T HE Germans have entered with unexpected speed on the second stage of their war of annihilation. The launching of the great 20-mile offensive on the Somme on Wednesday morning...

In stating that 335,000 men, British and French, had been withdrawn from Dunkirk, the Prime Minister added that the losses to the B.E.F. in killed, wounded and missing (which...

Mr. R. S. Hudson, the new Minister of Agriculture, announced in his broadcast last Sunday new plans for food production which show that the Government is really getting down to...

Among all the uncertainties of the European situation the attitude of Spain naturally attracts considerable attention. All the indications are that General Franco's government...

It is stated that as part of the new agricultural drive just announced, conscientious objectors to military service are to be mobilised, apparently compulsorily, to work on...

Early this week German aeroplanes have twice bombed the town and district of Le Havre, and on Monday afternoon large numbers of bombers dropped more than r,000 high explosive or...

The United States has been thoroughly shaken out of complacency by the success of the German campaign in Northern France and is now alive to the fact that even America will be...

The production of food does not necessarily mean the pro- duction of the right food. In the urgency of the war period it is necesary to concentrate on provision of those...

dealing with the administration of the new Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act. These regulations will affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and the debate was...

he commented on the nature of some of the questions which appear on the order paper. There was a whole series to which Mr. Anthony Eden had to reply that an answer would not be...

the great struggle—fellow members who have been in the thick of it, and have returned for an hour or two to our benches. And some have not returned. Arnold Wilson is reported...

Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : —On Tuesday we heard from Mr. Winston Churchill one of the great historic speeches of the English language. It was distinguished alike...

In an article which appears on another page a caveat is entered against the danger of imposing so great a burden of longer hours and diminished rest on the willing worker Ls to...

Next week The Spectator will publish the first of a short series of articles by Mr. Charles Morgan, the well-known author of The Fountain, Sparkenbroke and The Flashing Stream,...

It would be extreme folly to belittle the part that may be taken by Local Defence Volunteers, of whom 400,000 have now been enrolled, in helping to ensure the safety of the...

Spectator themselves would send to the Sales Manager, 99 Gower Street, W.C. r, the names and addresses of any friends to whom specimen copies might profitably be sent as an...

T HE " hard and heavy tidings " for which Mr. Churchill prepared the House of Commons last week have not been told it, and will not be. For what might have been the Flanders...

T HE question of the invasion of Britain was an academic one from 1815 to 1914. It is not so today. Nor can it be regarded as a merely possible but improbable contingency, as it...

way at the present time is, apparently, Sir Thomas Beecham, who was interviewed by the New York Herald Tribune, when " on his way to Australia under orders of the British...

I T is a pity that there should be any kind of misunderstand- ing between the B.E.F., or, rather, individual members of it, and the Royal Air Force. But comment that during the...

York this week—an Englishman—mentioned that not long ago Major G. F. Eliot, generally recognised as the first military critic in the United States, said to him, " Why don't your...

be, one fact is worth remembering about it, particularly in view of the claims of exuberant Spanish Falangists. We hold Gibraltar today not as a mere prize of war, but as part...

believed killed, will sadden many hearts, for exigent though Sir Arnold's collaborators sometimes found him, his gallant and tireless spirit commanded general admiration. He was...

ing evacuated soldiers to a British port was asked how he stoi .1 the constant aerial bombing to which the ships were subjected. " It would have been all right," he said, " if...

By STRATEGICUS TIFIE tension of last week and its sudden relief may tend to mislead us as to what has happened and the immediate prospect. It is true we have achieved what...

By CECIL JACKSON S IGNOR MUSSOLINI has led his dazed and reluctant people to the very edge of war against us. His programme is war or unresisting collapse of what stands...

By M. VAN BLANKENSTEIN Ts an invasion of Britain by air possible? What has happened in Holland provides a useful basis for an answer to this question. Unless Hitler has great...

By H. M. VERNON I N consequence of the extreme need for war supplies, our industrial workers have been urged to achieve the maximum output of which they are capable by working...

By JOHN K. STONE I FOUND Pierre Loti by the Fautaua River in Tahiti. The 1 early morning sunlight, filtered through the leaves of a great mango tree, flickered over his bronze...

By LOUIS PIERARD (Deputy for Mons in the Belgian Parliament) T HE capitulation of the Belgian Army on the orders of King Leopold III has wrung tears of shame and anger from...

says,'" The palm will grow, the coral will spread, but man must die." For the Tahitian the saying was prophetic. The traveller in the South Seas today still may see the three...

I as therefore of opinion that when a democratic people engages in a war after a long peace it incurs much more risk of defeat than any other nation; but it ought not easily to...

ordering " The Spectator " regularly, since newsagents can no longer be supplied on sale-or-return terms.

OPERA A Mozartian Curio AMONG the works left unfinished by Mozart was a comic opera upon which he was at work during the year after his marriage. L'Oca del Cairo was indeed his...

"Sea Saps." At the London Pavilion.—" Untamed." At the Plaza. IT wta not so long ago that a fell pronunciamento from Holly- wood announced the final dissolution of the Laurel...

[In view of the paper shortage it is essential that letters on these pages should be brief. We are anxious not to reduce the number of letters, but unless they are shorter they...

Gentleman-at-Arms." Perhaps my own experience in corrobora- tion of what he says about the constant stream of " bad " language being an ever-increasing irritant may be...

to those of John Neil, I read his article with interest, but with an irresistible irritation at the triviality of his maximum com- plaints. If these are the most formidable...

and others who may think like him, that the " distinction drawn at the beginning of the war between the German people and its leaders " is a mere product of his imagination and...

SIR,—The truly horrible fact that Hitler seems to be able to find native-born traitors to betray every nation he invades points to a conclusion of great importance for the...

the oft-repeated claim that we have no quarrel with the German people." There may have been uttered some such affable remarks last September, but Mr. Maundrell naturally, if...

Sta,—Your correspondent Mr. Wolseley D. Maundrell deplores the view that we are fighting the German people. In his letter he offers no word of sympathy to the women and...

last week? The Fifth Column is definitely a new phase of politico- military strategy and its development is due to Hitler's peculiar nature. He is a politician and revolutionary...

SIR,-1 was glad to see the reference made by " Janus " last week to the gallant assistance being rendered to this country by Czecho-Slovak airmen, and I think the time has come...

SIR, —May I ask the hospitality of your columns to express the deepest regret that the National Defence Regulations now coming into force make no distinction between the French,...

SIR,—I am quite sure that the policy of continual work without holidays for many of the population, if pursued indefinitely, will have disastrous results, and will end in "more...

SIR,—How can " Janus " say that the controversy between the " Old Men of Munich " and those who opposed them lay in the question of whether we should go to war in September,...

Sur,—In my review of Mr. Goldman's book I suggested that its picture of East London life was distorted. Mr. Goldman replies that it was intended to be " selective." As he...

" in your last week's issue for the inclusion of the Czech National Anthem among the other National Anthems broadcast by the B.B.C. to the British public on Sunday evenings. I...

Pigs and Pig Clubs With a flourish of leaflets, the Minister for Agriculture urges us to revive the times when every cottager kept a pig. He recalls the enthusiastic days when...

Sna,—It becomes clear that if peace is to prevail again in Europe it must be either the death peace of Nazi rule or the peace of freely co-operating nations. For the former we...

In country districts the response for Defence Volunteers has been excellent. Gamekeepers, farmers, farm labourers, lorry drivers, fruit growers, ex-service men of all kinds have...

SIR, —In spite of vigorous action by the Government, we are aware that propaganda directed against aliens and particularly against refugees, persists and even increases. All...

SIR, — The Spectator's Competitions provide mental exercise— surely above that of the crossword puzzle—for which we must be grateful at such a time as this. I have only once...

When I asked the seed-merchant for a remedy for cabbage root-grub—dustings of lime or calomel are said to be effective— and remarked that it seemed an extraordinary year for...

A Lasting Peace. By Maxwell Garnett. With some chapters by H. F. Koeppler. (Allen and Unwin. 7s. 6d.) WHEN war broke out last September, Dr. Maxwell Garnett wrote a letter to...

Man and Society Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction. By Karl Mann- heim. (Kegan Paul. 16s. 6d.) DR. KARL MANNHEIM is a sociologist, indeed, one of the most...

The Life of Percy Dearmer. By Nan Dearmer. (Cape. los. 6d.) MRS. PERCY DEARMER has done us a good service in writing the memoirs of her husband, a man of singular charm and of...

Grand Inquisitor. By Walter Starkie. (Hodder and Stoughton. 18s.). CARDINAL XIMENES is one of the most remarkable men in the history of Western Europe. More than any of her...

distinct kinds. There arc, firstly, those poems in which the defects of modern society appear to have induced an attitude of pessimism or indifference ; secondly, those in which...

" ONE of the world's masterpieces of fiction " is a stale phrase, but it must be used of Lermontoff's single novel, published in 1840, the year before his death, at the age of...

DURING last week I read the above four collections of short stories, and I swear I read them conscientiously. Their authors are as different from each other in manner as any...

The Story and the Fable. An Autobiography by Edwin Muir. (Harrap. ts.) The Story and the Fable. An Autobiography by Edwin Muir. (Harrap. ts.) MR. Mum was born in 1887, the son...

The Wind of Circumstance Dr. Dearden gave a frank and fascinating account of the first thirty years of his life. Time and Chance purports to be a sequel or continuation, but in...

IF and when the literary history of the last fifty years comes to be written in the tranquillity of the two thousands, many of our present-day pundits will assuredly be...

Hitler. Austria had gone from the 1939 edition ; in the new volume Czecho-Slovakia and Poland still appear, but in their new status they call for less space than in their old....

M. Bozman. (Everyman's Library. 2s. 6d.) This is an anthology drawn from the work of the better known English professional humorists of today, with a few pieces written in...

ALMOST everyone who has the habit of reading attkches par- ticular value to some book which, though neither unduly difficult to obtain nor essentially appealing to an eclectic...

COMPETITORS were invited to perpetrate original " schoolboy's howlers " in connexion with any five of ten given sentences and phrases. Some of the phrases are generally...

White- man's Concert Orchestra. (Brunswick. dos. 6d.) FOR anyone with half a guinea to spend on a recorded joke— though a rather stale joke by now—here is a highly recommended...

in G Major. Myra Hess. (H.M.V. 3s.) OF all the single records issued in the course of the last two months, this is infinitely the most desirable. Miss Hess made another...

Lili Kraus and Simon Goldberg. (Parlophone. 24s.) OF the two ways of playing the Kreutzer Sonata—as chamber music or as a work for the concert hall—the majority of per- formers...

Paderewski : Plano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 17. J. Sanroma and the Boston Promenade Orchestra, conducted by Arthur Fiedler. (H.M.V. Os.) THIS is a very sensible piece of...

By CUSTOS LIKE the B E F , financial markets have fought a rearguard action with tremendous doggedness and with astonishing suc- cess. True, there has been a sharp contrast...

Orchestra. (H.M.V. 33s.) THERE are at least three good earlier recordings of this sym- phony—one of them was produced only about six months ago— and this set, though good enough...

Philharmonic Orchestra. (Columbia. 3os.) FOR anyone who wants a new recording of this symphony, so full of pleasant music and so defective as a whole, this set may be...

LICENSES AND GENERAL INSURANCE THE fiftieth ordinary general meeting of The Licenses and General Insurance Company, Limited, was held on May 3oth at the registered office of...

THE two hundred and seventy-first annual general Court of the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay was held on May 31st at the...

The winner of Crossword No. 65 is C. C. C. Kenrick, Lindsay Lodge, Westgate-on-Sea.

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 marked "Crossword Puzzle,"...