Spectator of especial interest to Scotsmen and - Scotsivomen, in the fullest confidence that we could not pOSSIbly make it thereby of less interest to humbler folk. Here let us...

Union the Assembly would still " hold aloft the Lamp of Faith in Our ancient Kingdom of Scotland." Last Saturday Lord Cecil addressed a large party given by the . Lord High...

1.—A Subscription to the SpzerteroR costs Thirty Shillings per annum, including postage, to any part - of - the world. The SPECTATOR is registered as a Newspaper. -The Postage...

no certainty, ' that the Federal Structure Committee will meet in , London as early as June 29th, the date suggested by the Secretary of State in a dispatch which electrified...

Geneva T HE session of the Council of the League of Nations came to an end last Saturday. As we have dealt with some of its work in a leading article, and a correspondei%t at...

Bill, and Dr. Addison said of it on the motion for adjournment that " they would not get a satisfactory policy which would be permanently successful unless it inspired public...

Times of the 22nd from Sir Harry McGowan, giving the view of an international industrialist. He wrote that it was now possible to undertake this-hydrogenation of coal on any...

broke up at Nanking last week is well termed provisional. If the Convention itself cannot be said to have been deliberately " packed," its results, outwardly so flattering to...

Friday, May 22nd, until the Members return to Westminster on the eve of Derby - Day. On Thursday, the 21st, the Upper House passed the Agri- cultural Land (Utilization) Bill as...

report for 1980, which it describes as an " outstandingly bad year "—that is no worse news (though -worse Englisl) that we have learnt to expect The Ministry tries to offer...

disposal of the Iraq supplies has been settled for the time, greatly to the advantage of that country's revenues, which will benefit long before those who have spent £4,000,000...

the jungle continue to emulate gangsters in everything save in making irresponsible bloodshed profitable. Much practical spade-work is being done in India, if not behind the...

Egyptian Liberal Party and the Wafd there must be something cynical about their alliance against the predent Government. They gambled before the election on the tactical...

degree of D.Sc. last Saturday, when he gave the last of his three Rhodes lectures on his theory of Relativity. It was significant of the courage of lecture-goers that the Pro-...

were declared at the end of last week. They made no change in the strength of the parties in the House of Commons. In the Stroud Division of Gloucestershire the figures were :...

Empress of Britain' sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage to Canada. Her construction and launching are another of those milestones which, even in these depressed days,...

on May 14th, 1931. War Loan (5 per cent.) was on Wednesday 102* ; on Wednesday week, 1021; a year ago, 102,, Funding Loan (4 per cent.) was on Wednesday 961; on Wednesday week,...

birthday, has now been recognized as Empire Day for nearly forty years, and officially since 1916. This was due in great measure to the pertinacious idealism of Lord Meath, and...

coal mines is due for discussion at the International Labour Conference at Geneva, which began on Thursday. The draft convention which failed to pass last year's Conference on...

by -the eager welcome that Professor Einstein's novel theories have received from the outset. Unlike his ,predecessors in this field of research, he has not had to write for...

O N the whole the world may be well satisfied by the acts and deliberations of the Council of the League of Nations which closed its latest session last Saturday and will again...

BY WALTER ELLIOT, M.P. S COTLAND to-day is a small state in a large empire, and suffers from the uneasiness of both. The small states of the world are nowadays jealous and...

BY Tim DUKE OF MONTROSE. " S COTLAND is the only white nation in Europe 1 .0 that does not manage its own affairs "—so said Miss Elma Campbell, the Nationalist candidate in...

BY JOHN STRACHEY. FF VER since the War, and after the present depression in the British mining industry set in, the nation has been thinking' of the possibility of what is...

[The Spectator does not necessarily agree with all the views of the writers contributing to this series on the Colour Bar. Our object in publishing the series is to attempt some...

[Next week Mr. G. P. MalalasPkera, of Ceylon University College, will write on " The Idea of God in Buddhism."] The' Hindu Idea of God EY S. RADHAKRISHNTAN If we ask for the...

By IAN HAY. T HE other day, while sheltering from a summer snowstorm on a Surrey golf course, I entered into an idle discussion with my partner (and contemporary) as to how many...

By MAURICE IIEADLAM. T HE keen and impecunious fisherman may find occupation, both -pleasing and inexpensive—it will shorten- a train journey or a-dull committee -meeting...

BY GERALD HEARD. - M ETEOROLOGY is not - yet a : it "his not . - yet gone beyond being a well-informed gue§s. - At first sight it seems ridichldus that, after generation§ of...

Several London firms and garages have adopted the practice of leaving advertising matter in people's cars while the owners are absent. Sometimes they enclose their leaflets in...

ORDEAL BY HOLIDAY The Holiday Spirit, to which so many references are made at this time of year in the columns of our contemporaries, is something very different from the "...

[THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS COUNCIL AND EUROPEAN COMMITTEE.] [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.} SIR,—The iiinultaneous meetings of the League of Nations Council and the League's...

[COVENT GARDEN Orrate.] THE German season at Covent Garden has been consistently well attended. The Ring, of course, is now an established ritual here ; and Rosenkavalier,...

" Can you please tell us," asks a correspondent of one of our daily contemporaries, "how to get- rid of bats in the church ? " There are various ways of getting rid of bats in...

Not fewer than seven females, of different ages, attempted to put a period to their existence on Monday. One of them, whose name is unknown, had taken oxalic acid ; she was...

; one for sheep-stealing, the other for stealing in a dwelling-house. It was alleged, in aggro.- vation of the crime of the former, that his character was bad—he was what the...

Park are worth some investigation. Nowhere else in Great Britain is found a block of mountains of such combined breadth and height. Their vertebrae of granite and gneiss give...

In a neighbouring district of this Western country some of us made a little investigation into the food of a very different animal. It was the period just before the rise of the...

BANFF AND BANFF. Scotland may be said to have won a victory in the field of aesthetics over England and Wales. While the clairits of Dartmoor, Snowdonia, Dovedale and the Lakes...

The threat to the Scottish rivers is perhaps not so serious as against the small domestic rivers near London ; but a beneficent change begins to be seen. The Lee commissioners...

It is probably true to say that not half a person per cent. expected the new Zoo opened on Whit Saturday, at Whipsnade, to be as good as it was. The bluebells were thicker, the...

At the moment no animal seems to need sanctuary so much as the rivers themselves, in Scotland as in England and Wales. They are grossly violated in every sort of way ; and it is...

Britain must wonder a little at their Joneliness. I spent a day recently on a grouse moor in the West. It belongs, so to say, to the public. Much of it, that is to say, is...

How yeasty with life most waters are ! In one stream stocked with fish some years 'ago a good deal of water butter- cup was planted 'in order to give shelter for the fish as...

year in the United States may I mention one or two facts about the relations of black and white people there ? An American friend of mine, a native of Boston, teaches in a...

[in r:Tea, of the length of many of the Idlers which we receive, we would remind correspondents that we often cannot give space for long letters and that short ones are...

[To the Editor of the SvEcraron.] Sia,—In the Spectator of April 11th, a correspondent—an Afrieantates that a body of Bishops has made the following startling discovery :...

nothing incompatible between 100 per cent. enthusiasm for the British Commonwealth and 100 per cent. enthusiasm for the League " (Spectator, May 23rd, page 810), then,...

SPECTATOR.] Sta,—I am sure all your readers must have been pleased with your spirited paragraphs on " The League and the Press." It is, as you say, absurd to mock at the...

SIR,—The conflicting accounts of West African slavery may be due to the inconsistencies of a transitional stage. The hardships of the servile status had been mitigated, and...

out the inaccuracy of that part of the last paragraph but one of the article on Colour Bar, by Professor L. W. Lyde, in your issue of May 16th, which reads thus : " There...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—Speaking from experience of thousands of lads between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who have been committed to prison on remand...

experience as a Magis- trate's Clerk entitles him to a respectful hearing, but others of equal weight hold very different opinions. I call as witness on my side the Prison...

[To' the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Would you be so kind as to allow me to appeal to any of your readers interested in New Zealand for the church in the dioCese affected...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The case of Mr. William Wallace, whose appeal against the sentence of death passed upon him at Liverpool was allowed by the Court of...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—You were kind enough to publish a letter last November on the subject of our inquiry into the distribution of the Great Crested Grebe in...

The case for Rural Amenities has now been recognized as a responsibility for the Government : the report of the Royal Commission on National Parks has been published, and the...

I am editing a collection of nearly 200 letters written by Beardsley to his publisher, Leonard Smithers, between the years 1895 and 1898. As these are not a complete col-...

At the annual meeting of the National Federation of Women's Institutes at the Albert Hall, where some 8,000 women delegates from all over the country were assembled, the...

[To the Editor of the SPEcriszron.] SIR,—I have been much interested in the views expressed in your columns on the subject of Lotteries, because I have given a good deal of...

DARK Ithaca rises from the waters of the sunlit midday sea, and in the silence of the sun stands the palace of Ulysses. Over the crags and the rising roofs is the tower where...

RULES AND CONDITIONS Entries must be typed or very clearly written on one side of the paper only. The name and address, or pseudonym, of the competitor must be on each" entryand...

Its Origins I HAVE been whiling away part of a wet week (ye gods—all nine of you—a wet week by the sea, in Italy, in May ! What an excuse for Lars Porsena !) by exploring...

1931.) 1642, when I first came to Oxon." A COMPLETE, or almost complete, transcript of Aubrey's manuscripts was published in 1898 by the Clarendon Press: edited with scholarly...

Speeches on Foreign Affairs. By Sir Edward Grey (the Viscount Grey of Fallodon). Selected with an introduction by Paul Knaplund, Ph.D. London. (Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d.) Jr is...

In the Days of the Giants. By W. J. Doherty. With an Intro- • duction by Viscount Knebworth. . (Harrap. 10s; 6d.) ME qualities which make a man a master in any particular...

The States through Irish Eyes. By E. OE. Somerville. (Heinemann. 8s. 6d.) The States through Irish Eyes. By E. OE. Somerville. (Heinemann. 8s. 6d.) New York. By Paul Morand....

Old London Bridge. By Gordon Home. (Lane. 3Js. . 6d.) IN this volume, strikingly illustrated by the reproduction of contemporary prints and maps, Major Home, Who is London's...

Their Name Liveth : the Book of the Scottish National War MOST truly national is the Scottish War Memorial. In no way is the sense, of Scottish unity in this high matter more...

The Prospects of Humanism. By Lawrence Hyde. (Gerald Howe. 10s. 6d.). - - Ma. LAWRENCE HYDE'S first book, The Learned Knife . , attracted the attention of the discerning,...

between religion and science which were broadcast by the B.B.C. last autumn ttracted an unusual amount of attention ; partly because f the peculiar interest of the matter and...

which tells of the travels of someone else or a book which tells you how to conduct yours ? A book which dilates on the food, the beds, the sanitation and motor-bus routes (all...

The Rough and the Smooth Hatter's Castle. By A. J. Cronin. (Gollancz. 8s. 6d.) Friends and Relations. By Elizabeth Bowen. (Constable. 7s. 6d.) John Boddy. By Temple Thurston....

a Philistine husband what should -a young writer do when offered a contract and the " protection " of her American publisher ? Miss Panter-Downes slickly and shrewdly reports...

new Israelite nation in the land of Israel is hard. Yehuda, who might perhaps have been a great violinist, worked on the farm commune of Carmel. A strange, mannered novel, with...

boring these adolescent bohemians " and their Montparnasse parties can be I Mr. Ward contrives to be mildly ironical, is frequently faCetious, and unblushingly gives his...

magic coat turns Christopher Darley, adver- tising man, into a Christian or a pagan-or something else disappointingly sentimentalized by the author.

supernatural, and the results which he gives us in his latest volume Rooms of Mystery (Phillip Allen, 8s. 6d.) are enough to make the nervous terrified at the idea of spending...

motif of this incoherent story is an unlucky Chinese vase which impels a self-conscious young woman to rewrite a Queen Anne period diary she discovers. A bewildering pot-pourri.

to this journal a poem on Adam and Eve, as Chaucer might have told their story. The poem was obviously a jets ftesprit, but it showed -how closely Mr. John Masefield has studied...

from a young woman to a middle- aged novelist, though charmingly written, fail to " put across " either atmosphere or character convincingly—a difficulty inherent in the...

SILVER LEY. By Adrian Bell. (Cobden-Sanderson. 7s. 6c1.) —There is little incident in this chronicle by a poet turned farmer, but he presents a very balanced and sane picture...

moving tale of adventure among crooks, exceptional because it is not a mystery story.

triangle situation among people who are slow and passionlesi is irksome.. Mr. , Williamson is a bette r observer of local customs in Alaska than he is a creative artist.

accomplished the task of writing Lord Beaverbrook, An Authentic Biography (Jarrolds, 18s.) with his usual facility. That the materials for constructing anything like a...

for study circles and popular teaching the findings of the Lambeth Conference, Messrs. Nisbet have begun the publication under distinguished auspices of a " Lambeth Series " of...

have set down half in idleness and half out of that affection which is common to man and trees for the soil in which they have been for ages rooted," is Mr. Cunninghame Graham's...

that's old," and like him enjoy "old manners, old books, and old wine." A great many people in their time have enjoyed Robert Chambers' Traditions of Edinburgh, a new and...

Anything that comes from the pen of Sir Herbert Maxwell— historian, archaeologist, Scottish patriot and angler—is valuable. In this case it is The Place Names of Galloway...

is a collection of personal narratives by all ranks and ratings of their war experiences. The best of them are clear, simple stories of endurance, resource and daring. Many of...

So perfervid a Scot is Mr. Alastair Alpin MacGregor that even from his home in Chelsea he will write in A Last Voyage to St. Kilda (Cassell, 7s.. 6c1.) " he is driving a pickle...

until June 6th. In honour of these celebrations the Book of Glasgow has been published by the Corporation of the City of Glasgow Civic and Empire Week Comniittee for the price...

A Scots Dialect Dictionary (Chambers, 5s.). Mr. Warrack was one of thegreatest authorities on Scottish dia- lectal usages, and this volume will furnish an additional impetus to...

[We publish on this page articles and notes which may help our readers in making their plans for travel at home and abroad. We shall be glad to answer questions arising out of...

I CAN see only one drawback to the motorist's enjoyment the beauties of Scotland, and that is the clim.ste. Given Inc With the weather, touring over the greater part of the...

Was Pontius Pilate born in Scotland ? Mr. D. C. Cuts bertson in Highlands,- Highways and Heroes (R. Grant, 7s. so says that the fact is "admitted," and there is certainly j e...

holiday maker in Switzerland, is Mr. Arnold Lunn) Switzerland : Her Topographical, Historical and Lit Landmarks (Harrap, 7s. ad.). This book was published 1928, but it is not...

Stephen Gwynn. With his taste for the best wines and tlx best dishes he could not have a more fertile field to wane in. He describes in his book Burgundy (Harrap, 7s. edl one of...

In all Scotland—and Scotland is very generous in the matte of trout-fishing—the best centre for a real fishing holiday is Whitebridge, in Inverness-shire, while Loch Lomond...

The Pocket Guide to the IVest Indies, by Algernon Aspinall (Sifton, Praed, 10s.), is an essential additi to the Library of any traveller to these most interest' islands. It is...