Almost the only concession which the workers seem inclined to make to the feelings of the Labour Government which they elected is to stagger their strikes. Not until the...

p RESIDENT TRUMAN is just as convinced as General dc Gaulle that the Atlantic Pact and the arming of Europe are mutually dependent. The language of his message to Congress which...

One of the few relevant facts which it is impossible to discover from the figures given in the Home Office's annual Criminal Statistics for England and Wales is whether or not...

News from the Paris headquarters of the 0.E.E.0 always begins as a more or less authentic "leak." The fact that, at the time of writing, Mr. Paul Hoffman, in Washington, has not...

The Lords having refused to withdraw their remaining 32 amend- ments to the Steel Bill, they are deemed by the Government to have rejected it, and the Government itself now...

The most depressing aspect of the whole depressing affair is that if a similar strike were to break out tomorrow—and on present form nothing is more likely—there is no guarantee...

N . debate in this Parliament has had so much of the true Test Match atmosphere as the stage of the Steel Bill which was reached on Monday in the Commons. That issue could not...

Since 1948 will take its place in the history of education as the first full year in which the school-leaving age was raised to 15, it was desirable that the Ministry of...

The Minister of Agriculture's admission—discovery would perhaps be a better word—that there is a crisis in the "plans and hopes" of his Department has not aroused much interest...

L., AST week-end's speeches by Mr. Churchill and Mr. Attlee, both on the Conservative Party's statement of policy, The Right Road for Britain, have been called, with an...

there sits a sub-editor whose curious and unenviable task it is to write headlines for the cricket ncws from London. The London office does its best to ensure that he is seized...

by Janus—on a rather scabrous American war-book called The Naked and the Dead may be interested to know how it has been selling. The publishers say that, although they have re-...

are the nicest, the most beautiful, the most inspiring words you have ever heard spoken ? " Various people recalled remarks which had given them extreme pleasure when they were...

regularity with which (on the whole) we pay them, the manner in which the Com- missioners of Inland Revenue acknowledge their receipt always strikes me as singularly ungracious....

I FEAR that I made a deplorable impression on the Russian Ambassador, with whom I fell into conversation the other night. Having in the past derived much pleasure and interest...

great deal of superfluous correspondence having been exchanged, the local Planning Authority has granted my application for permission to erect a summer-house in my garden on...

By lsillstETTA S. JUCKER Rome I N one of the last of his brilliant articles in &faille, Georges Bernanos observed that the forces which govern the world today have annexed...

S PECULATIONS about the future trend of events in China generally include some reference to Taiwan, as Formosa is called out there. In the twilight of the Kuomintang's fortunes...

By E. M. FRIEDWALD T HE sweeping implication contained in - this title at once calls for qualification. For not all scientists are Marxists— not even the majority of them. But...

By FREYA STARK O NE of the pleasantest places to come upon when travelling is the small provincial capital of an agricultural district, well-to-do and not important in the...

notice of the House of Common , ti state of a portion of the juvenile population of the Metropolis. A short time ago, he said, he was anxious to perceive with his own eyes what...

By D. W. BROGAN I N 1910, so the story runs, Theodore Roosevelt visited Berlin and gave an audience to the Kaiser. William II asked his visitor why it was that so many American...

By KENNETH HOPKINS T the far side of the cricket field, and a little apart from the main colliery, stood a long row of buildings. These were much older than the colliery proper,...

By liAR01.13 N1COLSON R. JOHN BETJEMAN, being representative of the alert generation which rendered Oxford vivid between the wars, has taught us that good taste is the most...

THE annual exhibition of Artists of Fame and of Promise which remains open at the Leicester Galleries until August zoth is an inexacting collection well suited to a hot summer's...

THE CINEMA Rope of Sand." (Plaza.)—" Family Honeymoon." (Odeon, Marble Arch.) — " Knock on Any Door." (New Gallery and Tivoli.)—" Conspirator." (Empire.) Rope of Sand, directed...

THERE has been great outcry since the war both for and against the State subsidising of music and ballet, and some very eminent authorities have adopted an unaccustomedly severe...

Mr. John Pudney's script (very well handled by Mr. W. P. Rilla) did somehow communicate its author's intention—to convey a feeling of return to a place once visited in war-time....

moral, which he did firmly: (a) The effects of an atom bomb on a human being arc frightful; (b) There is no defence against it ; (c) The only protection is "a system of world...

(Late Sung) Clarity ! This bird, this branch of pine, A gull-wing cloud above the cataract : The sure, calm balance of its space and line ; The colour come exact. The heart...

The indubitable oddity of the. week was reserved for television. Dr. Daniel Q. Posin, of U.S.A., gave a talk on the working of the atomic bomb. Seeing that, by way of...

with Cockaigne and all that. The tumultuous applause that shivered the air is our annual disproof that the English are reserved at their meeting with old friends.

IN my last notes I recorded a certain disappointment in a documen- tary feature about Holland, Men Against the Sea ; and on its heels came another documentary, Journey to Malta,...

Miss Gentude Lawrence, I suppose it is fair to say that the title was a warning to expect romance rather than realism. The theatrical excerpts, undoubtedly, will have had great...

SIR,—In this age of science and materialism it is indeed pitiful that the citizens of our country should be so misguided and misinformed on a subject of vital importance to...

Real Docker, I formed the impression that the writer was relating facts confined to the London dock worker, with whom he is so intimate ; surely he should have said so, as this...

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER • Sia,—A curious amount of ignorance seems still to prevail as to the origin of the doctrine of "unconditional surrender," if one is to judge from the...

Sra,—I did not seek to defend, only to explain, "Enosis." Its use as the name of a political movement for the unification of Cyprus and Greece has no doubt puzzled many who...

SUBSCRIPTION RATES Ordinary edition to any address in the World. 52 week. Li 10s. Od. 26 weeks 15s. (Id. Air Mail to any Country in Europe. 52 weeks £2 7s. 64. 26 weeks LI 3s....

SIR, —I am an American returning to England after eleven years. I go back to pay my respects and to reaffirm my ancient allegiance. I shall first go into Westminster Abbey, the...

Sia,—Recent correspondents have advocated, if only by implication, the banning of the Communist Party in this country. However tempting this move may seem, it could scarcely be...

our political approach may be, we should be wise to try to understand the real situation in Eastern Europe today? To say, as does the author of your leader Cross or Sickle: " In...

As this year's harvest opened so prosperously we heard with sadness of the death of Sir Rowland Biffen, the greatest perhaps of all benefactors to English corn. His creation of...

Sui,—Wirden has already supplied the details for which Mr. Mallalieu asks. A. D. Pougher died in 1926, and there is an account of his career in the 1927 edition (Part I, pp....

Awhile ago, by an arrangement between the universities, it was agreed that Oxford should concentrate on the economic side, and Cambridge on the scientific ; and the division of...

garden is the rooting up of alstrurneria. This lily is a favourite of mine, but in its more common form (the newer colours arc much less rampant) it spreads outrageously, like...

Sta,—David James's article, Ashburton Day, in the Spectator of July 1,5th, was ,welcome. Considering the popularity of rifle-shooting—which is much more widespread than the...

On the subject of melanism and black rabbits, letters from Ireland assure me that it is a general belief that black rabbits, with white marks on the cheek, arc the product of a...

the Spectator of July 15th on the "Battle of Sydney Street," at which I was present, I can say that there was a universal belief that there were three men at the outset,...

Last week some 20 lb. of run honey was taken from a hive in my garden. It is excellent honey but dark almost to the point of blackness in the jar. A good deal of this year's...

SIR,—" Ex-assistant Master's" proposal of a five-year tenure for head- masters fills me with horror. In my experience it takes at least a year, some- times two, for a new...

Two Shakespeares Shakespeare. By Ivor Brown. (Collins. 12s. 6d.) SHAKESPEARE'S devotees, Mr. Brown tells us, "have naturally seen their paragon as they want him ; that is, in...

author of this unusual auto- biography, was a distinguished water-colour painter, a New Zealander by birth, who died in London in 193t at the age of forty-three ; Sir Michael...

The Peaceful Revolution. Speeches by Herbert Morrison. (Allen and Unwin. 7s. 6d.) MOST collected speeches, particularly those of Cabinet Ministers, deserve their place in the...

Black Liberator : The Life of Toussaint Louverture. By Stephen Alexis. Translated by William Stirling. (Benn. 18s.) Toussatsrr LOUVERTURE rose to supremacy at the end of the...

HISTORIANS, even more than the general reader, have cause to be grateful to Mr. McHugh and the publishers for producing this book. No comprehensive, or even objective, work has...

IT is difficult to realise that there are people living today who escaped by only a few years the fate of those poor wretches who as "parish apprentices" were dragged off at the...

A Russian Journal. By John Steinbeck and Robert Capa. (Heinemann. 21s.) IN these days, when the Russian obsession for secrecy has reached such a pitch that Pravda itself is on...

BORN a mere half-century ago, the art of the film was bound from the beginning by existing conventions of mass-cntertainment- novelettish conventions, stage conventions, the...

The River Line. By Charles Mor g an. (Macmillan. 8s. 6d.) EVERY fiction writer who is not merely paying out a rope of narra- tive faces the necessity of choosing and shaping a...

winner of Crossword No. 538 is Mits. L. M. LEGG, 19 Allan Way, Acton, London, W.3.

IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of she first correct Solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, August 9th. Envelopes...

By CUSTOS WHETHER or not the Government is tackling—or planning to tackle— the dollar problem on the right lines, markets are steadily proceeding with their task of making the...