Mr. Gromyko's new formula, linking the demilitarisation of Germany directly with the causes of international tension, should bring the termination of the deplorably futile...

There has been singularly little news from Persia in the last ten days, and this silence may be due as much to censorship as to the calming effects of martial law. Both the Shah...

A MERICAN intelligence reports of a Chinese build-up on or behind the 38th Parallel have continued to be made public for some weeks (it is one of General MacArthur's...

The present meeting of twenty-one American Foreign Ministers, which opened in Washington on Monday, is the fourth of its kind. The first three meetings, held in 1939, 1940 and...

The proposal to make a small cut in the allocation for the foreign services of the B.B.C. raises a difficult question. It will not do to be demanding insistently (as good...

In their comments on the Matrimonial Causes Bill now before Parliament as a Private Member's measure the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have done rather more than voice...

The various interested bodies who, in the weeks preceding Budget day, present their fiscal suggestions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, are not normally regarded as settling...

I T is a sign of the confusion into which Parliament has fallen that the short Easter pause which should be the occasion for a searching review of the real content of the...

T HIS year's Easter weather seems to have done a good deal to strengthen the popular appeal for a fixed Easter, for whatever the elements may have in store for the date which...

deep sorrow, for he was a man who inspired regard and respect in a quite unusual degree. His varied record, Eton and Balliol, Fellow of All Souls, Home Office, Ministry of...

both found it necessary to advance their price from 2d. to 3d.—a grim portent of what is likely to happen increasingly in different quarters. The cost of paper has risen, and is...

more, how to popularise it without over-popularising it—is a perpetual problem. There are always different tastes to be appealed to. Many people, for example, approve strongly...

foremost a triumph for Lady Margaret, which supplied five out of the eight oarsmen in the Cambridge crew. It is in keeping with the strik- ing revival in Lady Margaret rowing...

costs, arc proposing to recoup themselves to some extent by reducing authors' royalties. Not being myself guilty of any prospective authorship above the low level of this...

Washington T HE status of television in America has subtly changed, and its implications have notably widened in the last two or three weeks. If it was never clear before, it is...

ay GEORGE BRINSMEAD S was intended, two recent moves by President PerOn—the closing of La Prensa and the announcement that Argen- tina now leads the world in atomic...

of Coventry and Leicester stand twenty-four miles apart. Both have enjoyed an almost unbroken spell of prosperity for thirty years. Leicester with its wool and leather trades...

By FRANK SYKES H AVING sown its wild oats, the Overseas Food Corpora- tion has asked for a further six million pounds. and Parliament with some misgivings has promised this...

REX tibi, Granta, novos prudens largitur horiores: Quem non pro meritis reddita palma juvat ?, Urbs nova laude nova multos celebranda per annos, Dummodo priscorum se gerat usque...

By BERYL SEATON W HEN I heard that Mr. Shinwell had been quoted as saying with regret that his Government had not yet succeeded in establishing a classless society, I...

Research Student By RICHARD MAYNE (Trinity College, Cambridge) T OWARDS the end of his third year at the university his friends made shy jokes about his academic achievements...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I OW pleasant it would be if, as a reward for almost half a century of service to the Muses, I were to be offered by Calliope a jubilee present in the shape...

I HAVE never concealed from readers of the Spectator my penchant for the preposterous, and to anyone who shares it I vehemently recommend this stage version of a celebrated...

“Lights Out." . (Leicester Square.)--“Lemon Drop Kid." (Plaza.) Father's Little Dividend." (Empire.) Lights Out concerns the rehabilitation of a blinded war-veteran. Mr. Arthur...

THEATRE OUR first glimpse of Richard's court tells us a great deal. Behind and around the throne are grouped the favourites, all young, all slightly over-dressed, exchanging...

In my search for some more authentic signature to the Eastertide and the coming of spring, I went the other day to investigate a rumour that some degree of migration is going on...

THE London Contemporary Music Centre's concert at Broadcasting House on March 27th was the occasion of the second performance in this country of Frank Martin's orchestral songs...

Another week,of frustration, due to wind and weather. Readers will find little of interest in the tale of garden activities, which have been confined mostly to the setting of...

Ens - ma - me this year has let down the poet A. E. Housman badly, deriding his statement that "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And...

Set by J. R. Glorncy Bolton A recent article in the Spectator maintained that " If a wit composed a letter front Queen Victoria to her Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, he could...

Report by Colin Shaw The three Services are now making extensive use of conversational advertisements as an aid to recruiting, such as " Back at the factory Ted was a nice lad...

Magazine Post) Id. "

this problem. referred to again by Janus this week. To fix Easter in the way proposed would be an enormous advantage to the country, but the Churches, or some branches of them,...

Opposition Tactics Sin,--Scldom have I read so inexact and ill-informed an appreciation as that which emerges from the following statement on the first page of your issue for...

contained letters from "Consultant Physician" and Mr. Broughton on Section 47 of the National Assistance Act, 1948. "Consultant Physician's" letter indicates that the National...

SIR,—A movable Easter is disliked by Janus because you sometimes get a financial year with two Easter holidays in it, which " vitiates all financial comparisons with normal...

SIR,—I felt sure someone would write to you in answer to the astonishing suggestion of W. L C. Bond that more intense study of the Bible would lead to a reunion of alt the...

SIR,—I cannot, as a Christian priest, understand the remarks of Janus on the Bishop of Birmingham, in which he separates religion and politics. Politics is the art or science of...

siR.—I have not had the advantage of reading the report on your competition No. 50, but I can reply to Mr. Smallwood's questions in his letter printed in your issue of March...

Mucti anxiety has been caused to the friends of the Great Exposition by the effect of the recent wet weather ; and its enemies, including the vast army of croakers, have begun...

SIR,—For the second time Mr. Richard Church writes about his " Irish yews," when he quite obviously means " Irish junipers." On the first occasion he mentioned their...

SIR,—Will Mr. Philips Price please inform us whether the cultivation of end addiction to narcotics, like opium and Indian hemp, is controlled and repressed by Soviet Communist...

S1R,—Your reviewer, Mr. Hilton Brown, takes exception to my cautious statement in the note I added to the new edition of my mother's Life of Robert Burns, that "it could be...

Sia,—Your reviewer of the new Hilaire Belloc anthology makes a passing mention of Belloc, the Sussex patriot. May I be allowed to call the attention of your readers to Lord...

p OPE was more than forty. It was well over ten years since he had published the folio which contained the musical expression of his wanderings in fancy's maze ; there had been...

The Modern Predicament Liberties, of the Mind. By Charles Morgan. (Macmillan. 1 2S. 6d.) Mos - r people arc aware that it is only by a disingenuous revision of the meaning of...

History of the Crusades: Vol. I. The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. By Steven Runciman. (Cambridge University Press. 25s.) THE story of the...

THE reader who loves Piero may well find that this magnificent, meticulous yet always vivid book serves as a kind of extension of Piero's own achievement ; that Sir Kenneth has,...

WHAT Mr. Greene admits, nostalgically but unsentimentally, having lost is the child's capacity to surrender to the thrill, the revelation and the enduring influence of what he...

All Else Is Folly. By Catherine Gaskin. (Collins. 9s. 6d.) The Sleeping Bacchus. By Hilary St. George Saunders. (Michael Joseph. gs. 6d.) The Tenth Commandment. By Victor...

Kyle Crichton. (Heinemann. 1 2s. W.) THE Marx Brothers, those violent but amiable eccentrics who started the cult for craziness, who added such cruel refinements to slapstick...

The Rod, The Root, and The Flower. By Coventry Patmore. Edited Browning: Poetry and Prose. Selected by Simon Nowell-Smith. (I lart-Da v is. 2 I S.) COVENTRY PATMORE stands out...

From the Waste land. By Edward Hyams. (Turnstile Press. I 25. 6d.) Tins book must have furrowed the brows of most of its reviewers, nor is the present one able to make up his...

Bertram. (Hollis and Carter. ifs.) " MEN are judged by the standards they set, the things they own," ran a recent advertise- ment for cigarette-lighters. And so com- pletely...

Series.) By W. H. THE United Kingdom Civil Series in the History of the Second World War has already produced two distinguished volumes —the introductory British War Economy by...

Lancaster. (Hamish llamil- ton. tos. 6d.) EXCEPT for a long last chapter, this is a collection of articles, mainly from the New Yorker and in more or less the usual vein of...

By CUSTOS ON the last lap of a pre-Budget Stock Exchange Account markets are showing unexpectedly strong powers of resistance. So far from Budget nerves, inducing investors to...

IA Book Token for cne Donee Will be awarded to the sender of the first correct sslutton of this week's crossword to be opened alter noon on Tuesday worts, Area 10th. Envelope "...

The winner of Crossword No. 618 is F. D. Mt !MALLS, Esq., Brockhills, Ncw Milton, Hants.