S UCCESS can always be snatched from the jaws of failure, but if the Palestine Conference, now once more in session in London, succeeds something like a miracle will have been...

The visit of the King and Queen to South Africa is more than an agreeable ceremony. The date itself has some significance. It is just forty years since the defeated Transvaal...

strange, but if the end of each demarche is as happy as the exchange of hopeful messages which concluded the recent Pravda incident it is still possible that those ways will...

The agreement reached, with encouraging rapidity, at the Burmese Conference last week bears at its foot the names of C. R. Attlee and Aung San. That two of the Burmese...

That there must be an over-all plan for the land of Britain into which all the constituent plans can be fitted is certain. For that reason alone the Town and Country Planning...

There was nothing in this week's debate on the Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill to altar the impression that, as Bills go nowadays, this is a good one. It has grown...

Housing is a very difficult and complex practical problem, but it is remarkably seldom treated as such. The twin curses of public discussion have been the absence of a published...

The number of accidents to civil aircraft continues to mount almost as fast as the rapidly growing volume of intense public interest in the whole matter. It is indeed a very...

There is a growing class of measures, enacted by the present Government, which confer powers so sweeping That, in times of less hectic legislative activity, they would be...

T HE first full week of Parliamentary work after the Recess did not find us back to normal ; and I am not referring only to the weather. For one thing, the House is still being...

moment when this country 1 is announcing its full recognition of the right of the people of Burma to self-determination the negotiations between this country and Egypt should...

States, and even the world, but I am not impressed by his attempts to improve the New Republic, of which he is now Editor-in-Chief. The first issue to appear under the new...

problem, and it is very right that it should be. As the Chairman of • the Westminster Bank pointed out forcibly on Tuesday, unless we can produce—particularly coal—on a vastly...

some new incident or anecdote is always throwing new light on it. An economist who has been lecturing in the British Zone tells me that of all the universities he visited only...

the great editors of the twentieth century goes. Not that there are not highly competent editors in office today, but there are none, I think (for reasons which it would be...

across the court would, I imagine, find himself in sharp collision with the authorities. But a Trinity man is going to do- it next term—in collu- sion with the authorities. His...

1 N the regretted absence of Mr. Herbert Morrison, Mr. Churchill 1 has provided himself with a new sparring-partner in the Minister of Food. The advantage of that is that the...

By F. A. HAYEK A FTER so much fatuous talk about the " re-education " of the defeated peoples it comes as somewhat of a shock to discover that Allied policy seems much more...

By Major D. A. SCOTT. F OR the Englishman, Cairo is at once an encouraging and a de- pressing place today. Encouraging, because, beneath the vociferous, if intermittent,...

By LAURENCE WHISTLER Now—now, as low I stooped, thought I, I will see what this snowdrop is ; So shall 1 put. much argument by, And solve a lifetime's mysteries. Walter de la...

By CLELAND SCOTT G REAT swathes of bush are being carved across great tracts of Africa ; but thousands of innocent, attractive dollar-bringing game animals are being butchered...

By PROFESSOR A. V. MURRAY B Y the end of March this year every Local Education Authority is expected to have drawn up for use in its area an agreed syllabus of religious...

By STEPHEN HEARST "T HE musicians may change," says an Italian proverb, " but the music remains the same." And having just paid a return visit to Italy after some war-time...

By HAROLD N1COLSON T HE more I consider Soviet propaganda the less do I understand either its intentions or its methods. Take the strange story of the Bevin broadcast of...

THE THEATRE " Born Yesterday." By Garson Kanin. (Garrick.) BILLIE DAWN was dumb, and liked it. But when Harry Brock, who thought he owned her, brought her to Washington, her...

"Cloak and Dagger." (Warner.)—" Boomerang." (Tivoli.) WHAT a born film-maker is Fritz Lang! His mastery of the medium, and of the human puppets which it is used to portray, is...

AN exciting week. Arrau's crystalline performance of the Emperor ; Constant Lambert's Saturday evening concert at thc People's Palace ; Mademoiselle Claude Crussard's Ars...

Country Questions is a welcome new-comer in the Home Pro- gramme. Plain facts about such things as the cement in old castle walls, corncakes and badgers form the basis of this...

Than all that's said and done By the busy sun And man's wise head. Over us and the dead It is still the door. H. H. BASHFORD.

Sta,—Your note on the preliminary manifesto of the " United Europe " group seems to me a little harsh. You suggest that our " real purpose" is left in obscurity. It is simply...

has been the seat of two major wars. Because of the lack of such a spirit it is necessary for men to set up governments to maintain law and order to secure their individual...

A CASE OF SPECIAL RATIONS Sta,—Mr. Strachey, in the debate on the 22nd instant, in answer to my question, described the procedure adopted by the Ministry when refusing...

SIR, —It is encouraging to note from a recent announcement of Mr. Marquand, Secretary for Overseas Trade, that a board has been formed to develop the tourist trade of this...

SIR, —In your issue of January 24th there is a letter from J. Haarhoff justifying the colour bar in South Africa because of the "primitive savagery " of the natives. He...

SIR,—May I answer Mr. Arnold's letter of last week? If you go, as I did, to the Southern Rhodesian office in the Strand and ask whether there, is anything you can do to emigrate...

SIR,—Dr. David Thomson refers to " the more authoritarian right-wing groups, such as the P.R.L." I submit that with the exception of the moribund Union Gaulliste• there are no...

Snt,—I shall be glad if you would allow me to express the opinion of a group of polish students from the University and Technical College in Lodz. We were shocked reading the...

SIR,—The leading article in your issue of January 57th contains an inaccuracy in the first paragraph which is liable to mislead your readers. You state that the decision of the...

SIR,—Though only a very occasional and modest gambler myself, I feel that both Janus and your correspondent, L. E. Ball, take rather a super-' ficial and one-sidec: view of the...

SIR,—Mr. St. John Ervine is not the only reader of The Spectator to be perplexed at the lunatic aspects of our man-power shortage problem. In a recent B.B.C. broadcast it. was...

SIR,—You rightly state that the recent elections in Poland were a farce: But is it correct to say that the previous Polish elections were conducted in the same way? I think...

SIR,—In your issue cf .January 24th, under the heading A Year's Trade, is the comment, " It is hard to explain how an increase of about 45 aer cent. ever the pre-war labour...

Sm,—" Save Europe Now " announce an addition to their scheme for sending gift food-parcels for general relief in Europe. As an alternative to the more comprehensive food-parcels...

Sim,—The remarks on insomnia by Janus do perpetuate a fallacy shared by many—medicos included—that that affliction is much more distressing that in point of fact it is....

SIR,—Considering the calibre of your contributors and the knowledge of your readers as exhibited by their letters, it is with some diffidence that I, being probably one of a few...

SIR,—As always, the Swan of Avon covers the thoughts of all men of all opinions on all occasions. On bad luck with an egg : " Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." On...

IN a charming old village very familiar to me a native protest wad aroused by an agent's proposal to substitute corrugated iron for thatchj in some cottages under repair ; and...

Spectator's Notebook, of January 24th, badly needed saying. What kind of mind hatches them in the first place, and why do not senior officials or most editors strangle them at...

Stk,—The recent B.B.C. account of the results of an inquiry which has been going on for some time into the habits of rooks will cause surprise. It seems that over 8c per cent....

About a generation ago, while spending a few months in Canada, was interested in an attempt to cross a Hereford with a buffalo, in the hope of producing stock that would endure...

My (alleged) gardener has used all available cloches for covering the celery, and I think he was right. Though celery is held to be little good till it is frosted, heavy frost...

Sta,—Whilst knowing nothing of production with the 7o- or 8o-hour week, I think the claim that there is no loss with the shorter hours is rather negatived by the fact that, in...

succeeded some days of delightful warmth a blackbird in my garden was watched seeking water in a little concrete pond, and his disappointment was obvious. So during the warm...

SIR, —There was -an inaccuracy in the first paragraph of the Notebook last week which I should be glad if-you would correct. It is Mr. Malcolm Thomson who is writing the...

SIR, —The letter on the vagaries of an eighteenth-century M.P., of which Mr. L. A. Abraham doubted the authenticity in his letter in The Spectator of December 13th, was...

of the advancing modernity of Oxford, alleged home of lost causes, that it has become a sort of headquarters- of agricultural economy. It has long seemed to me singularly...

A Legend Examined 1 4incoln the President: Springfield to Gettysburg. By J. G. Randall: f.! (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 2 Vols. 32s.) MONTH before Lincoln was elected President for...

In Darkest Germany. By Victor Gollancz. (Gollancz. 8s. 6d.) IT is not easy to do justice to this book. The author's great sincerity and burning sense of mission—so movingly...

William Godwin. By Geor g e Woodcock. ( Porcupine Press. 12s. 6d.) THERE are probably few people who have read any of Godwin's works —over thirty of them are there to read—and...

The Newspaper. By I. Rothenber g . (Staples Press. 35s.) Tuts is a publication one would wish to speak well of. It is obviously the fruit of immense industry, and the writer,...

IN this large volume of 573 pages eleven scholars, under the general direction of the Bishop of Oxford, have set forth the Anglo- Catholic view of episcopacy and its place in...

by John Piper. (Architectural Press. Ss. 6d.) R. RICHARDS has discovered the suburbs, hitherto it seems unknown " those for—and by—whom books about architecture are written." e...

The Age of Reason. By Jean-Paule Sartre. Translated by Eric Sutton. (Hamish Hamilton. 10s.) THE reader approaching The Age of Reason will do well to forget whatever he may know...

ANTHOLOGIES, with their variety, the comparative briefness of their extracts and the pleasure of recognising old friends, provide perhaps the easiest way of reading verse, and...

J. Conybeare. (British Publishing Co, 3S. 6d.) THE title of this rather charming little book (taken from- Great Expectation:0' is deserved, for the author does make his...

Orion, a Miscellany. Volume III. Edited by C. Day Lewis, D. Kil- barn Roberts and Rosamond Lehmann. (Nicolson and Watson. 6s.) Oktoies editors are keeping their creation...

with his name celebrated the centenary of its foundation as a weekly in 1821, and has yet to wait eight years for its centenary as- a daily. The centenary of Scott's own birth...

8s. 6d.) THIS is a useful book. Any dictionary (or rather encyclopaedia as this is) dealing with international affairs in 35o pages is bound to have some omissions—even when the...

The winner of Crossword No. 410 is : H. M. BEWES, 12 Guildford Lawn, Ramsgate.

IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, February isth....

ROBERT HALE announce the publication on February loth of The British in India, by P. J. Griffiths. Mr. Griffiths went to India in 1922 as a member of the I.C.S., in which he...

By CUSTOS IT is again a case of pull devil, pull baker, in the stock markets. On the one hand, the continuing influence of an abundance of money- seeking investment puts steady...