is still a keen demand for new...

NOT for nothing is Mr. Green the assistant librarian at Merton College, Oxford, where the ancient classics are chained to prevent their disappearing, and a ghost traditionally...

has been Circulation Manager of the Spectator since 1936, will retire at the end of July at.his own request. He will not sever his connection with the Spectator, but will. con-...