TOPICS OF THE DAY. A GNEW, Ewan .. .. 422 .t1LAgricultural Programme, an .. 42 Agriculture, liow to Save .. 693 — and Wasted Transport .. 727 — an All-Party Policy for .....

: Not much attention has been given to the -visit 'cif :General Smuts to the United States, but: it would not the surprising if this visit turned out to be extraordinarily...

Subscription to the SPECTATOR costs Thirty Shillings per annum, including postage, to any part of the world. The SPECTATOR is registered as a Newspaper. The Postage on this...

Of nabial persuasion more vigorously ? Does he not admit that we are in the presence of an industrial and financial crisis which requires a vast common effort comparable to that...

The Government and the New Year A T the opening of the New Year the burdens and anxieties of the Government are ominously heavy. Unemployment is a persistent nightmare ; and...

the League as representing an obsolete European - ten- dency to force the will of a majority - upon those who dissent. If they had studied the laborious architectural work...

preliminaries of the Naval Conference that he has less . „time and..-inclination_than. . could , wish . for demanding in seffokt-- eoeXtensive -With - the - nation...

of the Treaties. China, as a member of the League, necessarily subscribes to international law under which . Treaties can be ended only by giving the prescribed notice or by...

resolution condemning the bomb outrage on the Viceroy's train he found that it was impossible to confine the frenzy which he had unwittingly aroused. He spoke amid persistent...

a violent speech by the President, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was educated at Harrow. He declared that the brief day of European domination was approaching its end. South...

Congress at Lahore accepted an extreme resolution which Mr. Gandhi had submitted to them on the previous day. The resolution—afterwards adopted by an overwhelming majority in...

Nanking issued a Rescript subjecting all foreigners from New Year's Day onwards to the laws of the Nankink Government and of its local representatives. Thus the Nanking...

enlisting sympathy and understanding for the labours of Europe that General Smuts may perform the function of a great missionary. No thinking European wants a conflict at any...

the daily scenes at the Congress Car* where impassive onlookers watched the curiously excited antics of the Congress Volunteers. These Volunteers, singing a revolutionary song...

leading article, and here we need not do more than record the chief events. Lord Irwin's interview at Delhi with the leaders of the National Congress on Monday, December 23rd,...

of the British Delegation for the International Labour Office Conference on wages, hours, and working conditions in the coal industry, which opens at Geneva next Monday. The...

make the second and final Hague Conference fireproof. The German delegation, appointed at a Cabinet meeting last Saturday, is impressive. It contains the heads of the four...

expectation, has not appreciably added to the list of Labour Peers. Six new Peerages are created and of these only two go to members of the Labour Party—Mr. Arthur Ponsonby...

most terrible panics ever known in this country. In a cinema theatre in Paisley a film caught fire in the operator's room and the smoke was blown into the hall. In the ensuing...

on December 12th, 1929. War Loan (5 per cent.) was on Tuesday 100*; on Tuesday week, 100; a year ago, 102k; Funding Loan (4 per cent.) was on Tuesday 851; on Tuesday week, 851...

made his statement in the House of Commons with regard to the Safeguarding Duties, and, as was expected, he delivered sentence of death. Taking his stand on constitutional...

"enslavement of the German people" was the fiasco that it was expected to be. Only about six million people were prevailed upon to record a vote. This result has provoked wry...

Labour Party, that the fireworks "and the voting in Parliament on the Coal Bill set up a smoke screen which has obscured the country's opinion of that Bill. Mr. Graham has lost...

B RITISH Governments have often faced a situation in a provisionally dependent country as confusing and as discouraging as that which we now see in India, and if the present...

an end to dreams of an easy agreement at the London Naval Conference she ought to be applauded . for the excellent clearness and the dialectical vigour of her Naval Memorandum....

Otto, one of the most influential of living theologians, is well known in this country by his great work, The idea of the Holy.—ED. Spectator.] W HAT is the true meaning of...

Ward spent a year and a half travelling in India as a newspaper correspondent. He at in the House of' Commons from 1910 to 1918 as Unionist Member for Watford. Last winter he...

[The Board of Education has set in operation a system of ex- chang e of assistants between English and German secondary schools. This as led to the formation of sub-committees...

TO WHERE could the principles of Malthus be - LI applied with such beneficial effect as in the world of books. In no other sphere do we suffer so much from the discomfort of...

M ISS AUGUSTA sat down on a seat in St. James's Park, trembling with terror. It was only yesterday that she had allowed herself to realize the truth ; but, since then, she...

A LETTER FROM MOSCOW. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It is, perhaps, not generally realized that the past year has brought to the Soviet Union a new revolution, in...

THE " SPECTATOR," JANUARY 2ND, 1830. 1829. We had a sincere respect for 1829, and we love the recollection of its great deeds. Abroad and at home, tho cause of liberty and...

[Tun ITALIAN EXHIBITION.] A CONSIDERED article on the Italian Exhibition that opened in Burlington House this week is not poosible at a day's notice, which is the time...

prohibit psycho-analysis and "other insidious teaching under the guise of science ' " in American schools and colleges supported by public funds. With a zeal which refuses to be...

THE NEW SESSION OF CONGRESS. Congress, convening on January 6th, is faced with a long, arduous and controversial Session. The fight over the Tariff Bill, between regular...

Two unusual suits have been launched in the United States Supreme Court, with the States of New Jersey and New York as litigants. In the first, New Jersey seeks to restrain New...

it necessarily does a student good to work his way through college. "The notion," an official bulletin from Cornell declares, "is as false as it is queer. Self-support handicaps...

The United States becomes increasingly conscious of the excellence of the bargain which it made when it bought Alaska for the nominal sum of $7,200,000. Several official reports...

Impelled by the urgent need to provide timber supplies for the future, the New York State Reforestation Commission recommends adoption of an unusually ambitious plan. This calls...

Pacific Relations [Our New. York correspondent sends us this interesting account of the recent meeting of the Institute of Pacific Relations at Kyoto. He was also present at...

A COCK YEAR. A keeper of my acquaintance bred this last year a good many pheasants, and bred them very successfully ; but his birds exhibited an anomaly. Out of every ten eight...

In a district of Berkshire, where the species is still found in good quantity, a red squirrel was seen hopping along the ground with what looked like a ball held in the...

of the new Bill for preservation. It is a good Bill as well as a lucky one. Let us welcome the omen, and try the " Sortes Vergilianas." The passage on which my eyes alight turns...

May I make a suggestion as to a small and unimportant detail of beautification ? The great reservoirs which hold London's water are enclosed by high sloping banks on which a...

It has not been realized in the great floods of last December how great has been the contrasting rainfall in the West and East. "The forecast has almost always been wrong in...

Owing to great pressure on our space the usual Travel Article is held over this week.—ED. SPECTATOR.

" CONCILIA PIORUM." It is a very good sign of the times that an "amenity group" has come into being in the - House of Commons, and is showing great and wise activity. It is not...

Some curiosities of bird life in England have to be recorded. A large eagle has been making its appearance in Essex. A bird lover who was told of the locality went down from...

.Sin,—Anyone interested in Temperance Reform will have read Lord D'Abernon's remarks in the Spectator for Dec- ember 7th and 14th, with great respect, but not without wonder....

[To the Editor of the SrEcrAroit.1 Sntr.—As one of Lord D'Abernon's colleagues on the War- time Liquor Control Board, I should like to point out that your contributor, "...

is to be regretted that the Daily Mail should have succeeded in persuading a number of former high officials from India to contribute to• its columns a deplorable series of...

Sm,—Many of your readers will have read with interest, and perhaps some sympathy, the very lucid and clever account of the objects and aims of the Soviet Government contained...

you 'very sincerely for your cour- ageous, just, and timely article in last week's Spectator anent India. For the past forty-five years I have had many relatives there, so Iknow...

SIR,—While we are striving for a new and better outlook in India, as advocated in your leading article on December 28th, would it not be well to be quite clear what we mean...

SIR,—I entirely agree with your correspondent in thinking it unwise to deceive children about Santa Claus—like "Molly," in the example given in his letter, I vividly...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Yes, more Unionists do agree with Mr. Churchill than you suppose.—! am, Sir, &c., H. J. SADLER. 21 Argyll Road, Kensington, W.8.

Snt,—The article headed "Trade Realities" in your issue of the 14th ult.. calls for some reply. To say with the writer that we are losing ground as compared with our trade...

[To the Editor of the SPEcrxron.1 Sm,—Your correspondent, Mr. Taylor, is quite right and is sutoported by the latest results of scientific research. Christ's words, correctly...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia,—In a recent number of the Spectator the statement was quoted about Christian Science that in the United States "many regard it as likely...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Being a great -lover of animals, I have just read with the greatest interest Mr. John Galsworthy's article "Animals and Birds" in your...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Your issue of December 28th contains a letter from Dr. Roux, of the Pasteur Institute, criticizing a letter of mine that appeared in...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia,—In the prefatory note to ray article, Number V in the "Defence of the Faith" series, you describe me as having "produced a translation...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—In the issue of November 30th the Honorary Organizing Secretary of the International League Against the Export of Horses for Butchery...

Sm,—Plough Monday being at hand, you may be interested to have the Plough Boy's Play, which is still done in the York- shire villages. To my knowledge it has never been...

Sin,—On behalf of the Scottish S.P.C.A., I trust you will permit me to thank Major Yeats-Brown for his strong indictment of the cruelties inseparable from the performing...

SPECTATOR.] Sra,—May I take the occasion of the recent meeting of the General Council of the League of Nations Union to draw the attention of your readers to certain aspects...

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] S1R,—A correspondent in the Spectator of November 9th seeks elucidation of the reference to the French and British divisions as "the spear...

THE MOHAMMEDANS IN CEYLON. In your issue of December 21st you have an interesting article on "The Experiment in Ceylon "; but towards the bottom of the second paragraph, when...

I KNOW a willow tree, unpollarded, neglected, Where sits a ruminative crow, • Who, in the grey canal below, Hour after hour, perceives himself reflected. Or does he watch...

THE meadow lands are waterlogged to-day, A monochrome of cold, metallic grey Saddens the eyes. Skeleton trees, with roots submerged in mud Like masts of stranded ships, about...

subject of great interest. In The Mantle of Caesar, by Friedrich Gundolf, translated by J. W. Hartmann (Grant Richards and H. Toulmin, 15s.) we have a learned and engaging study...

30th, SIR W. BEAcrt TriosiAs suggested that "what we want is really some little rhyme that will be the motto of the tidiers." We, therefore, offer a prize of five guineas for...

THERE possibly was a time when, for the anthropologist, culture was "essentially something static," but that time has long since passed away. If there is one thing which...

offer to the general reader in his new volume of researches into plant-physiology—Growth and Tropic Movement of Plants (Longmans, 21s.)—he has made an important scientific...

Richard Wilhelm's Short History of Chinese Civilization, admirably translated by Miss Joan Joshua, with an intro- duction by Dr. Lionel Giles (Harrap, 12s. 6d.). Dr. Wilhelm...

puzzled in decid- ing on a Christmas or New Year present. Keepsakes and Remem- brancers and Friendship's Offerings appeared in timely season and in prodigious numbers. The most...

such as Henri de Montherlant, Barres and Gauthier, who have found in Spain precisely the illusions which they first took there themselves, Mr. Mario Praz's Unromantic Spain...

and, enthusiasm in publishing a new and enlarged form of the S. M. T. Magazine and, above all, on the support which the editor intends to give to all movements having at heart...

Shakespeare's Henry VI and Richard III. By Peter Alexander. (Cambridge Univ. Press. 8s. 6d.) AMONG the traditions of Shakespeare's life before he came to London there is one...

Chief Justice Coke, His Family and Descendants at Ho1kham By C. W. James. (Country Life. 30s.) THE appearance of a book of this kind makes Us praise Heaven for the evidence on...

old Russian Army was a gallant cavalry leader and a fine figure of a man in his Circassian tunic.- General Wrangel took no part in polities until the debdde of 1917. The year...

Merchant. By W. F. M. Weston-Webb. (Cayme Press. 10s. 6d.) IT is true, as Mr. Stephen Gwynn says in his introduction to this interating book, that we know very little about the...

An Introduction to Italian Painting. By Sir Charles Holmes. With forty plates. (Cassell. 10s. 6d.) The Italian Masters : a Survey and a Guide. By Horace BOTH Sir Charles Holmes...

WILL BE READY FOR DELIVERY ON JANUARY 20TH, 1930. Readers resident outside the British Idea, and Lararits Overseas, are asked to inform the SPECTATOR Office in advance as to...

PROFESSOR SniFSON wisely points out that "one of the great aeeds in an age of rapidly increasing scientific specialism is for each specialist occasionally to sit back and think...

The Influence of Christ in the Ancient World. By T. R. Glover, {Cambridge University Press. as.) No living writer approaches Dr. Glover in the power of com- bining the results...

Tu Fu, the Man who delights in Beauty, lived during the T'ang dynasty of China, in the 8th century A.D. and wrote his life in poetry. It was a full, exciting and perambulatory...

Ends of the Earth. By Roy Chapman Andrews. (Putnam. 16s.) ALL the world 'knows how Mr. Andrews' expedition in the Gobi Desert went bird's-nesting for clutches of dinosaur's...

THE LIFE FASHIONABLE. By Peter Traill. (Bren- tano. 75. Od.)—We have often suspected that the eternal triangle was really a quadrilateral and that the novelist's weakness for...

The Gothick North. II. These Sad Ruins. By Sacheverell Sitwell. • (Duckworth. 8s. 6d.) IF, as we believe; it was a mistake to publish The Visit of the Gypsies by itself, it...

lacked a Walter Scott and its picturesque and chequered ages of romance have been left to the his- torians. Mr. Alan Downey's historical romance of the events which led to the...

the right sort of detective story. Murders, clues, new theories and other fresh developments occur on every page. We suspect every member of the house-party in turn, for they...

—Here we have a farce of the most wildly extravagant nature, which is unfortunately treated as though it were a very mild little comedy. It begins with Lord Pavington's...

Debretes Peerage, 1930. (Dean. £3 15s.) -The People's Year Book, 1930. (Co-operative Wholesale Society, 1 Balloon Street, Manchester. 3s.) Post Office London Directory, 1980....

the dusty files of Punch which have accumulated during the last twenty-one years, and extracting therefrom those lyrics, written from a "bat's back," which still retain a little...

the Tsaritsa (Putnam, 15s.) are singularly at variance with its title. He and his little circle made no real attempt to save their royal mistress (it is interesting to find...

Forbes leave little for a mere reviewer to say about The Fortunate Islands, by Amelia Defries (Cecil Palmer, 7s. 6d.). What remains to be said after Mr. Horn has exclaimed :...

of London, and even Deauville does not loom very large in the scheme of things. If certain men and women of Kenya are Tarred with the Same Brush, by le Comte de Janze...

A belief in magic is the root of all evil. So at least thinks M. Raoul Allier, whose latest book, Le non-civilise et nous, has been translated by Mr. Fred Rothwell, under the...

about Cora Pearl, Maria Manning and Lola Montes, but Mr. Horace Wyndham by issuing Feminine Frailty (Berm, 18s.) seems to think otherwise. In addition to matter that has been...

Society, and is editing its excellent volumes on the counties, has printed his recent King's College lectures on Problems of Place-name Study (Cambridge University Press, Os.)....

Century Stage Decoration (Knopf, /5 5s.) will serve better than any known to us as a work of reference in regard to the work of the Idealist Theatre—defining that term as the...

10s. 6d.) this comic history of the United States by the illustrator of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has too strong and bitter a flavour to be to the taste of English readers. A...

regiments the Artists' Rifles holds a high place. It is therefore fitting that their already high sense of esprit de corps should be still further strengthened by Colonel May's...

Oust weekly prize of one guinea for the best thirteen Questions submitted is awarded this week to M. J. C. Meiklejohn, 136 Coombe Lane, S.W. 20, for the following :— -...

The Outlook for 1930 THERE is a rather striking contrast between the optimism which marked the closing of 1929 and the soberness, not to say sombreness, with which the...

Naturally enough, the break in Stock Exchange activity , during the second half of 1929 occasioned a smart reaction in respect of capital creations. This is clearly shown in the...

On the whole, the monetary prospects for January are fairly good, though whether they will lead to an early reduction in the Bank Rate remains to be seen. Much, no doubt, will...

Once again, and notwithstanding the fact that conditions in Argentina have been less favourable for some time past, the report of the New Zealand and River Plate Land Mortgage...

INVESTMENTS FIRM. FoLLowniu upon the depression during the greater part of December, the stock markets wound up the year in tolerably cheerful fashion. End of the year...

The impending important fusion in the tin industry imparted additional interest to the recent meeting of the London Tin Syndicate. Lord Askwith, who presided, gave a very...

The figures of the National Revenue for the first nine months of the current fiscal year are not very encouraging, though they just about fulfil market expectations. Briefly...