T HE opening of the United Nations session on Palestine at Flushing Meadow has not been propitious. The Indian member of the steering committee which will settle the agenda for...

At a little after eight on Tuesday evening, in the course of the second day's debate on the final stages of the Road Transport Bill, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe pointed out that for...

In the present situation in India it must be counted as matter for satisfaction that open violence has been confined in the last week to a few local and unimportant outbreaks....

The problems created by the shortage of paper multiply. News- paper publishers and book-publishers are all hard hit (the latter much less than the former) and some further...

The principal virtue of Wednesday's debate on atomic energy in the House of Lords was that it posed quite explicitly the question of how long the world can wait for Russian...

On May Day the new coal year began, and on Monday May 5th the five-day week will be introduced in the industry. This is clearly a time for taking stock of the situation. It...

The public's reaction to the strike of the London stevedores and lightermen has been one of deep disgust. The more closely the strike is examined the more irresponsible and...

T HE first three days of this week in the House of Commons were to be devoted to the Report Stage of the Transport Bill. In practice, this proved not to be the case ; for, in...

The steel industry, above all others, must be known by its fruits, for the simple reason that the various bodies which go to make up the industry are very sparing of information...

As the results of the winter frost and the spring floods come to the surface the true magnitude of the task facing the countryside is revealed. It is gigantic. The increased...

O F the four participants in the Moscow Conference, Mr. Marshall alone has so far given a considered verdict on the proceedings, though Mr. Sevin has promised the House of...

in any stage- play, nor on the screen except as Shell in " Odd Man Out," I read the news of his death with real distress. For never, I think, have I seen on the film acting so...

a man whose rooms I was visiting a copy of the last issue of World Radio ; it was dated September zst, 1939, and is beginning to look a little yellow. Its owner happens to have...

of St. Asaph,rather strikingly in assessing the position of the dis- established and disendowed Church of Wales in the course of his University sermon at Cambridge on Sunday,...

T HE volume of protest against the Bankside electrical power- station, I am glad to see, is growing. The more the project is examined the more indefensible it appears. I have...

of which the United States is a prominent member, it is not unreason- able that Americans, both official and unofficial, should refrain from action deliberately designed to...

on any trains but boat-trains will involve the public in serious inconvenience and actual loss. With the train-service reduced, it will be necessary to get to the stations...

splendid and classical of our smaller English cities to a friend from Paris, I took him down to Bath on Saturday night. I knew, of course, that it is most unwise to make any...

By ANTHONY NUTTING, M.P. W ILL de Gaulle succeed? Although a recent visit to Paris has helped me to understand some features of the French political situation, I am still...

By KENNETH WILLIAMS T HE history of modern Egypt begins with Napoleon's attempt to upset from that country Britain's position in the world. A3 everyone knows, that attempt was...

By THE BISHOP OF LONDON T HE use of military terminology in the sphere of religion is dis- liked by some and derided by others, but there is no doubt that it has a long and...

By' FRANCIS ELWYN T HE recent Montgomeryshire case in which the licensee of an inn was fined £75 for his manager's refusal to supply a traveller with food without lawful excuse...

By R. G. D. ALLEN E VERYBODY talks about the cost-of-living index, but few really know what it is. The existing index is intended to measure changes in prices paid by...

By GWENDOLEN FREEMAN IS our speech—the speech of the ordinary man in the street—grow- ing less picturesque? Through elementary education, through the cinema and the wireless,...

By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. F OR some people—good luck to them—Cup Final day means a trip to London, sightseeing, a...couple of beers, and home by the evening train. But for...

By HAROLD NICOLSON O N the motion for the adjournment last week, Mr. Peter Freeman raised the problem of corporal punishment in schools. He contended that this form of...

THE Busch Quartet played two of the op. 18 quartets (Nos. I and 4), the first Rasumovsky and op. 131 and 132 at their concerts on April 25th and 28th. The L.P.O. under de Sabata...

• Black Narcissus tells a faltering story of frustration and failure. A- group of nuns open a school and dispensary in an old palace on a crag in the Himalayas. They are...

THE THEATRE MR. ALEC GUINNESS leads the Old Vic Company's attack on this great play with distinction and considerable originality. Most actors see Richard as a poet who was...

WAS it quite by accident that the Third Programme's Shakespeare festival last week opened with Stephen Potter's How to Appreciate Shakespeare ? Whoever was responsible for the...

HAIM SOUTINE died in 1943, at the age of forty-nine, a minor master and the greatest of the Parisian expressionists. He had a habit of trying to regain possession of works he...

Sta,—In his fascinating review of the new English edition of Le Corbusier's Vers Une Architecture, Lionel Brett discusses very brilliantly the great issue of whether a new...

SIR,—Janus in his remarks upon the Trafalgar Square statue of Gordon writes: " Some London effigies might well be replaced." ,How un- deniably true! But the question that occurs...

HOW MUCH NATIONAL SERVICE ? SIR, --Most people in this country today have a vague feeling that in the present disturbed state of the world some form of National Service is...

Snt,—Apropos of Mr. Cooper's article on Bach, is it not rather an aspersion on all that we know about Bach's clear, honest and simple character to suggest that all he wanted to...

Sift,—I was most interested to read the short article by Sir W. Beach Thomas in the Country Life section of your issue dated February 14th entitled A Soldier's Nickname, and...

SIR, —Is not Mr. Harold Nicolson taking Ben Jonson's description of Shakespeare's classical equipment—" small Latin and less Greek "—a little too seriously? Small is a...

Sist,—In your issue dated. April 18th you published an interesting letter from two correspondents in Ceylon criticising amongother manifesta- tions of British culture and the...

Water-culture is g oin g ahead at a surprisin g rate, even in En g land, as well as in the ¶Jnited States. Experiments on a considerable scale are bein g carried throu g h at...

A detail of the art of succession, which I saw last week at the H.Q. of cloche cultivation (The Gran g e, Chertsey), filled me with envy. Under lon g lines of cloches,...

Doubtless the hard-hearted member who ur g ed its destruction will be deli g hted to know that the frost and snow of February and March were on his side. An ac q uaintance of...

THE golden a g e is doubtless a myth, thou g h some rural critics continually wish us to return to it. However, the villa g er of that misty period was doubtless better off in...

SIR,—Professor Trevelyan's English Social History contains jud g ements on the repeal of the Corn Laws which ou g ht to be compared with his remarks on the same subject it, some...

Sm,—Winchelsea is our herita g e from the days of the first Edward. Its hill-top site and lay-out in s q uares make it a notable example of thir- teenth-century town-planning....

Fewer rabbits have been shot. We, in company with other farmers, could spare very little time for ferretin g . Rabbits increased, but not alarmingly. Last May our nei g hbour...

SIR,—In the extreme West Country, the very districts where the steel trap is most in use are the very districts where rabbits most abound—and continue to abound.—Yours...

That merry and pictorial bird, the g reen woodpecker or yaffle, was accused a few weeks a g o of attackin g Kentish bee-hives. A little later a Kentish M.P. had the hardihood to...

Franz Kafka's Boswell DR MAX BROD'S relation to Kafka must be without parallel in literary history. It was Dr. Brod's devotion and discernment which pre- served the greater...

Carlota Joaquina, Queen of Portugal. By Marcus Cheke. (Sidgwick and Jackson. 15s.) MR. CHEKE writes with verve and gusto (although the hypercritical may complain that he does...

Democracy and Industry. Constance Reavely and John Winnington. (Chatto and Windus. 7s. 6d.) Tins is an important and timely little book. Among the non-indus- trial " general...

The Trollopes, an exhaustive psychological survey of that profuse family by two transatlantic students of our nineteenth-century literature, Mrs. Lucy Poate Stebbins and her son...

An Australian in India. By R. G. Casey. (Hollis'and Carter. 3s. 6d.) MR. CASEY was Governor of Bengal for two years from January, 1944. His foreword to this little book of 12o...

IT is an odd and happy chance that has made two distinguished Cam- bridge scholars bring out these books almost simultaneously, for they are complementary studies which need to...

The Stock Exchange. By Harold Wincott. (Sampson Low. 4s. 6d.) As Editor of the Investors' Chronicle Mr. Wincott knows both all there is to know about the Stock Exchange and how...

ONE of the more ambitious of the post-war publishing projects has just been announced by Eyre and Spottiswoode. It is a series of twelve Volumes, entitled English Historical...

Sainte Conine. By Gabriel Chevallier. Translated from the French by Jocelyn Godefroi. (Seeker and Warburg. 10s. 6d.) Mally Lee. By Elizabeth Kyle. (Peter Davies. 9s. 64.) The...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solut io n of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week May 13th. Envelopes...

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By CUSTOS ONE may judge the behaviour of markets since the Budget as promis- ing or discouraging according to what one expects. Gilt-edged have probably disappointed most...