Kravchenko Wins When the editor of the Communist weekly Les Lettres Francaises libelled Victor Kravchenko, the author of I Chose Freedom, by publishing an article which said...

!Transjordan Signs The armistice between Transiordan and Israel, which is valid for one year and renewable, freezes the present line between the armies of the two States by...

Aid Anniversary Since April 3rd, I948, when President Truman signed the Foreign Assistance Act, each of the nineteen nations and territories of Western Europe belonging to...

The Meat Crisis Tuesday's explosion in the House of Commons was clear proof that the meat question has now reached a stage at which rational argument is not possible. The...

SOCIAL PRAGMATISM -SIR,-I am sorry if I have misrepresented Miss Freed's thesis; no doubt I was wrong in applying such a word as " eudemonism " to a system so bravely...

In the Garden I hate pruning roses as bard as one is told to, and usually refrain in regard to Poulsen polyanthus, Zephyrine Drouhin and a separate bush or two of George...

UNDERGRADUATE AUTHORS SIR,-I would say how much pleasure and instruction I gain from reading the weekly essay on your admirable "Undergraduate Page," but I am Disappointed that...

Guns or Butter ? The fight between the War Office and the farmers over a piece of the Wiltshire Downs has a peculiarly suggestive battlefield. Wiftshire has long competed with...

Beechen Nests Rooks from a new rookery in some tall elms at the roadside have evinced a curious preference for a beech tree in a neighbouring garden. They flew down with great...

English- Hoopoes On March 26th---two days after the first chiff-chaffs were heard - two hoopoes were seen in a Dorset village. Now we may mistake a hawk or boy for a cuckoo or...

STINTING THE PRESS SIR,-As news value the Boat Race, says Janus, is a rapidly wasting asset. Po all readers of the Spectator know why ? The reason is the Governinent...

IN-OUT SIR,-I would like to protest against Janus's suggestion in the Spectator of April 1st that only " a handful of Old Blues " could possibly be interested in the periodic...

7-COUNTRY.

Not Angels, But Engels The Law of the Soviet State. Ie By Andrei Y. Vyshinsky. (Macmillan. aIrS.) IN a world that is sharpening its weapons for war it is intriguing to find...

Gide and Dostoevsky II Dostoevsky. By Andre Gide. With an Introduction by Arnold Bennett. I (Secker and Warburg. 7s. 6d.) ANDRE GIDE is a stimulating critic-his range is wide,...

Fiction A Wreath of Roses. By Elizabeth Taylor. (Peter Davies. 8s. 6d.) The Auction Sale. By C. H. B. Kitchin. (Secker and Warburg. 8s. 6d.) I Elephant and Castle. By R. C....

Development of the Gold Coast A History of the Gold Coast. By W. E. F. Ward. (Allen and Unwin. 21s.) THIS is a history of the most advanced of all African colonies. The Gold...

THE CINEMA " Joan of Arc." (London Pavilion.)--"d June Bride." (Warner.) "Enchantment." (Leicester Square.) I HAVE just emerged, rather exhausted, from two and a half hours of...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS THE THEATRE The Queen Came By. By R. F. Delderfield. (Duke of York's.) MR. DELDERFIELD'S new play, successor to his sensationally longrunning Worm's Eye...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR EUROPE IN AFRICA SIR,-Mr. Kenneth Robinson ends his lucid analysis of certain aspects of international co-operation in the colonial field with a proposal...

CHARLES THE MARTYR SIR,-Dr. Esmd Wingfield-Stratford's own definition of a martyr puts Charles I's claim to. the title out of the question. For, in fact, the king was never...

LIBERALS IN CONFERENCE SIR,-Your appreciation and criticism this week of the Liberal Assembly at Hastings provoke some reflections on the object, conduct and result of such...

The Doppelganger Doubles in Literary Psychology. By Ralph Tymnms. (Bowes and Bowes. 12s. 6d.) THERE is a passage at the very end of this book which is worthy of approving...

Apes as Friends Apes. An Account of Personal Experiences in a Zoological Garden. By Winifred Felce. (Chapman and Hall. lOs. 6d.) Miss FELCE, an English girl from a Wiltshire...

AT WESTMINSTER T RADITIONALLY Budget day is a great Parliamentary occasion a.nd even its jokes are traditionai. But as an occasion it has lost rather than gained from the...

I Outside the Factories The use of the term "office worker " to describe that section of the community which is " non-industrial" is palpably misleading. The Gowers Committee,...

I The National Parks Bill The debate on the second reading of the National Parks Bill revealed unanimity on fundamentals, and produced a number of admirable speeches; and with...

OVERHEAD LINES SIR,-From time to time warnings are given of the speed with which the English countryside is disappearing before the varied demands of development. In such a...

PROSTITUTION AND THE LAW SIR,-I heartily agree with the general purport of paragraph 1 of Mr. Ballard's letter in the Spectator of Marh 25th, but as heartily disagree with the...

SIR,-If the definitions of the words "saint" and "martyr" are suffi- ciently watered down anyone can be called a martyr (as Dr. Esm6 Wingfield-Stratford says) who elects to...

ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION SIR,-1ihe reply to Mr. J. Henderson's questions is dependent on his whole attitude towards human life. If he believes that men and women are only human...

THE VOICE OF LABOUR SIR,-Your note dealing with the pubation of the resolutions of the Labour Party's 48th Annual Conference suggested they should bring to a stop the waverings...

PUNCH GOES ON By J. B. ATKINS A NEW editor has taken charge' of Punch, and because Punch is a national paper-the most famous humorous paper in the English language-the...

MARGINAL COMMENT By HAROLD NICOLSON ALL nice people enjoy controversies about the reform of English spelling. The open combats which, every decade or so, are 1I waged around...

BUDGET IN PERSPECTIVE IT has been the fashion for some years for Chancellors of the Exchequer to say that the Budget can no longer be considered apart from the British economy...

Henry L. Stimson's book, On Active Service, which Professor Brogan reviewed in last week's Spectator, contains an absorbingly interesting chapter on the history of the atomic...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK T. HE Chancellor of the Exchequer was to speak for two hours and a quarter; for two hours and a quarter he spoke. Close by him sat one of his...

Connoisseur in headlines though I am becoming, I should have wilted before HICK PIX NIX IN DEEP STIX if an interpretation had not accompanied it. It is, needless to say,...

The Manchester Guardian on Tuesday bore at the foot of the last columns of its back page the legend it has borne there for years -" Printed and published by John Russell...

You cannot read Mr. Churchill's speech to the Massachusetto Institute of Technology without feeling that the speaker ought for his remaining years to remain for ever on the...

COLONELS AND COUPS By EDWARD HODGKIN P'F'SHANKS largely to the efforts of one cartoonist we are 3 accustomed to think of colonels with a grievance against the Government as...

"HIGH HOPES AND SPACIOUS OPPORTUNITIES" T HE words are Mr. Churchill's, taken from his Boston speech, which in its vigour, its sweep of vision and its loftiness of conception...

Back to Flushing Meadows The adjourned session of the United Nations Assembly, which re-opened at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday should have been unnecessary. It is the direct...

BOOKS OF THE DAY Sacred and Profane The Life and Times of Coventry Patmore. By Derek Patmore. {rat- I11c (Uonstable. 15s.) THE mind of Coventry Patmore was like a chamber...

English: German England and Germany-Affinity and Contrast. By Professor Her- mann Levy. (The Thames Bank Publishing Company. 7s. 6d.) FRANKLY this book is a disappointment...

Colonial Prospect AFRICAN SWAMPS By FRANK DEBENHAM* IT has been said that food is the product of soil, sunshine and water. The groundnuts scheme of East Africa, now under...

Undergraduate Page MINORITY REPORT By FAITH MORTON (Newnham College, Cambridge). W X rOMEN are a minority at Cambridge. A mere five hundred, divided between the rival...

SCHOOL SEESAW By E. E. A. WHITWORTH, (Headmaster of Tonbridge School) D EAN INGE, writing in the nineteen-thirties, anticipated that another world war would threaten the...

ART IN his fiftieth year Henry Moore has been given his finest exhibition. This balanced, beautifully arranged, retrospective survey has been organised by the Art Gallery of...

MUSIC BACH is the seasonal composer, and during the last week we have had performances of the B Minor Mass by the B.B.C. Chorus and Orchestra, under Sir Adrian Boult, and the...

F.D.R. as a Boy The Roosevelt Letters: Being the Personal Correspondence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Early Years (1887-1904). With a Foreword by Eleanor Roosevelt. Edited by...

AUSTRALIA: " MY WORD! " By STRATHEARN GORDON T HE Americans use "And how ! " and the French "Et comment ! " to signify their most emphatic agreements. But the drawling...

MAGIC AT THE LOUVRE By NIGEL TANGYE W HEN, shortly before the war, a gentleman lifted Watteau's "L'Indiffirent" from off its hook in the Louvre and calmly walked away with it...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By CUSTOS FROM the investment standpoint this year's Budget contains one or two minor disappointments, but on the whole must be. construed as favourable...