4 APRIL 1941

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li neriCa and Axis Ships The United States coastguards, acting on

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the direct orders 0 1 President Roosevelt, have taken into " protective custody " all Italian, German and Danish vessels in American ports. It had been discovered that the crews...

NEWS OF THE WEEK

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THOUGH the fall of Massawa has not been announced as I these words are written it may probably enough have already taken place. The historic week which saw the Yugo- slav...

Vichy Efforts to Break Our Blockade

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Limits will have to be put to our tolerance of Admiral Darlan's methods of bringing not only food but other material to France for the benefit of Germany. Last week reports were...

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National Unity— There was a happy synthesis of the world

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outlook and the domestic political outlook in the Prime Minister's address to the Central Council of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations last week. He...

General Smuts and the League

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At a time when superficial commentators are dismissing the League of Nations as an experiment that has failed, and failed finally, the declarations made on that subject by the...

—and its Limitations

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Mr. Churchill could not have stated the case better. He showed his attitude to his own party, and the similar attitude which he hoped would be adopted by the other party...

The Battle of the Atlantic

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In the week ended March 23rd-24th the total of British, Allied and neutral merchant ships lost by enemy action at sea fell to 59,141, which compares with an average of 65,000...

Mr. Matsuoka with the Dictators The European tour of Mr.

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Matsuoka, the Foreign Minister of Japan, has taken him to Moscow, Berlin and Rome, and the " moral understanding " which he went to seek has doubtless been influenced by other...

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The Week In Parliament

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Our Parliamentary correspondent writes : —News from the Mediterranean has provided this week the same sort of more confident background that President Roosevelt's speech gave to...

It was interesting to watch the speeches with a knowledge

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of the industrial background of the various speakers. Thus when Sir Cyril Entwistle or Mr. Hammersley or Mr. Hamilton Kerr spoke there was inevitably cotton as well as...

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" It is only now, as the Prime Minister has

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said, in the nineteenth month of the war, that we are beginning to feel the demands caused by our new factories "; so spake Mr. Oliver Lyttelton, in the debate on concentration...

The debate on Sunday theatres and music-halls was interest- ing,

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but often irrelevant. Mr. Magnay nearly ruined his case by over-statement; it was left to Mr. James Griffiths to make the best speech in support of the Nonconformist conscience,...

German Invasion Prospects The possibility of an attempted German invasion

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of Britain has by no means gone, said General Sir Alan Brooke on Tuesday. The prospect is that the enemy would use sea-borne and air-borne troops, and he has been training large...

Sabbath Observance The Churches, so far as they are responsible

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for the defeat of the Sunday-theatres proposal in the House of Commons on Tuesday, may find that they have done themselves more dis- service than they realise. Nothing could...

Fire-watching and Compulsion

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In every region in the country the Regional Commissioner h a s to be satisfied that adequate arrangements have been made for detecting incendiary bombs and fighting fires. To...

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HITLER DEFIED

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A WEEK ago, writing of the Yugoslav Government which had just signed the Tripartite Pact at Vienna, we said that nothing could save the situation but a universal national...

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The decision of The Times to raise its price to

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3d. is an ent of some importance in the journalistic world. It has en up to that before—from March, 1918, to March, 1922. e reason today is that as a result of paper-rationing...

The inauguration of a Norwegian Branch of the P.E.N. ub

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at a luncheon attended by King Haakon in London on londay is ,..vidence both of the virility of the Norwegian colony England, and of the reality and the value of cultural...

An English girl of twelve, hospitably taken in by a

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Boston family, and sent by them to one of the most select schools in that select city, was required, in common with the rest of her class, to produce an essay on the most...

In the week of the greatest naval battle of the

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war, and perhaps the most spectacular naval victory in all the llistory of the greatest naval Power, I have been asking myself how many Englishmen, if challenged, could give the...

To make the naval victory in the Mediterranean even more

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edible still, it now appears that not two British bombers, Only one were lost. Where and how is not stated. Perhaps that will never be known. But it is at least possible—one...

Nothing could be better than the decision regarding the Board

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of the B.B.C. announced by Mr. Duff Cooper in the House of Commons on Wednesday. The increase of the number of Governors from two to six, and the personalities of the four new...

With all the talk about Army waste, an occasional hard

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fact has its uses. Here is a case heard in a police-court in Surrey last week. A butcher's foreman was charged with buying a quantity of meat valued at £1I los., issued for the...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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HE Government is not very happy in its decisions about public holidays. The fiasco of the Christmas holiday is • dently to be repeated at the Easter holiday. Perfectly right its...

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THE WAR SURVEYED : SEA-POWER IN ACTION

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By S TRATEG ICUS T HE healthy instinct to distrust coincidence has received an invigorating shock from the series of events which selected last Thursday to transform the Near...

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SPAIN AND MONARCHISM

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By A SPANISH CORRESPONDENT T w° years ago General Franco's troops marched into Madrid. It may perhaps be said that General Franco had it in his power to establish in Spain a...

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FOOD EDUCATION

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By PROFESSOR V. H. MOTTRAM F REEDOM of criticism is the safeguard of democracy. The durSt of a leader is to lead. This is platitu- dinous, but it seems that we are all so...

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THE JUNIOR OFFICER'S PAY

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By GORDON GOWER OMMISSIONED service in the Forces of the Crown has always been by tradition the professional preserve of the richer classes, for the simple reason that it has...

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TRANSIT VISA

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By GRAHAM HEATH " rp 0 Rumania?" He held the rubber stamp poised for 1 a moment in the air, then brought it down with a thump on to my passport. " You'll be swindled right and...

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arch Goes

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By the end of March spring had come strongly, but in small in g s: many primroses, brilliant sprinklings of white, purple d sometimes wild pink violets, naked yellow coltsfoot,...

THE CINEMA

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Victory, though based on the story by Conrad, is no more successful and no less embarrassing than the vast majority of American pictures which are set in the tropics....

arish Council

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Much thou g h I dislike the thought, I am beginning to wonder f the English Parish-Council is not a dying institution which the ar will finish off completely. After four years...

THE RED TOWER

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THE Red Tower on the glorious hill, The awkward skill of girlhood, and its beauty, The fury of a rose in summer burning, Or the great library bowed down with learning, These,...

COUNTRY LIFE Toughing and Potatoes

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Do we really need a very much greater acreage of potatoes? en I read that " thousands of tons of dried Dutch peas (were) r ocessed, dyed, flavoured, and canned in this country...

ti the Garden Several correspondents have asked for fuller particulars

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of seed-collections put up for the Women's Institutes by a gh-class firm of seed merchants. I am afraid these are, how- Cr, available to members only, and the nearest and best...

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THE NEW LETTRE DE CACHET

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SIR, —We are all proud that our laws are not silent in war-time. but there is still truth in the maxim taken from the XII Tables of Rome: " Sakes populi, suprema lex." It is...

THE PRICE OF MILK

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SIR, —We hear much of the British gift for understatement, but your contributor, Mr. P. Lamartine Yates, in his article " The Price of Milk," gives a classical example of this...

THE FRIEND OF LAMB

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Sne,—I do not find it as easy as Mr. Derek Hudson to believ e ` II " time-honoured " stories. Nor has his letter given any real evid er ‘ e rr „ that Dyer fell into the river....

BRITAIN AND ABYSSINIA

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Strt,—In your issue dated March zrst, under the heading "Alliance with Abyssinia," a most interesting proposal is made regarding the future relationship between Great Britain...

A CASE FOR COMPULSORY SAVING

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Sta,—Two reports which recently appeared in the daily Press regard. log the convictions in one case at Bristol of a youth of 17, who had " messed up " a fire box in an...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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STRAIGHT NEWS Sna,—Mr. Herbert Worsley continues his defence of the B.B.C. by saying it "presents daily a very large posterior to be kicked when_we feel disgruntled." That very...

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IS THIS COUNTRY CHRISTIAN?

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Snt,—In the various discussions on the religious life of England and the need and methods of religious education, one point is consistently ignored. Yet, without answering it,...

T.N.T. WORKERS

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SIR, —On April 19th young women of zo are required to register for National Service. Many of these will undoubtedly be drafted to work in shell-filling factories. The decision...

Sta,—Your issue of January 17th has just reached me, and

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in it I fin d Your "Country Life " correspondent asking for instances of mezereon growing wild. It grows, or in 1922 grew, wild on a stretch of common between Arnside and...

RAILWAY DISCOMFORT

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SIR,—At a recent meeting of the Borough Council on which I serve, we interviewed candidates for the position of staff-nurse in our Maternity Home. During the course of the...

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

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Sm,—Will you allow me to call the attention of your readers to a movement for the improvement of Christian education throughout the nation, which is being inaugurated by the...

A NAPOLEONIC MEMORY

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Say—I was much interested in the letter about Napoleon's Prisoners of War. My mother and her sister were staying with M. Simon, the well-known banker, in Paris at the time when...

WILD DAPHNE

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Stet,—I have just received The Spectator of January 17th, in which I note an article by Mr. H. E. Bates referring to " Daphne mezereum " growing wild, and asking readers for any...

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Books of the Day

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Barrie The Story of J. M. B. Sir James Barrie, Bart., O.M. By Denis Mackail. (Peter Davies. it s. 6d.) THE life story of Sir James Barrie has been written by Mr. Mackail with...

Down With Highbrows

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Notebook in Wartime. By Lord Elton. (Collins. 7s. 6d.) LORD ELTON'S war-time notes are mostly rather cross. He seems to be one in whom opinions he disagrees with stir...

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Nazi Order

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The Social Policy of Nazi Germany. By C. W. Guillebaud. (Cambridge University Press. 3s. 6d.) gEcsgr controversy between the authors of these books might have led one to expect...

A Jaundiced Eye

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A Prophet at Home. By Douglas Reed. (Cape. rm. 6d.) "SHE liked to talk," writes Mr. Reed of one of his landladies in one of his more than ordinarily discursive passages, " when...

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War Profits and National Debt

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The Taxation of War Wealth. By J. R. Hicks, U. K. Hicks and L. Rostas. (Oxford University Press. I2S. 6d.) Tilts book arrives at an opportune moment, for it deals princi- pally...

Durham Muse

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Durham Company. By Una Pope-Hennessy. (Chatto and Windiu. 7s. 6d.) To wander in the footsteps of writers and artists has been a popular form of pilgrimage for at least a...

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Horace Translated

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The Odes of Horace. Translated into English verse by Edward Marsh. (Macmillan. 6s.) THOSE who translate Horace are brave men and deserve credit for their daring. There can be...

Fiction

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For Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. By George V. Martin. (Michael Joseph. 7s. 6d.) Peonies and Ponies. By Harold Acton. ■Clatto and Windus. Is. WHEN in a batch of new novels all...

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It Was Good While It Lasted. By Henry Longhurst. (Dent.

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15$. MR. LONGHURST, who has found himself " branded irremediably as a writer, thinker and talker on golf," here makes a hearty come-back as an authority on himself and his own...

MR. AMBROSE HEATH in this collection of extracts from his

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broadcast talks on the kitchen-front remarks that there are 0 -many things to enjoy when there is a war on, so we might as well enjoy our food, and he tells us, simply and...

The Forward March. By Sir Richard Acland. (Allen and Unwin.

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3s. 6d.) THERE is no question about Sir Richard Acland's earnestness, sincerity or complete confidence in the panacea he has devised for the ills of society. For it is avowedly...

Shorter Notices

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A Picture of Life, 1872-1940. By Viscount Mersey. (Murray. 18s. LORD MERSEY has had a more than ordinarily interesting life, and the story of it was well worth telling. Whether...

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COMPANY MEETING

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BRITISH ALUMINIUM COMPANY, LTD. WORKING TO CAPACITY AT the annual meeting of the British Aluminium Co., Ltd., held at Shrewsbury on March 28th, Mr. R. W. Cooper (chairman of...

The Gallant Little "Campeador." By Cecil Hunt. (Methuen. 4s.)

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MR. Hum's story of ' Campeador,' one of the inany motor- yachts that work with trawlers in the Auxiliary Patrol guarding our coasts, is typical of the courage and patriotism...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By , fi CUSTOS " THIS year we scarcely needed the full revenue and expenditure figures to March 31st to remind us of the grim Budget task which confronts Sir Kingsley Wood....

Witchcraft. Its Power in the World Today. By William Sea-

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brook. (Harrap. los. 6d.) ANOTHER of Mr. Seabrook's rather sensational personal journeys behind the scenes : witchcraft in Africa, in New York, Paris and London, vampires and...

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BRITISH INSULATED CABLES

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TRADING PROFIT MAINTAINED MR. T. H. MARTIN-HARVEY'S STATEMENT THE forty-fifth ordinary general meeting of British Insulated Cables, Ltd., was held on Tuesday, April 1st, at...

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SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD No. 106 E T S 1 4 N

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L. T iTE,RARASOOTI E Y 11 SAIRMallril r4 , TEA.f4E DI A TE Lilo N S I :p!s q 014' E P P E Kilo t? A Isi !C I R E R 5 :041T,i4:' D H a_ et I Pc a g f 5 I-ANL IT II ! IBil t...

" THE SPECTATOR " CROSSWORD No. 108

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[A prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be marked with...