There is a natural tendency, when any news of an improvement in the dollar balance comes through, to hang out flags. Sir - Stafford Cripps, to do him justice, gave no...

of political wisdom and discernment, Mr. McCloy, the American High Commissioner in Germany, gave the Pilgrims on Tuesday evening a review of the situation in Germany which both...

For better or for worse the housing question is entering upon a new phase. From the point of view of the thousands of families still looking for a house the post - war emergency...

If the inhabitants of Somaliland feel doubts about the joys of Italian rule, they may console themselves by reflecting that it is certainly better than no rule at all. In their...

The Council of the Arab League, which has just met in Cairo, has passed a resolution threatening sanctions against any member State which comes to an independent settlement with...

"There must be many Frenchmen today who wish that M. Blum were twenty years younger." These words appeared in the Spectator in January, 1947, when the French Socialists, with...

Periodically some vigilant member of the House of Commons elicits from the Minister of Food information as to - the expenditure on the groundnuts scheme to date. On Monday Mr....

The report on public health in 1948 (included in the report of the Ministry of Health published last Friday) makes a happy finale to the work of Sir Wilson Jameson, who is...

M ILITARY metaphors come easily in politics, but rarely so easily as in the present state of thin g s at Weitminster. The latest was Mr. Attlee's ambush metaphor to account for...

The en g ineers' claim for a wa g e increase of £1 a week could kill industrial peace at one blow. There are loopholes in the policy of wa g e stabilisation, but none of them is...

C " HRIST is risen." How far the Easter greeting traditional in Russia is current in the Soviet Union today there is no means of knowing. There is little means of knowing...

about the Boat Race is how it comes that the Head of the River race in the afternoon is always won in better time than the University crews achieved in the morning. This year...

his doctor with him on so comparatively short a journey as that to Strasbourg and Paris will not have escaped notice. It is hardly calculated to alleviate the anxiety which many...

in trains should be raised in the House of Commons, though a pity that the discus- sion should have been confined so largely to the indulgence of the habit in restaurant-cars....

so long. The record, I imagine, - is held by Sir John Le Sage, who served the paper for 60 years, nearly 40 of them as Managing Editor. He retired in 1923 and, after a brief...

typed but I am without my secretary who generally retypses artivles when they get untidy." How well I understand. * * * *

division in which the Government was defeated last week. Mr. Morrison on Friday talked far less sensibly than Mr. Attlee on Thursday, and the Observer leader-writer, who spoke...

By The Rt . Hon. ARTHUR CREECH JONES* T HE discussion ranging round the Seretse affair has revealed some anxiety as to how far our traditional colonial policy is being...

By MAURICE EDELMAN, M.P. [Mr. Edelman, who is Labour M.P. for Coventry North, urges his party to secure the support of the middle classes—if it can.] I N Continental...

THE skies are hung in violet air And trees have ceased their winter grieving. On sordid pavements sound the feet Of the dead-souled . and shrouded living. The tinselled...

By GUY BOAS I T is probably little known that between the years 1904 and 1914 Lytton Strachey contributed to the Spectator, under di, editorship of his cousin, St. Loe...

By T. W. MELLIJISH E VERY now and then some high authority conducts a funeral service over the classics. Latin, it is said, has gone into a rapid decline ; Greek has dwindled...

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged, to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents canncr afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as...

By ROBERT HUDSON (ClELCOME to Twickenham "—with these words, designed to transport the viewer from his drawing- room to the very touchline itself, another Rugby match is...

Easter• in Athens: 1949 By RENFORD BAMBROUGH (St. John's College, Cambridge) ANDLES for the Resurrection ! Candles for the Resur- rection ! " It is Easter Saturday in Athens,...

By HAROLD NICOLSON F EW statesmen of recent years have obtained such tributes as those which have been evoked by the death of Leon Blum. His life-long friend, Edouard Herriot,...

THEATRE The Platinum Set." By Reginald Denham and Mary Orr. (Saville.) I WAS once told, by a bigger fool, that the elaborate engines and contrivances which formed the subject...

MANY of those who annually attend performances of Bach's Passions are probably unaware of the continued existence of the earliest, anonymous form of Passion-music from which...

"They Were Not Divided." (Leicester Square.)---4 , Les Parents Terribles." (Studio One.) THE Brigade of Guards is so much a part of our national life, or at any rate London...

"BLACKTHORN winter" is a phrase that remains popular in village speech ; and for good reason. It seldom happens that a frost or two and a biting north-easterly wind do not...

The incoming flood of migrant birds continually increases throughout April, but it is the - single spy, making a first appearance, that interests both specialist and the public,...

The first of the River Boards came into being last month, on the date of what The Field called " that pleasant anachronism, the opening of the salmon season on the Thames." The...

There seems to be a real chance of the revival of the vineyard in England. It once flourished ; and the isolated vine in the cottage garden was also popular. Why the vine...

We begin to cut our lawns with mowing machines, though the dairymen complain of the sad lack of young grass. Now this lawn grass is, or should be, a most useful product. To...

THERE is a long list, ranging from the Brahms violin concerto to songs in " Ukrainian " and Welsh. The concerto is magnificently recorded by Menuhin and the Lucerne Festival...

Set by A. D. C. Peterson Since the publication of Mr. T. S. Eliot's version of the Electra, there has been a growing realisation that many literary works were composed by the...

Report by Janus The usual prize or prizes were offered for the best discussion in not more than 200 words of thc affirmation "The Prince of Dark- ness is a Gentleman." This...

SIR,—The question: "Should deserters be pardoned ? " is attracting a good deal of attention just now. In any barrack-room where the question is put, the response will be an...

as Dr. Charles Hill, but his statement that, if a broadcast is "to bear a reasonable resemblance to the spoken word, the script must be dictated," seems to me absurdly...

Vernon Bartlett's strictures in the Spectator of March 3rd on Major Tufton Beamish's book, Must Night Fall? Whilst I agree with Mr. Vernon Bartlett in regretting the absence of...

first dictated. "Only in this way can one be sure that when the script is read it will bear a reasonable resemblance to the spoken word." The script must then receive medical...

Reaching the Public, Dr. Charles Hill says: " The microphone is very sensitive to the insincere and the phoney. .. . It seems to detect the sentiment which is not genuinely...

reported in the American Press recently. We all believe in the "right to live," but how many of us believe that under 'certain circumstances we also have the "right to die " ?...

SIR, —Sir Ernest Graham-Little makes two points which cannot be allowed to pass unanswered. He states that under the old N.H.I. the doctor's panel was limited to 2,500. This is...

S1R.—Miss Laski, in her article in the Spectator of March 24th, draws attention to an important social consequence of the shortage of servants. The " professional middle-class...

Sta,—May I comment briefly on the points touched by Mr. Pollard in his reply to my letter on the revision of the Prayer Book 7 It is quite true that certain features which...

SUBSCRIPTION RATES %%%%%%%%%% ■•■■......■■■••■■•■%......■••■■■■■■•• ORDINARY EDITION by post to any part of the World AIR EXPRESS By Air to nearest Airport and then by...

that there is no desire to deprive any churchman of his right of final appeal to the Crown in ecclesiastical causes. May I refer him to page 263 of the Archbishop of York's...

SIR,—The letter from Mr. F. R. Hayes, which appeared in the Spectator of March 31st, is such pernicious nonsense that it ought not to gb un- challenged. It is simply not true to...

SIR.—Janus asks: "What happens if a publisher declines to carry out an agreement to publish?" The answer to the question would appear to be that, if a work after acceptance is...

SIR,—Is it too much to suggest a confusion of issues in Mr. Bacon's mind ? Not only cathedrals, which may claim the support of a diocese, but many parish churches are national...

EASTER MONDAY was 01 real holiday to the thousands of toilers in London. The day was beautiful ; and the crowds who filled the Parks, and sallied as far as Greenwich and Hampton...

SIR,—The weakness of much dramatic criticism is that it is carried on at a level higher than the lowly boards of the stage, and it is clear that in Mr. Spender's article on...

SIR,—Owing to an unfortunate printer's error in my letter published in the Spectator of March 31st, the cost of the administrative side of this hospital was given as...

Magazine Post) id.

AUPASSANT, the subject of a new biography by Mr. Francis Steegmuller," was fortunate in the friends who encouraged him in the barren years whilst he was becoming a writer. The...

Poems for Speaking. By Richard Church. (Dent. 7s. 6d.) MR. CHURCH is concerned with lifting poetry off the page and restoring it to the lips of men, where it flourished before...

Mediaeval Christendom Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. By Christopher Dawson. (Sheed and Ward. is.) THIS book, Mr. Christopher Dawson's Gifford Lectures for 1948-49,...

Modern Trends in Education. By M. L. Jacks. (Andr..w Melrose. i cs.) THERE are so many trends in education today, most of them at least claiming to be modern, that Mr M. L....

Count Folke Bernadotte. By Ralph Hewins. (Hutchinsen. t 8s.) POLKE BERNADOTTE was born in 1895. He was the son of Prince Oscar and a nephew of King Gustav ; his father forfeited...

JOHN LOCKE is often thought of as " the philosopher of the Glorious Revolution." In a sense he was. Not that he prompted or inspired it with a manifesto, but that he crowned the...

IT is a solemn, perhaps an affrighting, thought for the client that when he consults a solicitor, he really consults two solicitors. There sits the active partner of the...

EL LE 5 Allt.it r 5 I E DA TE bRO L L 11 p P fl01111 I 5 Tl r1 SOLUTION ON APRIL 21 The winner of Crossword No. 574 is Mrs. E. Playfair, New Copse, Fishbourne, Isle of Wight.

LA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first Correa solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, April 18th. Envelopes...

They Also Serve. By P. C. Hoffman. (Porcupine Press. 12s. 6d.) MR. P. C. HOFFMAN has written a thoroughly jolly and racy book about the struggle of workers in the retail trades...

Hedges for Farm and Garden. By J. L. Beddall. (Faber. 255.) OUR present generation is the very last to give so proud a title to the hedgerow, be it of stone or bush or tree or...

The Young Liberators. By Nora Lloyd. (Muller. 7$. 6d.) THOUGH intended for "older boys and girls," this book can make quite exciting reading for the better sort of grown-ups. It...

Within the Labyrinth. By Norman Lewis. (Cape. gs. 6d.) THREE works in an English idiom that is fairly described as con- temporary ; a period novel in a lively and well-tried...

Cinderella, illustrated by Roland Pym. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, illustrated by Patricia Turner. (Chatto and Windus: Peep- show Books: 7s. 6d. and cs. respectively.) Feed...

By CUSTOS ALREADY the Budget is throwing a lengthening shadow across the stock markets, and turnover is contracting from the sub-normal to the virtually non-existent. It says a...

6d.) A GENERATION of naval officers has been brought up on Sir Geoffrey Callender's The Naval Side of British History. Mr. Hinsley sets out to bring this minor classic up to...