TOPICS OF THE DAY A FRICAN Crown Colonies, the 1132 Air Raid Precautions : a Working Mode l Air Raids and the Citizen.. .. 4 9 - - How Paris Does It .. 665 - - a Police Class...

TN North China, Japan continues her series of advances : in South China she appears to have met with difficulties. In Shantung the Japanese advancing from the Yellow River have...

the Government's new announcement on Palestine as a step towards throwing the Peel Commission's report into the melting-pot, for it is stated quite explicitly that the decision...

and in itself this refutes the Nationalist claims to have taken the city, together with General Rojo, the Republican commander-in-chief. Rival reports of the battle conflict...

jubilee session of the Indian Science Congress, prepared just -before his death, and read to the Congress by Sir James Jeans on Monday, dealt with the " new alchemy," that is to...

reassured by her new " National Christian " Government's statements that no changes are intended in foreign policy or in Rumania's system of alliances. Indeed, it is believed...

of Abyssinia for some eighteen months and has successfully stamped out all military opposition, an important message to The . Times from Jibuti throws an instructive light on...

French- Budget was eventually approved this week, without great opposition, and perhaps with less apprehension than for several years. The final estimates for the ordinary...

cooling down or boiling up is still uncertain. Nahas Pasha having been dismissed because he would not agree to the form of arbitration proposed by the King on the differences...

address to Congress on Monday are discussed in a leading article on a later page. For the world outside the United States the few sentences the President devoted to foreign...

does not give much promise of excitement. But the Government Whips would scarcely be justified in looking forward to a period of tranquillity. The present House of Commons is...

Will he be brought back into the Cabinet ? Among the rank and file of M.P.s on both sides of the House his appoint- ment would be received with approval and surprise. Approval,...

given further information on his plans for prison reform. In a letter to his constituents he describes his Prison Reform Bill as overdue, and this phrase has given rise to hopes...

Spectator " Janus " quoted Lord Runciman's recent declara- tion that he " deplores and detests " marketing schemes and similar Socialist contrivances, he himself having been a...

glass manufacturers, to introduce a system of family allowances for their workers is more than a commendable piece of social benevolence. The proposal, which will operate from...

I N his address to Congress on Monday President I Roosevelt praised democracy as a political system which makes for peace, because government is genuinely in the hands of the...

countering the propaganda with which the broadcasting systems of certain totalitarian countries is nightly filling the air, was discussed in these columns last week. That the...

regarding betting, and any unofficial estimates are obviously open to fair challenge. It may be doubted whether the promoters of football pools would ascribe authority to the...

considerable constituent in their retail price. Even so there is point in a note which someone, preparing a cauli- flower for the saucepan, found slipped in between leaves and...

in English are concerned, seems a little portentous. The B.B.C., unlike American and various Continental stations, quite rightly includes no advertising in its programmes, but...

has always been especially hard for Bishops to decide in what degree of state to live. Someone will no doubt remind me, what I have momentarily forgotten, who it was who wrote...

T HE appointment of Sir Robert Vansittart, whose ability, experience and knowledge are beyond dispute, to the new post of Chief Diplomatic Adviser has aroused little enthusiasm...

By H. W. NEVINSON [The writer was at a Public School and Oxford, and has served for many years on daily and weekly papers as leader-writer, literary editor, and...

By RICHARD FREUND T HERE was a hush, and everybody rose. A tall, bearded man had come in through the door, followed by two attendants clad in red long-coats braided with gold....

By W. T. WELLS L AST week The Spectator published, under the heading " Design for Air Raids " an article in which the writer, Mr. Noel Carrington, expressed the view that a...

By MABEL HOWAT "T HERE is a homelike atmosphere in the school." How many parents have experienced a feeling of relief as they read these words in the prospectus of a school to...

By PREBENDARY WILSON CASH M OST people in England, are deeply interested at the tangled situation in Palestine today, and the more so because the Arabs were at one time the...

By H. E. BATES O NCE a week, every market day, the man Osborn and his wife drove down to the town in the old Ford tourer piled up with chicken crates, to take their girl to the...

THE amount subscribed by The Spectator readers for the provision of wireless sets to the convict prisons of Great Britain stands at a little over Doc), and arrangements to equip...

William Shakespeare. At the Old Vic LET it be said at once that this is as fine a production of a comedy by Shakespeare as anyone could wish for. Of the plays now running in...

the Carlton--" Popeye the Sailor." At the Carlton IT must be admitted right away that Stage Door is certain to be a big box-office success, and one may suppose that to box-...

obviously at cross-purposes. With the Counter- Reformation triumphant in the southern half of the continent; and the northern States increasing daily inwealth and benefiting by...

Seventeenth-Century Art at Burlington House Tim exhibition at Burlington House may be considered from three different points of view. First it gives us a cross section of art...

two of the paintings which make the present exhibition really armor- tant, apart from those already described. The big room is quite properly devoted to Rubens and van Dyck....

A sad fatality, in which a baby was bitten by a polecat, has made public the revival of this animal, which at one time was thought to have gone the way of the pine-marten. It...

prolific subject, expresses an almost venomous dislike of Garrya elliptica. It has not, of course, the quaint freshness of the witch hazel, but it has long seemed to me one of...

been suggested to me by a young naturalist who is likely to make fame : it will excuse a further reference to the now rather hoary problem of the spotted woodpecker's music. The...

That excellent mstitution the Board of Green-keeping Research, which works on behalf of the British Golf Unions, has completed an enquiry into a new poison of rather more...

More Subsistence Production The admirable farms, gardens, crafts and industries for unemployed miners organised under the general title of " Sub- sistence production," are...

walnut tree that fruited was cleared by..gtey squirrels. I gave one particular example the other day ; another example, from Buckinghamshire, suggests that the squirrels picked...

This Christmas (which is, of course, a story-telling season) I was told with full detail and great conviction the tallest story of a dog's intelligence and skill in orientation...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, — Among the interesting letters of your correspondents I have not noticed any one which deals adequately with the crisis in the recent...

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week" paragraphs. Signed...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—On a day when both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were deploring the use of official propaganda there was taking...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—HONV nice to have wireless sets added to the libraries, charabancs excursions and other amusements provided for our gaolbirds ! • I only...

Snt,—In your issue of December 31st Dr. Gregory, discussing the film, Where Love Is, God Is, asked three questions of Mr. Basil Wright, none of which were answered in the reply...

have shown Mr. S. L. Bensusan's article to several farmers round here, and have discussed it with several others in this district, and three points emerge. (i) Present...

Sut,—May I answer Mr. Bertram Norton's letter in your issue of December 31st criticising my recent article on " South America's Indians"? I cannot understand his first...

SPECTATOR.] have read with great interest your article, " What Canada thinks of Britain." The writer, Miss Sylvia Stevenson, says that the provinces of Canada are alike only in...

SPECTATOR.] Sto,—The recent series of articles by men and women under thirty appears to me to indicate more than anything else how necessary it is for an older generation to...

[Von einem deutschen Korrespondenten] DASS Neujahr auf den r. Januar Mit, ist fiir uns eine grosse Selbstverstandlichkeit. Wenn wir aber durch die Lander und Zeiten wandern, so...

UnknownWitness, one of the thousands of clergy who do understand their people, but are unnoticed and silent about their work, to speak on this vital matter ? I have been in...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Snt,—In his review of my book, Human Understanding and Its World, in your issue of December 17th, Mr. F. Sherwood Taylor represents me as...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sm,—May I remind you that Matins (as found in the Book of Common Prayer) is a translation and adaptation of the monastic offices of lauds,...

Assignment in Utopia (Prof. E. H. Carr) .. New Writing (Edward Sackville-West) .. England Expects Every American To Do His Duty (Sir Frederick Whyte) .. . • • • • • The Last...

I BELIEVE it is nowadays g enerally a g reed that literary excellence, unlike that of some other arts, is critically inseparable from the material used in its composition and...

is braving the taunts of the young in once more writing about " the old men's boring old war " : but he wistfully believes, and rightly, that the " old sweats " will like to...

England Expects Every American To Do His Duty. By Quincey Howe. (New York : Simon and Schuster. $2.) Emu Englishman should read this book. It is provoking; stimulating, candid,...

Leaves from a Surgeon's Case-Book. By James Harpole. (Cassell. 8s. 6d.) FROM internal evidence it would appear that Mr. James Harpole, who has written under this pseudonym, is...

Victorian Street Ballads. Edited - by W. Henderson. (Country Life. 7s. 6d.) THE rotary printing-press, as much as anything, crushed the life out of the ancient and not...

FORREST REID By Dickson. 7s. 6d.) Commander of the Mists. By D. L. Murray. (Hodder and Stoughton. 8s. 6d.) I HAVE always had a particular liking for pastoral novels—tales like...

Commander Campbell is already well known to a large public from his broad- cast talks ; his book (Harrap, 8s. 6d.) is written in much the same vein. It is a collection of...

Mr. Freund has written an admirable little book (Nelson, zs. 6d.) on a sub- ject on which it is highly important for the public of this country to be well- informed....

THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT Rendered into English by Powys Mathers Mr. Powys Mathers' rendering into English of Dr. Mardrus' translation into French of The Thousand...

on a smaller scale, but on rather similar lines, and provides, for its size and price, a very useful amount of informa- tion. After a number of changes of title since its...

by Kelly's Post Office London Directory (Kelly's Directories, 55s. and 7os.). The value of the maps (scale 4 miles to an inch) thii year is enhanced because of the tremendous...

The author of this book (Bell, I2S. 6d.) is a well-known climber. He was one of the two climbers to reach the summit of Nanda Devi last year, and is to lead the next Everest...

Whitaker's Abnanack (6s. and 3s.) is at once the most compact and the most comprehensive of reference books, and the present volume, the loth annual edition, is even wider in...

LORD ELTON'S outspoken article in the Fortnightly on " The Decay of Opposi- tion " will not please his former Labour allies. He holds that " with evolu- tionary Socialism all...

one hopes they will find it worth while to repeat, in issuing at the unusually low price of 4s. a record two sets which one would not have expected to find outside the " Con-...

IT should be remembered by those who contemplate a holiday in Switzerland, that this country has an all-the-year-round attraction. The Alpine meadows in spring- time make a...

GOLD RESERVES THE position of the Exchange Equalisation Account on September 30th, disclosed at the end of the year, shows that the Exchange Account between March 31st and...

Shareholders in g as undertakin g s need not worry about the rises in sellin g prices just announced. The increases, an which range between 3 and 4 per cent., have been made...

If there is one thin g that does seem clear, it is that a propor- tion of investors' funds should be held in the fixed-interest g roup of securities. Money may seem abnormally...

Most investors will have taken their leave of 1 937 without re g rets. The year was one which opened with rare promise. Incipient recovery in the United States offered the hope...

The decision of the National Provincial Bank to sub-divide its shares into shares of a lower denomination is a step in th e ri g ht direction. A heavy-priced share may help to...

BOOKER BROTHERS, McCONNELL AND COMPANY BEST YEAR SINCE 1928 THE annual general meeting of Booker Brothers, McConnell and Company, Limited, was held on December 3oth at 14...

that from the financial standpoint the Coronation was not pure gain. It will be remembered that Lord Greenwood made that point to the shareholders of the Aerated Bread Company,...

Dominion Reefs, whose gold mining rights are in the Klerksdorp district of South Africa, was formed only in the middle of 1935 and the company has not yet reached the...

The decisions taken by the United States during the week have saved the silver market, temporarily at least, from the crash which might have followed the expiry of the...

The statement of the condition of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York on December 31st shows total resources and deposits lower than the record figures of a year ago, a...

This old-established firm of general merchants and sugar growers has paid dividends of not less than to per cent. for the past five years, and on occasion has distributed...

BY ZENO [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...

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