T HE provocations and counter-provocations in and around Berlin are a miserable business, which might quite easily become dangerous, though the Allies certainly, and Russia...

Those observers who have persisted in regarding General Eisenhower's very late start in the Presidential campaign as tactically wise must at this moment be a little...

The ruling of the Supreme Court on President Truman's action in seizing the steel industry in order to prevent a strike which would gravely impede armament production is itself...

The reaction of the Soviet delegate to the proposals put forward in the Disarmament Commission by the British delegate, Sir Gladwyn Jebb, last week is characteristic, except...

The constitutional deadlock in South Africa is proceeding according to plan, without any hint of compromise emerging. It now looks almost inevitable that South Africa will soon...

Within a few weeks of the death two months ago of her Prime Minister, Mr. D. S. Senanayake, Ceylon was plunged into a general election. There could be no better testimony - to...

The chairman of the Durham County Council, speaking about the Council's dispute with the National Union of 'teachers on the closed shop issue, is reported as saying: " I do not...

I N going to Korea to face at close quarters all the grim and intractable problems that are to be found there Lord Alexander is setting a badly-needed example of realism and...

M R. HAROLD NICOLSON's Life of King George V is in the Press and will presum- ably be published in the autumn. It is almost time to wonder who will be entrusted with the Life of...

Editor of the National and English Review, would no doubt be dealing in that journal with the statements in the new volume of The History of The Times regarding his alleged part...

Aberystwyth, and Dr. B. Ifor Evans, Provost of University College, London, has been constant. It will now unhappily end, through the death.of Mr. Ifor L. Evans last Saturday. He...

some day) has recovered some £9,000, or its equivalent in dollars, from the income-tax authorities in America on the ground that she is not a professional writer; she just...

telling a Danish.audience that if a Labour Government came back it would press for the admission of Communist China to the United Nations. I wonder too, incidentally, on what...

has been making itself notorious in other directions) is protesting against the appointment of a man from the South of England as Chief Regional Fire Officer for Durham and two...

a charge of assaulting an undergraduate protested vigorously against his arrest and said he had written about it to.Mr. Justice Lynskey, The People and Gilbert Harding. It seems...

adventure by an admirable pamphlet on the subject by Mr. S. H. Wood, late of the Ministry of Education, written for, and published by, the National Association of Girls' and...

By 1 HOMAS GARNER JAMES M ORE than one in every hundred of the prosperous citizens of the United States now lives the year round, happily and by choice, in a caravan-trailer....

By IAIN HAMILTON T HE week-end before last I attended two meetings at which the present state of " culture " in Britain was the prime concern. One, on the Saturday, was the...

By SIR RONALD DAVISON S INCE 1948 we in Great Britain have had a National Health Scheme which offers us free medical treatment, both the comprehensive variety in the surgery or...

By ROBERT WAITHMAN Washington. T HE view that it would be a far, far better thing for every- one if the twenty-year rule of the Democratic Party in America were broken and a...

I don't garden. Because, when I garden, Not only does it make my arteries harden (Whereas when I lie flat on my back They have every encouragement to remain supple and slack)...

We will post -the SPECTATOR to any of your friends residing in any part of the world at the following rates :— 52 weeks, 35s. ; 26 weeks, 17s. 6d. In addition a Birthday...

As to Motor-Cycles By JOHN W. CRAWFORD (Glasgow University.) "F forty thousand casualties in a single year will not shock motor-cyclists into driving more carefully, what will...

By HAROLD NICOISON I IMAGINE that for my grandchildren the phrase " a famous hostess " will seem archaic, having associations as outmoded as those suggested to my own...

homing note of an occasional aeroplane) was something of a distraction in the early part. Did the sweet artifice of the comedy seem a little shaky in the plain light of London ?...

THEATRE Timon of Athens. By William Shakespeare. (The Old Vic.) WATCHING Timon was, I found, rather like going to some scandalously sophisticated party at which, halfway...

THE curtain was raised, as far as I was concerned, to denote little more than the passage of two-and-a-quarter hours. This adaptation of one of Mr. Peter Cheyney's crime-stories...

So Bright the Flame. (Empire.)—The Quiet Man. (Plaza.)— Just Across the Street. (Leicester Square.) DR. EMILY DUNNING was one of the Florence Nightingales of America at the...

Pure gold, Helen, you were pure gold, And never undervalued, never cold. Uncommon currdncy, your fortune weathers The exchange of foreign values, language, date. But Helen,...

reminded of Andre Gide 's answer to the question " Who is the greatest French poet ? " " Victor Hugo, helas ! " sighed Gide, scrupulously honest but wishing that he could hand...

of £5 was offered for the best native comments on British weather in one triolet stanza beginning either : " It's bound to stop now That I've got my umbrella." The rain's bound...

Set by R. Kennard Davis A prize of £5, which may be divided, is offered for a character- sketch of Stalin taken from either Carlyle's " Russian Revolution," or Gibbon's "...

The most recent accounts from the United States speak of a likelihood that Mr. Fillmore will withdraw his claims to the Presidency, in favour of Mr. Webster. This still leaves...

unsubstantiated opinion that " there seem to be many medical men today, especially in country districts, who resent patients on their panel whom they consider quite well enough...

- A Policy for Rivers Sut,—A few weeks ago the Pride of Derby and Derbyshire Angling Association Limited were granted an injunction and damages against British Celanese...

Sta,—In reply to the letter from "Senex," may I say first that I am entirely in favour of the National Health Service, of which now well over ninety per cent. of the population...

the situa- tion under the N.H.S. 'of patients who " could" pay. When we became N.H.S. patients the doctor made it unmistakably clear to us that we could not expect the same...

you to press for legislation to compel young motor-cyclists to use silencers. It is already illegal to drive a motor vehicle with an ineffective silencer. And what is more, on...

of good scientists amounts to burying your ostrich head in the sands, and killing the grammar-school sixth-form goose which has laid golden eggs. One considerable alleviation to...

Spectator's Notebook of May 23rd, to the proposed new hospital for Kingston and Malden was very gratifying to us, because it stresses two important points often over-...

some motor- cycle silencers are so carefully designed that they actually increase the efficiency of the engine and therefore the possible maximum speed of

a mathematician and I am merely a linguist, I do not know that he is better qualified than I am to criticise football-pools; and when he says that "the forecasting of draws is a...

Mr. R. L. Kitchin that " poorer patients (most markedly in villages) were much better cared for thirty years ago." In the days of voluntary district nursing associations in our...

SIR,—In a recent number of your journal there was a reference to the work of the late Dr. Truby King. It was stated that Dr. King, like Madame Montessori, began his work in the...

Sut,—The B.B.C. is certainly not consistent. In the French Service of the B.B.C. from London the German Chancellor is always referred to as " le Docteur Adenauer." So why not on...

Sm,—Is it right to found the distinction between federal and confederate union on the assumption that the latter is a mere alliance creating no superior authority ? Is it not...

Sm,—Although it is obvious from the context that the Turk's Cap mentioned by Matthew Arnold, to which Dr. Garrod refers in his letter in the Spectator of May 16th, is not...

SIR,—A woman speaker on careers, addressing girls at a secondary school recently, was asked by one girl a question as to domestic service, which the questioner intended taking...

SIR,—Having read your art critic's notice of the replicas of the Ravenna mosaics at present exhibited by the Arts Council at the New Burlington Galleries, I am impelled to...

SIR,—Compact and familiar names for our railway regions would be Great Western, Southern, North-Western, North-Eastern and Cale- donian. All of these, except Southern, date back...

S1R, —How much I agree with Janus regarding the value of the Crock- ford prefaces. Seven 'years ago I was moved to recommend their publication in book form for the benefit of...

- These days, when the lawn has to be cut almost every seven days, there is an opportunity of adding one of the finest ingredients to the 'compost-heap. Lawn clippings can -be...

' " My old grandfer was a strong man an' very quick-tempered. Ho liked children, but he couldn't bear them makin' a noise. ` Stop that 'er tootin',' he'd say when I come in...

EVERYONE who had walked in a wood in summer has heard oihe drumming of the great or lesser spotted woodpeckers. Many people who have not seen either know the green woodpecker...

In the calm, when the wind had gone completely, I amused myself by leaning over the side of the boat and peering into the water. The bed of a lake is a fascinating thing of...

implements, but now it is going slowly to ruin. Slates have fallen off here and there, and the floor has become sodden. In spite of the ravages of the years, it still gives...

Ordeal By Slander. By Owen Lattimore. MacGibbon & Kee. 13s. 6d.) ONE of the great differences between the atmosphere of Britain in the two wars was the comparative absence of...

Boswell and Zelide Boswell in Holland, 1763-1764. Edited by Frederick A. Pottle. (Heinemann. 25s.) " Boswell when cool and sedate fixes rules for Boswell to live by in the...

Retrospect. By Viscount Simon. (Hutchinson. 25s.) IT has been almost roses, roses, all the way with Lord Simon, but not quite. Having decided to choose politics instead of the...

Eyck and his school is rapidly increasing. This last work, written by a former Director of the Vienna Gallery, comes after Professor Van Puyvelde's Holy Lamb (Collins, 1947) and...

Year in, Year out. By A. A. Milne. (Methuen. 15s.) MR. MILNE has herded together in the fold of stiff covers a flock of thoughts which, during his many years as a writer, have...

Ado p t ion : Facts and Opinions Child Adoption in the Modern World. By Margaret Kornitzer. (Putnam. 16s.) Child Adoption in the Modern World. By Margaret Kornitzer. (Putnam....

Cominunism, Democracy and Catholic Power. By Paul Blanshard. (Cape. 18s.) Cominunism, Democracy and Catholic Power. By Paul Blanshard. (Cape. 18s.) MR. BLANSHARD, who is already...

Take The Cash. By Elinor Rice. (Heinemann. 12s. 6d.) THIS week's novels seem to be rather a jolly lot, pleasant books about likeable people with an unusual amount of plot to...

IN this sound, well-documented survey of French social doctrines, Dr. Evans does much to destroy the popular conception of Romantic ideology. Indeed, he lets the Romantics...

THERE is probably nothing new to be said about John Hunter. Every year, for many decades, a Hunterian Oration has been read by a selected orator before the Royal College of...

of the long and the short of it in the stock markets. From the long-term investment standpoint many securities are looking cheap. In this category I will include medium-dated...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct tolutYon opened after noon on Tuesday week. lune 17th, addressed Crossword. 99 Gower Street....

Crossword No. 679 is: Miss E. C. PATERSON, 42, Murrayfield Gardens, Edinburgh, 12. June zo