Citizens in War-and After. A Poet on Civil Defence I By Stephen Spender. (Harrap. 15s.) I IF at first one was inclined to think it wasteful of the gifts of a writer and poet...

Mission of the University. BOOKS OF THE DAY The University Idea By Ortega y Gasset. (Princeton Univer- sity Press and Humphrey Milford. 13s. 6d.) TIns book, the substance of...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT I By CUSTOS I THE need to relax the Treasury's restrictions on new issues of capital has been apparent for so long that one cannot pretend to be...

The Concept of Dread. Shorter Notices By S. Kierkegaard, translated by Walter Lowrie with a preface, introduction and notes. (Humphrey Milford. lOs. 6d.) IT would be...

Auguste Renoir. Les Parapluies. (Lund Humphries. 4s. 6d.) TuIIs is the sixth of the excellent series of Gallery. Books whose purpose is to take some masterpiece of -painting...

THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT SIR,-Official documents of the San Francisco Conference show that the Four Convening Powers now propose that the Secretary General and four...

LUTHER AND HITLER SIR,-I found it difficult to understand the tone of Dr. Micklem's letter. He calls me in turn-apart from comparing me to Goebbels and Rosenberg-" stupid," "...

SIR,-In the discussion on the debt of Hitler to Luther the emph.isis has turned on the deportment of the Lutheran Churches in Germany since the Nazi revolution. It is admitted...

WATER AND THE PUBLIC S!R.-You have always shown yourself very vigilant about what concerns rublic access to the countryside. I feel, therefore, that you may be inter,sied in...

VICARIOUS PUNISHMENT SIR,-I am gravely concerned to learn that the Nazi idea of justice still prevails in Berlin and that the Nazi method of administering it is still to be...

A DAY'S TALE OF BRICKS SIR,-Presumably, Janus is an honourable man-otherwise he would not be employed by your esteemed publication-so I must take him to task for a sin of...

COUNTRY LIFE | ONE of the most immediate and surprising results of the cessation of the death-dealing and destruction in Europe is the release it has brouh!ht to our faculty of...

WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT SIR,-In the artless little paper on " Women and Parliament " published in your last issue Miss J. F. S. Ross writes: "On the present register women...

WAS WEIMAR BOMBED? SIR,-My attention has been drawn to the letter " Truth in War Time" in a recent issue of your paper. The one or two houses which I saw damaged in Weimar I...

Brideshead Revisited. Fiction By Evelyn Waugh. (Chapman and Hall. lOs. 6]t Crs Hvlas on the Hills. By George Baker. (The Cresset Press. 8b., Jesse and His Friends. By Fred...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK HE first round in the radio election campaign went well for Labour. The Prime Minister, with manifold calls on his time and responsibilities on his...

SIR,-Mr. Gollancz has rcacted exactly as I thought he would. On the one hand, he resorts to the hackneyed tactics of such writers of the Left and hurls the epithet " Nazi" (it...

SIR,-Mr. Tresidder assumes (a) that my attitude to cruelty varies accord- I ing to the politics of the perpetrators and victims, and (b) that I believe in some such wicked...

ONE GERMAN I SIR,-He came with his parents to this country, by birth a German and a Jew, undismayed by what may be a double disadvantage in the judgement of the superficial. He...

BRITAIN AND BUCHENWALD LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SIR.-I have rid Dr. David Thomson's letter. and I would be grateful if you would allow me to comment on it. \where Dr. Thomson...

TIHE declaration signed by the military representatives of Russia, 1 Britain, the United States and France at Berlin on Tuesday NEWS OF THE WEEK marks the assumption of...

Mr. Churchill and General de Gaulle General de Gaulle's defence of the use of French forces in the Levant and his protest against British intervention was not strengthened by...

Deadlock at San Francisco The conference at San Francisco is held up by the reference jack to Moscow of many small points on which there are differences .etween the Big Five,...

RESTOCKING EUROPE By V. S. SWAMINATHAN HE Third Reich has certainly achieved that desolation on its borders which, according to Caesar (" De bello Gallico," iv. 3, 2), the...

Duration of the Eastern War Some chastening considerations bearing on the question of the duration of the war with Japan are underlined in a message President Truman has...

The Uses of Universities I A review on a later page of this issue of a striking book by the Spanish educationist Sefior Ortega y Gasset on The Mission of tht University may...

The Pledge to Burma Mr. Amery's speech and the debate in the House of Commons on the Government of Burma Bill, following the publication of the White Paper, should do much to...

The Ontario Election Provincial elections in Canada are by no means always a clear pointer to what will happen in a Dominion election; but the near approach of the latter, and...

The Location of Indsstry I Though the Distribution of Industry Bill is a limited measure, and by no means meets all the problems of the location of industry, it was of the...

The Art of Medicine in Relation to the Progress of Thought 1I The Doctor's Art I1 By A. E. Clark-Kennedy, M.D., F.R.C.P (Cambridge Univerit Press. 2s.) DR. CLARK-KENNEDY, as...

The Dynasty of Stowe. Cantata Stoica By G. Wilson Knight. (Fortune Press. 1Os. 6d.) Here is a book without a blurb. Readers and reviewers are free to describe it according to...

Children's Charter." THE CINEMA For M.o.I. Non-Theatrical Distribution.- "1 Profile of Britain." At the Empire. "The Enchanted Cottage." At the Odeon. " The Childhood of...

THE ONSET THE sun has set ; the curtain stirs; The first outriders of the night Have marked your window as they pass, And in the little room you wait The onset of the universe....

ART John Craxton at the St. George's Gallery. A manner, that is to say a quickly recognisable formula, has become in recent years the hallmark of worth in contemporary art,...

GRAMOPHONE NOTES THE latest batch of Decca records raises most pleasant anticipations which are not altogether fulfilled, since the quality of the recordings does not quite...

THE UNFINISHED TASK HE election campaign is warming up. The Prime Minister indeed set the thermostat a little higher than was essential in his opening speech on Monday. If he...

A NATION IN TRAINING By KENNETH LINDSAY, M.P. OR five years Britain has been not only a nation in action, but also a nation in training. More men and women have been on...

NASEBY-300 YEARS AFTER By G. M. TREVELYAN, O.M. N June 14th, 1645, the battle was fought which has always been regarded as the decisive, though it was not the final, field of...

A SPANISH LIBERAL By SALVADOR DE MADARIAGA N a recent article Mr. Ivor Thomas paid me the wholly undeserved compliment of asserting that in Spain there are no liberals but...

THE SALAMANDER I STARED into the fire; blue waves Of shuddering heat that rose and fell, And blazing ships and blinding caves, Canyons and streets and hills of hell; Then...

I HOW FRANCE IS MOVING' By D. R. GILLIE HE victory in Europe, the municipal elections, the return to France of the old political leaders either as men liberated from German...

MARGINAL COMMENT I By HAROLD NICOLSON I HE unhappy tangle which has developed out of recent incidents in Syria and the Lebanon furnishes an interesting example of how...