Ordinary people, with no real knowledge of the hidden ways of espionage, are reluctant to know the worst when they see it. Perhaps this is sufficient explanation of the ten-...

T DIEN BIEN PHU both the main position and its isolated satellite are still holding out, still awaiting a third major assault by the Viet Minh and still—on paper— doomed. The...

public a 'summary of the Drogheda committee's report on Britain's oversea information services, the wisdom or other- wise of the proposals may be judged generally. The report is...

The second report of the Royal Commission on Taxation may still produce political complications before the next Budget appears. The middle-class taxpayers are unlikely to forget...

and his colleagues of the Government, were completely vindi- cated by the commission of inquiry into the circumstances of Mr. J. Braimah's resignation and the allegations of...

HE reassembly of Parliament on Tuesday passed 4 A T quietly. Nobody jostled Mr. Attlee. Nobody ho j i at Sir Winston Churchill. It is true that at the end d a debate in the...

Three cheers for the Lord Lyon King-of-Arms I He Qnl on his tabard. He sounded his trumpet. He informed the Town Council that its trouble was mealy-mouthed geatiT o and lack of...

the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Prime Minister made an impressively rare admission. He said : " We have the fullest confidence [ II the wisdom of the course which we have...

Geneva " at Colombo, where the Prime Ministers of India, Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia and Ceylon are now in some- what impromptu conclave, seems doubtful. It would be logical if...

from the Old World conducting even the most cursory survey of the Working Class in Canada can fail to be struck by its non-existence. Like other more ast lY recognisable forms...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT B EGGARS as well as thieves are apt to fall out among themselves—certainly, it seems, if they belong to the nouveaux pauvres of the film world. These once...

13 Y STEPHEN TOULMIN URING the War people became accustomed to going to concerts, not in halls, but in churches and cathe- drals. Driven on to extended tour, the metropolitan...

The Teahouse of the August Moon. By Jena Patrick. (Her Majesty's.)—Waiting for Gillian. By Ronald Millar. (St. James's.) ?Morist, he is naturally faced with a prob- „leM. Should...

THOSE whose knowledge of contemporary artists is gained rather from the daily Press than from exhibitions have of course by now pigeonholed Reg Butler. Useless to point out that...

not apparently the temperament, of a soubrette, and she sang with charming grace and entered into her part with notably greater success than Sylvia Fisher, whose Agathe was a...

There can be no comparison Between your warmly breathing flesh And this blue granite stone Salty from the Channel tides. Flesh and stone are disparate Though shaped by...

I am the stranger in your home, stranger than any stranger in the street, I am the hated whom you love, Your desolate hater. Mine is the mask in the glass on the wall, the...

Th e is it, I wonder, that films about the '" ) uuth Sea islands are nearly always bad? 1 1:he settings are perfect, the natives aurae- 1 ..ive, and one can only suppose that...

Triple Time And on another day will be the past, A valley cropped by fat neglected chances That we insensately forbore to fleece. On this we blame our last Threadbare...

We made no promises; and so have none to break; We heard the whispering of the tide, yet feared to speak Lest words, like common streetlamps, should reveal too late A gutter,...

last week, who were ignorant about the first Duke of Marl- borough and the whereabouts of Madagascar and Jamaica, merit our sympathy in what must have been a trying interview....

with Professo r Dobree's review of Dr. Tillyard's The Englis., 11 Epic and Its Background (Spectator, Apra 16th) that we felt we ought, albeit belated to express our pleasure...

SIR,—There are, I think, two chief attitudes towards language. The commoner, and all things considered, probably the more impor- tant, is what may be called the aesthetic...

0 ' my work at Gimpel Fils associating both the gallery and myself with his brand of 'O a : temporaneity.' He tried to put me in a groovy and in order to keep me there credited...

have results inferior to the older ones. Backwardness in reading is so prevalent today. Can any correspondent recommend a short but adequate book about the aims and methods of...

many of your eaders. His comments about the inadequate provisions of the law today give rise to corn- ;tient on many anomalies in our legal system, and it is hoped that they may...

the Swedish assumption that closer fles with the West would precipitate a Russian Occupation of Finland. This is a familiar igument. I am afraid, however, that the ussian...

Snt,—So fashionable a talent as Mr. John Wain's is bound, one supposes, to be entangled in fashionable attitudes and prejudices, although Mr. Wain seems to have more than is...

Sit,—I was very interested in Sir Carleton Allen's explanation of the small number of convictions by magistrates of intoxicated motorists. The main point in his argument seemed...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 217 Report by Lawrence D. Hills With the passing of rationing now so near, competitors were invited to submit a letter of not more than 150 words,...

In areas where frost is not severe one can plant scarlet runners raised in boxes. Slugs are fond of tender shoots, however, and to ensure adequate protection from both frost and...

is. I turned the dead bird over with my toe and saw the beetles on the flattened grass. Perhaps the owl would return to make his meal, but, on the other hand, it was pos- sible...

A FEW fortunate gardeners are unaware that there is such a nuisance as mare's tail, but I am not one of them. 1 toil to get it out of my garden, I watch for its new growth and I...

S OME twenty-five years ago an earnest Teuton with the aid of microphotography managed to restore the passages in Mozart's letters to his wife which a pious biographer had...

By ISABEL QUIGLY NEW race is coming into being. You cannot quite say it is being born, the process is too slow, and besides, when I try to work it further, the metaphor is too...

Tr ials 1 Why has there been this tremendous increase in the popu- r ity of equestrian sport? The interest shown by the Royal anilly is one reason, the 1948 Olympic Games is...

The Wise Man By WALTER TAPLIN T HE triumph and tragedy named in the title of the final volume of Sir Winston Churchill's major work The Second World War* are defined by him at...

Tnis, to use the ugly but inevitable word, is the de fi nitive biography of John Stuart Mill, a book of the utmost interest and importance. 1 ' mg(rather longer, I think, that...

Cromwell's Generals. By Maurice Ashley. (Cape. 21s.) THE period between the execution of Charles I and the restoration of Charles II saw more experiments in constitution-making...

Service. 12s. 6d.) THERE is a persisting hostility in Britain towards Japan and things Japanese. And perhaps a reason for this lies in a continuing sense of shock that a people...

The Answers of Ernst von Salomon. (Putnam. 35s.) THIS is one of the key books of post-war Germany ; therefore, of The fundamental issue of responsibility is evaded. If we were...

A Village in Anatolia. By Mahmut Makal. Edited by Paul Stirling. (Vallentine, Mitchell. 18s.) THESE two books reveal from within something of the poignancy that goes with the...

THE week's most ambitious novel, an eighteen-month-old effort from America, is by an ex-college professor ..of English literature. To have spent at least some time as an...

D.T.R.

of Asians between Afghan- istan and Borneo must be regarded as Important by almost any standard of judge- ment, particularly now. Ritchie Calder has written about what he saw as...

England offers a detailed study of the poet's development and of all the prose and poetry writings. A comprehensive work such as this has long been awaited, and

the full-scale work, will find here an adequate précis, based on the same material and in places written in the same words. The book, in fact, may be recommended as a reliable...

IT is quite a long time since foreign politics has affected the London stock markets but the uncertainty as to whether the war in Indo-China would spread was the signal for a...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IT may surprise the layman to read in the financial press that while the stock markets M London have been falling back on un- Pleasant international news,...