5 MAY 1939

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NEWS OF THE WEEK

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W HATEVER the reasons that underlie M. Litvinov's resignation of the post of Commissar for Foreign Affairs, the event is not reassuring. When in the midst of delicate and...

Poland and Danzig The Polish people, relations between their own

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country and Germany having been sharply clarified by Herr Hitler's denunciation of the Polish-German Pact concluded in January, 1934, for a period of ten years, are expressing...

The Importance of Rumania Rumania continues to be one of

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the keys of the European situation. If there is to be an effective defensive front in Eastern Europe Rumania and Poland must hold the fore- most places in it, with Russia in...

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The Encirclement Myth The comprehensive repudiation made by the Prime

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Minister in the House of Commons on Wednesday of any idea of the " encirclement " of Germany may be of some service in so far as it is brought to the notice of the German people...

* * * *

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The Archbishop's Opportunity An impressive letter by the Dean of St. Paul's in The Times last week, urging that " before the killing begins " the Christian churches throughout...

Serbs and Croats Last week the Yugoslav Prime Minister and

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the Croat leader, Dr. Matchek, reached a " final agreement " in their discussions at Zagreb on the Serb-Croat problem. The agree- ment was believed to provide for autonomy for...

Conscription and Ireland The Government may be congratulated on the

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attitude it has adopted to the problem of applying conscription to Ulster. It might have been better to omit Ulster altogether from the scope of the Bill, for the number of men...

A New Plan for Palestine The Egyptian Government has played

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a useful and honourable part in the conference last week-end at Cairo, attended by representatives of the Palestinian Arabs, the Arab States and the Indian Moslems, and presided...

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The principle of the Conscription Bill having already been decided

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upon, argument will now turn solely upon its details. The mildness of the measure and the very limited scope of its application has surprised a good many people, and there is...

On the first day that he entered the House of

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Commons, Mr. A. P. Herbert made it plain that he did not propose to consider himself as an ordinary Member. The majority of the House were shocked when he challenged Mr. Baldwin...

The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary correspondent writes : The

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Budget resolutions plod their placid and uneventful way. The life was taken out of the Budget debates by the conscription announcement, and, although a number of worthy speeches...

Exports to Germany On Tuesday the President of the Board

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of Trade told an approving House of Commons that he proposed to take powers immediately to ensure that any ships which British owners wished to sell abroad should first be...

Labour's Choice The Labour Party has put itself in a

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quite untenable situation in its opposition to conscription. Firstly, it lays itself open to the old criticism of willing the end in foreign policy without willing the means at...

Budget Criticisms Sir John Simon's Budget was eclipsed in importance,

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on Budget day itself, by Mr. Chamberlain's announcement of conscription, and the Budget debate was thinly attended. Even on the Labour side it is admitted that, given the...

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THE WORD OF A FUHRER O N April 28th, in his

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speech to the Reichstag, Herr Hitler made yet another of his frequent offers of peace. Germany, he said, " is prepared to conclude a 25-year non-aggression treaty with Poland, a...

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KING GEORGE SETS SAIL

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T WENTY-SIX years ago Prince Albert, King George the Fifth's second son, serving as cadet on H.M.S. Cumberland,' landed for the first time on the shores of Canada. This week, as...

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No tears need be shed, except in so far as

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the growing dis- regard of international obligations is to be depored, over the abrogation of the Anglo-German Naval Treaty by Herr Hitler. No new building programme on which...

One phrase in Herr Hitler's Reichstag speech seems a little

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odd. Germany, he said, was prepared to conclude a twenty- five-year non-aggression pact with Poland—" a treaty, there- fore, which would extend far beyond the duration of my own...

The B.B.C., which by its Charter is under obligation to

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issue Government statements when called on so to do, is on occasion recusant. Not long ago it was rung up in the middle of the evening by a certain Government Depart- ment and...

The lyric effluences of publishers regarding their forth- coming books

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are a thing apart, and I should never think of applying to them ordinary standards of interpretation. But there must after all be some standards of interpretation, or some...

That remarkable weekly journal, the Saturday Evening Past, of Philadelphia,

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with its circulation of, I think, three millions, is publishing a curious series of articles by General Krivitsky, who was chief of the Soviet Military Intelligence in Western...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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IF I said—as I do say—that a man had died in the past week but for whom the Allies might have lost the Great War, many readers, I fancy, would be hard put to it to decide whom I...

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THE PRESIDENT'S DIPLOMACY

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By ERWIN D. CANHAM Washington. B EHIND the excellent reception which American public opinion gave President Roosevelt's now historic mes- sage to the Dictators are several...

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MY CONSCRIPT SERVICE

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By GERARD BOUTELLEAU ti rig OT till you've done your military service," our French provincials say when a too enterprising youth wants to rush suddenly into a career. Their...

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FRANCE'S MORALE

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W ITHOUT wincing or any apparent inclination to suppose that there is an easy way round, France has now accepted the challenge of what someone has called " the peace of...

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THE NORMAL CHILD'S SCHOOL

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By MAGNUS WECHSLER A MONG a multitude of largely inter-related educational questions the current problems of reorganisation and those which will arise on the raising of the...

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UNKNOWN CHINESE SOLDIER

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By AGNES SMEDLEY T ODAY I saw a peasant soldier of China die. In him was embodied the death of a million men of China who had given their lives that their country may not be...

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THE CONQUEST OF DIPHTHERIA

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By OUR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT F OR exponents of the objective, physical, scientific factor in Medicine there are few better or more clear-cut examples than that afforded by the...

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

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"THE SPECTATOR," MAY 4TH, 5839. A fanatical Irishman, residing in the !ower part of Lincoln, having conceived an antipathy towards the Cathecral, has vowed to demolish it; and...

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POEM

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IN this quiet room, at this quiet time In anxious Europe, things come casually To our sensation. The innocent light hangs Over the roadway, still the hedge fulfils Its civil...

CLARENCE

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By H. R. JUKES A CTUALLY, I suppose, Clarence might even have been Long John Silver's parrot—Cap'n Flint under a more respectable name. They live to a great age, I believe, and...

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My study of this truly interesting speech was interrupted by

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the entry into my compartment of two elderly mer- chants of the City of London. They also read their evening newspapers with attention. At the very moment when the train arrived...

PEOPLE AND THINGS

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By HAROLD NICOLSON I T was a strange experience, last Friday, to watch the stages by which Herr Hitler's Reichstag speech per- colated into London. The House of Commons found...

When I reached my club the page-boy, with trained dex-

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terity, was padding and smoothing with the aid of a quite ordinary clothes-brush the first bulletins upon the green baize, studded as a bagatelle-board with sharp pins. In his...

For the moment, therefore, it is neither the Jews, nor

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the Bolsheviks, nor yet the Social Democrats, nor even the Traitors of Versailles, who are the central enemy; it is Presi- sident Roosevelt who is Enemy No. One. By thus concen-...

Yet when in daylight the House suddenly adjourns, the effect

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is even more morose. The atmosphere of a theatre after a matinee (with all those coffee-cups around) is sadder even than the picture of charwomen enclosing stalls in dust-...

Since then I have heard younger and less inert people

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echoing the same toothless optimism. For them it was a " hopeful sign " that Herr Hitler's vituperations were concentrated upon President Roosevelt and that his refer- ences to...

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Commonwealth and Foreign

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SELF-CONFIDENT POLAND By FRANK CLEMENTS I SUPPOSE that I was one of the first Englishmen to benefit from the understanding with Poland. On the evening when I left Kaunas for...

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STAGE AND SCREEN

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THE THEATRE " Carrie and Cleopatra." By H. E. Bates. At the Torch Theatre. " Herbert Farjeon's Little Revue." At the Little Theatre. CARRIE and Cleopatra are sisters, divided...

THE CINEMA

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Wuthering Heights." At the Gaumont-" La Bête Humaine." At the Paris. How much better they would have made Wuthering Heights in France. They know there how to shoot sexual...

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ART

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Academic Painting IT would be true, as usual, to say of this year's exhibition of the Royal Academy that it contains too many pictures, too few of which have any claims to be...

OPERA AND BALLET

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Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells SMETANA'S comic opera, Prodana Nev'esta, alias The Bartered Bride, alias Die Verkaufte Braut, under which title it opened the season at Covent...

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TOUT LE MONDE CONSCRIT

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[D'un correspondant parisien] LES Francais ont appris avec soulagement ]'adoption par l'Angleterre du principe de la conscription. Pour ]'instant, sans doute, la valeur du gene...

FOOTBALL

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Impressions at Wembley THAT Portsmouth, on the day's play, deserved to win no one can doubt. But who could have foretold it? Their record in the League had been most...

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Nesting Box Competition

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On the subject of wrens, a strange tale is told me of the long duel between a pair of tits and wrens for the possession of a new nesting-box. The tits, especially the cock bird,...

The Best Apple

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In the west country a very expert grower of fruit grafted a number of his trees (which had borne a less valuable variety of fruit) with that best of commercial apples, Lord...

COUNTRY LIFE

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May ! The date suggests two pleasurable duties. One is to visit the fruit orchard country, Worcestershire perhaps above other districts ; the other to visit the Lincolnshire...

Close Seasons More than one appeal has been made in

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this page for a closer close season for many birds. A beginning was registered recently by the passing of the Bill for the protection of geese and duck ; and the Home Secretary...

Brave Birds

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How persistent are some nesting pairs, and how shy are others! The other day I found a blackbird's nest that had been built on what had been the top rail of a fence, tilted to...

Colour and Soil On the same farm a certain amount

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of transplanting was done for various reasons, and some of the results were striking. Cox's were removed from a sloping orchard to lower ground, and flourished exceedingly. They...

In the Garden

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In one cherry orchard (which has been in unusually full blossom this season) a great quantity of daffodils were planted about twenty years ago. The grass is rather rough, and it...

Cured Canker

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In the same orchards a patent cure for canker, that most prevalent of apple diseases, has been tried recently. I in- spected closely a number of cankers both broad and deep that...

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THE NEGEB AND THE JEWS

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sta,—In his interesting letter on the Negeb Mr. George Eden Kirk writes : " One of the most unpleasing features of the recent colonisation of...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must...

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, — In his interesting article

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on " Land for the Jews," Professor G. R. Driver observes that " the offer of the Negeb to the Jews would be welcomed by very many of them as the best possible settlement of the...

GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Lord Tavistock's indictment of British policy towards Germany is both unreasonable and unjust. We have tried to disarm and we are the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, — I venture to question

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whether the seizure of Czecho- Slovakia was as unpremeditated as suggested in " A Specta- tor's Notebook." Father Reichenberger, the leader of the Sudeten Christian Democrats,...

THE OCCUPATION OE CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—While it is probably true, as the writer of " A Specta- tor's Notebook" says, that Field-Marshal Goering did not know in advance of the...

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GERMANY AND THE FOURTEEN POINTS

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The article on " Germany and the Fourteen Points " interests me, since I have just spent some days of research on the same point. There is...

CHRISTIANITY AND WAR

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—I was not thinking specifically of the former German colonies when I suggested that Germany was indignant " at the virtual domination by...

THE PRIVILEGES OF IMMIGRANTS

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] write on the day conscription has been introduced in England to challenge your advocacy of most liberal, if not unquestioning admission of...

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MR CHAMBERLAIN'S LEADERSHIP [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, —Your

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correspondent who finds fault with Mr. Chamberlain's leading has an extraordinary notion of what constitutes criticism. An author recently complained that when he published a...

SIR .WALTER RALEGH AND NATIONAL DEFENCE [To the Editor of

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THE SPECTATOR] Sul,—At this moment when our minds are filled with the question of national defence, it is interesting, and in an odd way inspiring, to turn to how our...

A TAX ON BEER

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The writer of " Budget and Crisis (April 28th) is to be congratulated on a well-reasoned exposition of the present fiscal position. It is...

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FOR STUDENTS OF DUNBAR

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Six,—Mr. Rowse mentions the description in The Great Chronicle of London of the dinner at which Dunbar's " Lon- don, thou art the flower of...

CLOTHING FOR CZECH REFUGEES [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]

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Sit,—Hundreds of men, women and children, refugees from Czecho-Slovakia, are arriving in this country destitute and with nothing but the clothes in which they stand. May I...

ARE STATISTICIANS LIARS ?

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, —Miss Margaret Knight supplies in Mr. R. M. Moore's table of comparative death-rate of 13 age-groups a striking illustration of the "...

THE BERLINGSKE TIDENDE

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sut,—On the occasion of an article in your paper dated April 7th, 1939, by Monica Redlich, we beg to inform you that it must be due to a...

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BOOKS OF THE DAY

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Margaret Sanger (Mary Agnes Hamilton) .. ... 769 Crimea (H. R. Colman) • • • • ... ... ... 770 Louisa May Alcoa (Rosamond Lehmann) ... 772 judgment on German Africa (J. L....

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44 THEIR'S NOT TO REASON WHY

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Crimea. By C. E. Vulliamy. (Jonathan Cape. 15s.) THE history of the Crimean War is a useful cautionary tale for statesmen and peoples. It was the product of blunder- ing...

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LITTLE WOMEN RE-VISITED

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THE name of Louisa May Alcott is for me one of those names which operate as symbols, and flood whole tracts of almost buried and forgotten, yet still fertile, territory with...

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GERMANY'S COLONIAL CLAIMS

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THE nearer problems of Europe have pushed Germany's claim for colonies to the background, but they have an awkward way of popping up in temporary lulls in the Euro- pean storm....

A FINE ANTHOLOGY

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Selected Writings of Thomas de Quincey. By Philip Van Doren Stem. (Nonesuch Press. Jos. 6d.) THIS large and well-selected anthology has come (none too early) to supply a felt...

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A FRENCH FAMILY

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M. MARTIN DU GARD'S famous novel, which has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, will win many new admirers in this excellent translation. The Thibaults tells the story...

SOLDIER BORN

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Life of an Irish Soldier. Reminiscences of General Sir Alexander Godley, G.C.B., K.C.M.G. (Murray. 12$. 6d.) IN his Preface Lord Baden-Powell tells us that in this book Sir...

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MR. EDEN

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Foreign Affairs. By the Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden. (Faber and Faber. 12s. 6d.) Tins book is much more than a collection of Mr. Eden's speeches on foreign affairs. It is, as he...

DtaEcr subscribers who are changing their addresses a r e asked to

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notify THE SPECTATOR office BEFORE MIDDAY on MONDAY OF EACH WEEK. The name, the previous address to which the paper has been sent and receipt reference number should be quoted.

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FICTION

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By FORREST REID Grand Master. By Stephen Hockaby. (Michael Joseph. 7s. 6d.) I HAVE, I must confess, no great love for topical fiction ; I am, in fact, all against it, and Mr....

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THE MAY MAGAZINES

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THE Nineteenth Century gives prominence to a warning article on " The European Situation," by Mr. M. Wolf, who holds that Berlin and Rome still fail to realise the strength of...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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THE City has taken the Simon and the Hitler hurdles in good style, but having done so is looking round again as anxious and puzzled as before. For it is already clear that last...

CONSCRIPTION GAINS AND LOSSES

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The Government's conscription plan is obviously a " bull point " for the makers of boots and uniforms and for the builders of barracks, but is less pleasant news for the...

IMPERIAL CHEMICALS PROFITS

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Year by year Imperial Chemical Industries fOrtifies its position among the select group of undertakings which, except in abnormally depressed conditions, may be relied on to...

THE FOREIGN INVESTMENT PROBLEM

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Obviously from the Chancellor of the Exchequer's cryptic replies to questions in the House of Commons, White- hall has no intention just yet of clarifying its neatly expressed "...

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* * * * SPILLERS HIGHER PROFITS

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Flour-milling in Great Britain is very largely in the hands of three companies : Ranks, Spillers and the Co-operative Whole- sale Society. The Co-operative Wholesale Society is...

Sir Auckland Geddes was naturally not able to tell the

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shareholders of the Rio Tinto Company that there had as yet been relief from the disabilities under which the com- pany is operating in Spain. On the contrary, he showed that...

H.E. PROPRIETARY

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Sir Frederick Hamilton had one disappointment to record at last week's meeting of H.E. Proprietary. West Spaarwater, in which H.E. Proprietary is largely interested, has found...

The vast Unilever combine which, with its interests spread throughout

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the world, comprises one of the largest industrial undertakings in existence has not failed to feel the effect of international tension and its concomitant exchange restrictions...

COMPANY MEETING

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THE LONDON ASIATIC RUBBER AND PRODUCE COMPANY, LIMITED AT the annual general meeting of the above company on May 1st, the Chairman, Mr. H. J. Welch, said: In 1938 the rubber...

MARKS AND SPENCER RESULTS

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The chain store groups competing in the lower-priced section of the retail trade are less immediately affected by changes in the economic outlook than some of those shops which...

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RIO TINTO

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A DIFFICULT YEAR HE sixty-sixth ordinary general meeting of the Rio Tinto Com- pany, Limited, was held on April 28th, in London. The Rt. Hon. Sir Auckland Geddes, G.C.M.G....

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COMPANY MEETLNGS

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PATALING RUBBER ESTATES STANDARD PRODUCTION INCREASED THE 19th ordinary general meeting of the Pataling Rubber Estates, Limited, was held on May 3rd in London. Mr. H. Eric...

HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY THE 270th annual general court of the

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Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay was held en May 2nd in London. Mr. Patrick Ashley Cooper (the Governor) said that American business...

PATALING RUBBER ESTATES Pataling Rubber Estates, a successful member of

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the Harrisons and Crosfield group of companies, last year used its financial strength to suspend sales while the market was unduly depressed. Mr. H. Eric Miller, the chairman,...

HUDSON'S BAY PROBLEMS

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Presiding at the 270th meeting of the " Governor and Com- pany of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's Bay " on Tuesday, Mr. Patrick Ashley-Cooper announced that nearly...

LONDON ASIATIC RUBBER

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Another rubber company which has come through the difficult conditions of 1938 is the London Asiatic Rubber and Produce Company, which comes from the same stable as Pataling. At...