Keeping Films Going SIR,-Your advocacy of a higher quota of British films that our cinemas should show is very welcome, as such a course would widen the market for this...

Troubled Africa SIR.-CMay I be permitted to comment on your wise and balanced article entitled Troubled Africa. Simultaneous developments throughout that continent have thrown...

Inspector Whitcher SIR,-Your quotation from the Spectator of May Ist, 1852, about incendiarism at Harwell unexpectedly recalls two of the most famous trials of the century....

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Displaced Persons Who Remain SIR.--Ma I draw your attention to the fact that since the liquidation of I.R.O. the various religious societies, the British...

Subjunctive Needed SIR,-The use of the subjunctive is not as simple as Brigadier Streeten would have us bel~eve. Law 20 of the Rugby Union says: " If the ball touch the referee...

Nurses in the Home SIR,-There is much in Mr. Kitching's letter, published in your issue of April 25th, which will meet with general agreement. Nobody should dissent from his...

Constant Readers SIR,-Already at the beginning of our letter we are introducing ourselves, so we beg of you to excuse us if there are any mistakes in our letter because we are...

Bearing-Reins SIR,-Even if the reasons Mr. Hepburn gives (tradition, customn and smartness) explain the use of bearing-reins in the past, they can still be modified or changed...

France on £25 SIR,-Having just returned from a motor tour in France. we consider the article by Glyn Daniel to be of great value. If the French hotelkeepers could be persuaded...

Branch-line Railways SIR,-Discussion of fares is irrelevant if the railways are gradually dropping the passenger business. To most people the nearest busstop is a good deal...

Back to Bedlam ? The recent escape of a patient from Broadmoor has caused justifiable uneasiness among the villagers who live in the neighbourhood of the asylum; it has also...

Co-ordinated Government The question of the functions and responsibilities of the co-ordinating Ministers involves fundamental issues both of constitutional principle and...

Progress of the Comet It would be against the nature of the magnificent de Havilland Comet aircraft if its progress in the world were to. stop at this point. From its...

The Shadow over Farmers The scourge of foot and mouth disease continues to spread. There have been nearly 250 outbreaks since last November some 14,000 cattle and about half...

More Houses The subject on which the Conservative Party made some of its largest promises before taking office last year was housing. It was a fairly safe subject on which to...

AT WESTMINSTER W H HATEVER Mr. Churchill's private thot-l'its about the gratuitous wav in which Lord W'ooiLM landed him into the hubbub about the co-ordinating Ministers, he...

Dr. Montessori Dr. Montessori's lifetime of eighty-one years covered such an advance in the education of young children that not only have her methods been incorporated in...

The Cardus Touch Cricket all the Year. By Neville Cardus. (Collins. 1 5s.) THIRTY years have gone since Mr. Cardus published A Cricketer'sBook, and he has himself described...

At Pisa Once Byron, Shelley and their Pisan Circle. By C. L. Cline. (Murray. 25s.) AT the Public Record Office, among other papers on the same business, there is a formal...

MUSIC IN amateur operatic performances the pleasure in most cases is the performers' rather than the spectators'. An art-form which demands proficiency in two arts, acting as...

CINEMA The Fall of Berlin. (New Gallery.) Curtain Up. (Odeon, Marble Arch.)-The San Francisco Story. (London Pavilion.) The Fall of Berlin, a Russian film about the war, has...

THE ROYAL ACADEMY To a marked degree the range of the summer exhibition has been extended within recent years. Much " modern " art is now on the rebound from past extremes and...

America's Road to War The Challenge to Isolation, 1937-1940. By William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason. (Royal Institute of International Affairs. 60s.) THE antecedents of...

Shakespeariana Shakespeare Survey, No. 5. Edited by Allardyce Nicoll. (Cam- bridge University Press. 15s.) The Life and Times of Edward Alleyn. By G. L. Hosking. (Cape. 1...

There are a great many very nice people in the United States, but there are also a few very nasty ones. Some of the latter have been devoting their talents to a smear campaign...

My note on the Michelin Guide to France a fortnight ago has elicited an interesting letter from the publishers of that invaluable volume, mentioning that an omission on which I...

In view of the amount of information regarding bogus academic institutions which continues to reach me I read with some interest the report in a recent issue of the New York...

Sotheby's catalogues are always worth looking at. Among the manuscripts to be offered for sale later in the month are two letters from Mussolini to his mistress " written in...

The Dean of Windsor, Bishop Hamilton, wvas last week charged in a headline in a daily paper with " denouncing " the Welfare State, and in expressing a measure of agreement with...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK I AM surprised that the confident statements in the new volumes of the History of " The Times " regarding the great likelihood of Mr. Lloyd George...

Is good chairmanship a particularly British accomplish- ment ? At the Anglo-German conference at Kcnigswinter last month a Social Democrat deputy told me that another delegate...

The Federation Tangle By HARRY FRANKLIN T 1HE tangled skein in which the issues of Central African Federation are now entrammelled needs to be straightened out, and the simple...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS THEAl RE As You Like It. By William Shakespeare. (The Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.) MR. GLEN BYAM SHAW, taking his cue from the exiled Duke's...

Rendezvous. Adapted from the Norwegian of Finn Boe by Michael Treford. Music by Jack Lemkow. (Comedy.) THE substance of this entertainment, adapted from the Norwegian and...

Under the Sycamore Tree. By Sam Spewack. (Aldwych.) THE players are come hither, and Hamlet's " Buzz, buzz ! " has at last acquired a definite meaning. For all the characters...

The Mortimer Touch. By Eric Linklater. (Duke of York's.) MR. LINKLATER 's new satire, lifted without apology from The Alchemist, is without doubt the coolest and most...

NEWS OF THE WEEK FOR some weeks the bargaining at Panmunjom has been based on three Communist demands, all in some degree unreasonable. The argument that Soviet Russia could be...

Federation Outline Considered comment on the revised plan for Central African Federation must await the publication of the promised White Paper setting out the plan in full....

East-West Trade In one respect the recent economic conference in Moscow was undoubtedly successful. It attracted attention once more to the latent possibility of greatly...

Hone) and Blossom Bees were exercising before their hive on one of the warmest afternoons we have had this spring. I watched them for a while. The exercising mass was passed...

ART EXHIBITIONS SIR MAx BEEIRDOHM, English-born and a fairly constant Italian resident since 1910, is eighty in August. Saul Steinberg, Rumanian by birth, Italian by education...

Bored Animals Like human beings, animals are subject to boredom. A dog that is left chained in his kennel will gnaw the woodwork or anything near at hand. The horse that grazes...

Beans and Cucumbers Thin early sowings after rain or watering, taking care not to disturb the remaining plants more than necessary. It is time to think of crops that have not...

COUNTRY LIFE WHEN the church-clock chimed, the singing in the schoolroom ended. In a few minutes the scholars came out, and the peace of the afternoon was gone. Several boys...

Pond Life The smallest pond or water-hole has life of its own. Water-weed grows, a scum spreads on the surface, and, if it has no fish population, it quickly breeds flies and...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By CUSTOS GILT-EDGED first and the rest nowhere is still the story in Throgmorton Street. While I would not question the logic of subdued markets in...

BOOKS OF THE WEEK Heyday of Fascism Ciano's Diary, 1937-8. Translated by Andreas Mayor. (Methuen. 21S.) AFTER the publication of the later Ciano diaries (1939-43) this...

Naval Disagreements Portrait of an Admiral: The Life and Papers of Sir Herbert Richmond. By Arthur J. Marder. (Cape. 30s.) THE transformation of the Victorian Navy, whose...

Not So Common Speech AB By, Sir EVELYN WRENCH R ECENTLY a letter from a leading American publisher t6ld me of the steads deterioration uwhich was, in his opinion, taking place...

The Cost of Indo-China By A. D. C. PETERSON IN the last few weeks the support in France for a settlement on almost any terms of the war in Indo-China has gathered strength. It...

EUROPE AND THE WORLD T HE complications arising in the last stages of the parallel negotiations on the conclusion of the European Defence Community agreement, the Allied reply...

Colonial Enterprise A By BERNARD BRAINE, M.P. N EARLY four years have elapsed since the Overseas Resources Development Act became law and the Overseas Food Corporation and the...

Fiction Mr. Nicholas. By Thomas Hinde. (MacGibbon and Kee. 12s. 6d.) Young Man on a Dolphin. By Anthony Thorne. (Heinemann. 12s. 6d.) Johnnie Sahib. By Paul Scott. (Eyre...

MARGINAL COMMENT By HAROLD NICOLSON I HAVE before now written comments upon this page regarding the untruthfulness of eminent writers when revealing to an expectant world the...

Fritillaries By GEOFFREY GRIGSON EVERY year when I stand in a thirty-acre meadow of fritillaries I feel like a bird-watcher with a golden oriole or a hoopoe or a bee-eater in...