British comments on the destruction of Guernica is surprising, for there has been, on the whole, a tendency in this country to suspend judgement on the vital question of whether...

T HE " civil war within a civil war" that has been taking place at Barcelona in the last few days is unlikely to have any substantial effect on the general military situation,...

reference to foreign affairs, apart from a passage in which comment, which sounded a little perfunctory, was made on Germany's need for expansion. The Fiihrer's reticence on his...

Allied Powers on munitions and supplies from America in the first two years of the Great War the provisions of the Neutrality Act passed by Congress on the last day of April are...

employment and unemployment on April 19th •give an extremely satisfactory picture of the progress of recovery. The total of insured workers in employment, at 113394,000, was...

in which an electorate of 15,coo,000 voted, out of a population of nearly 70,000,000, contain but one surprise and leave the political situation unchanged. The Government, being...

to be submitted to a plebiscite for ratification, differs little from what had been predicted. That there is no mention in it of the King, nor (except by inference) of the...

in the debate on the Harworth colliery dispute on Wednesday has changed nothing in the situation—unless it has changed everything. The debate, opened in admirably temperate...

Baldwin's farewell speech on Wednesday afternoon was quite unex- pected. Few had realised his intention of intervening in the debate on the Harworth Colliery dispute. He himself...

that aroused interest outside the ranks of the agriculturists was that in which compensation was prescribed for persons who might lose their employment through the operation of...

held in London during the last month, is expected to close at the end of next week, with a greater measure of achievement to its credit than most people had looked for. A...

in the present strike. The Transport Union has so many ramifications that it has been impossible for Mr. Bevin to exercise his influence in every case to ensure that the right...

Parliamentary week, mainly consisting of the Committee stage of the Livestock Industry Bill, the attention of Members has been concentrated on industrial unrest in general, and...

believe that the 'bus strike foreshadows any general outbreak of industrial unrest, as has been suggested in some quarters. They point out that so far wages have kept pace with...

were as a whole uninstructive. The Government lost one seat, Central Wandsworth, and held Stalybridge and West Birmingham by reduced majorities—in the case of Stalybridge...

Select Committee of the House of Commons on the King's Civil List contain no surprises, and are not likely to meet any serious opposition in Parliament. The Duke of Gloucester...

Abbey Church of St. Peter at Westminster the ceremony for which through half a year the peoples of the British Commonwealth have been preparing. The scale of the preparations...

extreme that the greatest sufferers by the London 'busmen's strike should be their fellow workers, and that the strike, if it con- tinues, threatens to mar the harmony of the...

made absolute and the Duke of Windsor has joined her in France is it too much to hope that the British Press will leave them to enjoy their lives in peace ? Judging from this...

By GERALD 'BEARD N OT long ago a learned Japanese remarked, "We in Asia are thought to keep touch with the Past but, as it happens, there are only two places now in the whole...

[Extracts from "The Spectator" of June 30th, 18381 HIS week has exhibited the amusing if not very edifying spectacle of a people possessed with one idea—in plain terms,...

By SIR ARTHUR WILLERT M R. RUNCIMAN accepted in principle the American policy of economic appeasement when he was in Washington last winter. He agreed that the present barriers...

By ROSE MACAULAY The hair's hue was, it seems, disputable ; its owner wrote to the first Baron Tauchnitz (one of whose favourite authors she very naturally was) that it was...

By JOHN CARTER The list contained, of course, its normal proportion of general literature, and from The Ingoldsby Legends in 1840 to Lord Roberts' Forty One Years in India,...

By JOHN PULLEN T HIRTEEN, as no one needs to be reminded, has a sinister reputation among numerals. Even the month of May, despite the eulogy of versifiers from time...

Dy WARREN POSTBRIDGE And so to Wembley, where what the Court Circular admirably and accurately styles the Final Match of the Football Association Challenge Cup Competition...

IN that early dusk of a distracted age, when God in scorn of his own workmanship violently shook his head at his primitive efforts, an impatient wave snatched you away, Africa,...

Commonwealth and Foreign From A SHANGHAI CORRESPONDENT WHEN a Japanese bankdr, in - charge of the Shanghai branch of one of the leading financial institutions in Tokyo, warns...

"Generation of Conquerors." At the Film Society—" Lloyd's of London" and "The Gap." At the Gaumon: "Gla- morous Night." At the Regal THE pictures I have had to see this week...

STAGE AND SCREEN nonizetti at Covent Garden Parsifal and Don Pasquale cheek by jowl ! The most frivolous product of the operatic stage beside Wagner's Sacred Festival Drama !...

The Royal Academy IT is lucky that the Royal Academy has opened its exhibition so soon after that of the British Artists' Congress, for the few gaps left by the latter are now...

Flourishing Craftsmen A very good though highly epitomised display of British rural crafts is to be staged at the Paris exhibition. Real advances have been made of late in the...

Exeter in your Coronation issue would have been better headed "The Church of England " ? It may well be that, because, to him, " Religion " and the Church of England are synony-...

SIR, —Mr. Colin Clark's article on this problem is valuable in that, approaching it from a new angle, he shows how dis- astrously dependent this country is upon imports....

[Ccrrespondents 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...

SIR,—There is need, from time to time, to take stock of the opium menace in relation to world conditions, because the evil tends to break out, like some epidemic, in new...

SIR,—AS a "Visiting Justice" (Magistrate) under the Lunacy' Act, 1890, for many years past, I have been interested in the correspondence on this subject. More especially have...

SIR,—It is a pity that Mr. P. H. Thomson did not have the opportunity of listening to a wireless debate on "Power in the Highlands" (Scottish Regional, April 22nd, 1937) over...

correspondent's letter in your issue of April 23rd, I would point out that Sir Archibald Sinclair's criticism of the brochure referred to was fully replied to by the Master of...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I am afraid that the Cingalese were " vile " from the beginning as far as the hymn "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" is concerned. What...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Snt,—I desire to point out that in my letter commenting on Mr. E. L. Woodward's remarks I stated there was an implica- tion in those remarks...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sta,—A factor overlooked by Sir Arthur Salter and other writers on the subject of "Did England Starve Germany ? " is the utter break-down of...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Miss Rose Macaulay's suspicion is correct : "None so fast as stroke" is not to be found in Ouida ; nor is the other howler about stroke...

[D'un correspondant parisien] Les Chambres siegent de nouveau apres une courte treve. Que sortira-t-il de cette reprise ? En politique ii faut toujours s'attendre aux...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I must take a little exception to a line in the review of A Chronicle of Kingship. In it your reviewer says of the book that we have...

quotation, also attributed to Ouida : "Stroke, throwing away his cigarette, called on his

Rose Macaulay's letter, I have always heard the quotation, as "They all rowed fast, but none so fast as Reginald." I cannot say, however, whence it comes.—Yours faithfully, A....

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Permit me to correct a misquotation from the Bible, which today I fear is too little studied. On p. 653 of the issue of April 9th, 1937,...

of an Oxford rowing crew, All rowed fast, but none so fast as stroke" will be found in one of her earlier novels. It was adapted for the stage and I saw it somewhere in the...

BOOKS OF THE DAY By W. J. LAWRENCE ALTHOUGH bur leading players from Shakespeare's day for many generations onwards boasted the honourable title of His Majesty's Servants,...

A SC.RAP-BOOK of extracts, provided that it deals with a period sufficiently remote to have acquired a sort of patina, and is amply illustrated with contemporary pictures, is...

THIS is the best account that has so far been given of the stirring career of General Smuts. As a narrative of the events which crowd the record of the sixty-seven years of his...

does not require a sPeCialiit reader ; indeed it can give pleasure even to the plain man who suspects that in such a field the sum of an anthro- pologist's work will be merely ....

The Pompadour. By Margaret Trouncer. (Faber. 12s. 6d.) The Lost One. By Marguerite Steen. (Methuen. I2S. 6d.) Elizabeth Fry. By Janet Whitney. (Harrap. 12S. 6d.) Poor Fred. By...

By E. B. C. JONES St;--nge Houses. By Cora Jarrett. (Heinemann. 7§. 6d.) Panic Spring. By Charles Norden. (Faber. 7s. 6d.) Six Days Grace. By W. R. Burnett. (Heinemann. 7s....

LORD LOTIIIAN-in the Nineteenth-Century writes on "England and Germany." It is still possible, he thinks, to arrive at an understanding and avert the division of Europe into...

unexplored territory of music the songs of Schu- bert. It is doubtful if even the regular concert-goer knows as many as fifty out of the corpus of six hundred odd ; a good...

CURRENT LITERATURE One of the few alleviating circum- stances ofthe abdication of Edward VIII is the stimulus it save to rational reflection on the subject of monarchy ; this...

Motoring I AM not at all sure that I am being perfectly fair to either in reviewing the 8-h.p. Morris and the so-h.p. Hillman together. No comparison is intended, none exists....

As I suspected, the City's second thoughts on revised version—have proved much less terrifying' than the first. It is now apparent that although the new levy will cut into...

FINANCE QUITE recently, as readers of this column are aware, there has been something like a panicky fall in South African Gold shares occasioned by the circulation of rumours...

A GOOD RECOVERY. QUITE as remarkable as the serious slump in Stock Exrhange prices of a week ago, and certainly more pleasing, has been the wonderful recovery of the last few...

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 s ho uld...

The winner of Crossword No. 240 is Miss Marie Reid, The Manse, Dumbarton.