How to Win Wars The Strategy of Indirect Approach. By B. H. Liddell Hart. (Faber and Faber. 8s. 6d.) THis new edition of Captain Liddell Hart's best-known book contains a...

Aspects of the House Back-Bencher and Chairman. By Lord Hemingford. (Murray. 18s.) As Sir Dennis Herbert, Lord Hemingford was Chairman of Committees (and ipso facto...

AMERICA'S NEXT CONGRESS By GUNTHER STEIN ON November 7th the American people will go to the polls to choose an entirely new House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate,...

Palestine Uncertainties While the British 'Cabinet waits for Piesident Truman's views on its Palestine plan the danger of grave trouble in Palestine itself increases. The...

Oil. and Order The somewhat baffling picture painted in the Tudeh newspapet Rahbar of British interests in Southern Persia who " wear a crown of oil on their heads and sit on a...

NEWS OF THE WEEK ONLY if the Paris Conference is treated as a sounding-board for [ larger issues than it discusses can any sense be made of its de- cisions. The treaties with...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK I AM very glad to see that the Stationery Office has published (at 2s. 6d.) a volume containing verbatim reports of the opening Tpeeches for the...

In the week. in which the first Familv Allowance payments have actually been made the mind turns naturally to the place among the Independents in the House of Commons where...

It is suggested by some of the journalists who attended the Press I Conference at Newcastle at which Mr. George Isaacs, the Minister of Labour, called on all journalists...

I referred briefly last week to the case of Mr. Odium, the Wiltshire farmer who was awarded C500 damages for libel against Mr. Richard Stratton, the chairman of the County War...

The death of the Kumar Ramendra Narayan Roy of Bhowal last Saturday was all that was needed to complete a drama that seemed to have reached its climax in a Whitehall backwater...

Poets, in spite of the corner that commemorates them in West- minster Abbey, get on the whole less honour in this country than they merit. I am the more glad, therefore, to...

In My Garden Shrubs that flower late in the year are a great boon in a garden; and the very latest-barring the roses-is the hybrid buddleia, sometimes called Meyerensis. It...

An Endangered Naturalist To talk of Devon, the best naturalist I know-he has an international name-is distressed because he cannot with any feeling of security or peace...

"THE BARGE AGROUND" SIR,-In your issue of July 26th Janus wnrtes: "I should like to know I.where Sir Alan found the ideal name for his riverside tavern, -ihe Barge Aground.'...

FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS SIR,-The notice given in last week's Spectator to the phrase solvitur ambulando recalls a striking and amusing interpretation of the phrase made by Lord...

I S'R.-With reference to recent correspondence in your columns on soivztur ambulando," is there not a general belief that the reference is Iz Roman one to the methods of the...

COUNTRY LIFE IT is a particular pleasure at this time to watch apples and plums pro- gressively announce their presence on trees that had seemed almost barren. They plump and...

Kites Returning One of the spectacles I once enjoyed daily in the delectable island of Majorca was the flight of many kites, which were once a common bird in England. They...

SIR,-In answer to your query in The Spectator of July 26th, "The I Barge Aground" is in Brentford High Street. A little higher up the street is "The Three Pigeons," which, I...

S'R.-Janus has surely missed the point of the revised Highway Code :n deprecating its tendency to make its warnings obvious to the meanest in elligence. He forgets to whom, in...

The Two Canadas French Canada in Transition. By Everett C. Hughes. (Kegan Paul, 1946. 15s.) A SMALL but illuminating map was published in the U.S. Press early in the war. On...

BOOKS OF THE DAY More Sitwell The Scarlet Tree. By Osbert Sitwell. (Macmillan. 15s.) MEMORIES are tender, private and inclined to be vague. Reminiscences are prosy and, at...

FOOTBALL POOLS FINANCE SIR,-The article by Graham Watson entitled The Pools Ramp fell very short of its intention, presumably to "expose" the Pools. The figures he quoted were...

THE HIGHWAY CODE SIR,-May I congratulate you respectfully on your blunt common sense on the futility of Highway Codes? Two subjects of which I have experience move me to...

SIR,-In his article entitled The Pools Ramp, Graham Watson quotes certain statistics showing the total value and number of postal orders issued by the Post Office, and proceeds...

SIR,-The musings of Harold Nicolson in a recent issue of The Spectator en exponents of serendipity led me to reflect on a living man of letters who gives that pursuit as his...

SERENDIPITY SIR,-We should be grateful to Mr. Harold Nicolson for correcting, in his delightful article last week, our mis-use of the word " serendipity." The real test,...

PAYMENT FOR WAR LOSSES SIR,-We must find it difficult not to admire the trenchant phrases and noble English of the indictment at Nuremberg. Our indignation at the crimes...

P.O.W.s ON THE LAND SIR,-We have in the British Isles some 388,ooo Germans working for us. While they are with us we are trying to get all the work we cal out of them. The...

MACCHIAVELLI IN MODERN ITALY SIR,-May I say that it is precisely because the Italians possess in full measure the imagination that Dr. M. J. Bonn attributes to them, rather...

REGIMENTAL TRADITION By NIGEL NICOLSON WHEN I was first commissioned, I was told that no officer in W my regiment might travel in a bus, carry his own luggage or eat in a...

THE PRESS AND THE B.B.C. SIR,-Mr. Harold Nicolson, in his Marginal Comment, refers to the latent and sometimes overt hostility of the British Press to the B.B.C. Mr. Nicolson...

IRRESPONSIBLE WORKERS SIR,-As a repentant ex-Socialist gardener, I venture to ask: How much longer is this long-suffering nation going to put up with the ruinous nuisance of...

I SIR,-In your issue of August 2nd, A. S. Beer refers to the dangerous practice that has developed during the last few years whereby Ministers are given power in recent...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR DICTATORSHIP ON THE LAND SIR,-The farming community as a whole must thank Mr. Odium for having the courage to bring an action for libel against a...

THE DOCTOR'S RIGHT OF APPEAL SIR,-On the subject of the disqualification of doctors your correspondent, Mr. A. S. Beer, assures you that " this flagrant piece of imported...

MUSIC The Promenades IT is impossible to criticise profitably the bulk of the weekly performances of the Promenade concerts owing, primarily, to their very bulk. We have for...

GRAMOPHONE NOTES OWING to the breakdown of my gramophone I have been unable to review the June records, but now it is in order again I can say something of the July and August...

ART THERE are quite a few stars in the cast at the Leger Galleries. There is an early El Greco, painted under the influence of Titian and in all likelihood while the artist was...

THE CINEMA I The Way We Live." For general release. JILL CRAIGIE, who wrote and directed The Way We Live, is a newcomer to documentary from another parish. Her first film, Out...

MARGINAL COMMENT By HAROLD NICOLSON THE French, we must admit, are more interested in literature than we are ourselves. In France even a secondary writer, provided he has...

BRITAIN AND DENMARK By R. C. K. ENSOR NO country in Europe is better disposed towards Great Britain than Denmark. We were much esteemed there long before - the war, but the...

ARTIFICIAL SUN By OUR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT TOWARDS the end of the last century and in the beginning of this the use of natural and artificial sunlight in the treatment of...

NEW GAMPS FOR OLD By HUGH GARDNER I HAVE lost an umbrella again; not my own, but one, all the same, I in which I took a great pride. It had obviously been used to moving in...

Bread Upon Arab Waters Great Britain and the Arab World. By A. H. Hourani. (iohn I Murray. is. 6d.) WHATEVER may be said about the shortcomings of Arab propaganda in the...

Managing Men and Matter An Approach to Management. By G. E. Milward. (Macdonald and Evans. 8s. 6d.) MANAGEMENT is in process of evolution-or even revolution as some writers...

THE PUBLIC AND THE PRESS IT is not surprising that M. Molotov, in one of the latest of his Paris philippics, should have found it serviceable to quote from the...

Soviet Foreign Policy During the Patriotic War. Documents and - Materials. Vol. I. June 22, 1941-December 31, 1943. Translated ------- - - --- - - by Andre.w Rothstein....

I Economic Rebirth. By R. G. Hawtrey. (Longmans. 5s.) ...l-, Any economist, faced with the post-war economic situation, who sets out, as Mr. Hawtrey does, to produce " a...

I The Art of the Potter. A Book for the Collector and Connoisseur By William Bowyer Honey. (Faber and Faber. 35s.) TImE Keeper of the Department of Ceramics at the Victoria...

Shorter Notices Plays Unpleasant; Plays Pleasant; Three Plays for Puritans; The Doctor's Dilemma; Major Barbara; Man and Superman; Pygmalion; Androcles and the Lion; Saint...

THE WHEAT CONTRACT By CHARLES W. STOKES A T this moment, when every kind of moral force is being exerted A upon the food-products of the world to produce more, the voice least...

Economic Liberalism Working at Cambridge in the comparative obscurity engendered by the inability Df -the London daily papers to report its proceedings adequately, the Liberal...

American Economic Morals The American economic problem-which may be shortly stated as a problem of learning how to spend your money without straining yourself-continues to be...

Allowances for Old and Young This month has already seen two steps forward on the long progress to social security. On August ist the National Insurance Bill received the Royal...

The Volunteer Army Field-Marshal Montgomery's plans for improving conditions of service in the Army should be read in conjunction with last week's debate in the House on the...

MEN AND THE MINISTRY By an R.A.F. CHAPLAIN A RECENT article in The Spectator and correspondence arising out of it draw attention to a state of muddle in the Church, the extent...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By CUSTOS Now that the global figure of compensation has been announced, investors in coal shares have got something to bite on. The award of...

An Ambassador Interned An Ambassador in Bonds. By Sir Launcelot Oliphant. (Putnam. 17s. 6d.) IN the Preface to An Ambassador in Bonds, Sir Launcelot Oliphant explains that...

Fiction Lightly He Journeyed. By Elisabeth Inglis-Jones. (Faber. 8s. 6d.) Landfall Then Departure. By Humfrey Jordan. (Hodder and Stoughton. 9s. 6d.) The Reasonable...