T HERE were no elections in Czechoslovakia last Sunday— the final votes are to be cast on the izth—and interest during the week-end was transferred from the Sudeten German to...

is no military movement of outstanding importance in Spain to report. A new offensive by General Franco was announced at the beginning of the week, and substantial progress has...

and Japan with an appalling and to all appearance insoluble problem. The brutal and barbaric savagery of the bombing raids in Spain and China produces in every casual reader of...

Lunghai railway in an attempt to strike at the railway from Peking to Hankow. On Monday Kaifeng was captured ; the Chinese are expected to resist the advance to their utmost,...

German Protestants' struggle against the all-embracing demands of National Socialism are once again illustrated by the concession they have wrung from the authorities appointed...

and in some of the parishes troops have had to be called out and have been forced to fire on the mob. But the problem to be solved has changed considerably from what it was when...

frequently asserted Germany's right to intervene in the affairs of other countries in defence of her minorities abroad ; by the same reasoning Poland appears to have every...

the moment is how long M. Daladier can retain the support of the Radicals' allies in the Popular Front, and they, in turn, the support of their more extremist followers. So long...

aspects of national defence the more strange does it seem that he snould not be called in to preside over one or other of the fighting services or to co-ordinate all three. Mr....

intention of once again re-shuffling his Ministry before the year is out. It is difficult to see how another exchange of offices could appreciably add either to the efficiency...

no useful purpose unless invested with full wartime powers has failed to carry general conviction. Moreover, the debates which have taken place on civil and military aviation...

" Peace Alliance," the most hopeful manifestation of the variously-named Popular Front movement, has received what looks like a mortal blow in the house where it was born. The...

on the need for national unity reinforces his fuller declaration on that subject at his speech at the St. George's Society dinner in April, when he pointed to some of the...

brings a short but welcome break in the Parlia- mentary time-table. Ministers are no doubt congratulating themselves on the way in which they have come through the tribulations...

increase in unemploy- ment last month, the Ministry of Labour's figures for May are undoubtedly discouraging. Since April unemployment rose by 31,041, though May should normally...

T HE protests of Great Britain and other countries against the bombing of civilians in Spain and China appear to have had no effect except to encourage the authors of the...

B OTH Houses of Convocation in both Provinces expressed themselves last week on the subject of the recent report on Doctrine in the Church of England ; and it is doing no...

of breach of the law. Everyone is supposed to know the law. But what happens when no one knows it ? That appears to be the position now in regard to the far from unimportant...

wisdom of Sir Samuel Hoare's refusal to prohibit the holding in this country of a rather portentously named International Congress of the World Union of Freethinkers ; the sur-...

S OME notes I have just received from a well-qualified English observer in Italy confirm rather strikingly reports from other sources. In spite of the Rome-Berlin Axis,...

G. Winant to be Director of the International Labour Office, and the fact that Mr. Winant's candidature received not merely President Roosevelt's assent but his warm approval,...

of Mid-Bucks. In the latter division the Con- servative candidate won so easily that his figures are imma- terial ; the Liberal and Labour candidates combined polled almost...

By R. B. D. FRENCH [The General Election in Ireland takes place on lune r7114 Dublin F IVE years ago Mr. de Valera secured a majority in the Dail by starting an economic war....

the Act. It objects strongly to the large powers reserved to the Viceroy. It objects as strongly to the heavy weightage allowed in both Houses to the Indian States. The Princes...

enough one finds no one anywhere who is against federation in itself. There is an almost complete consensus of opinion that there ought to be some form of legislature and...

By VISCOUNT SAMUEL [This is the second of three articles in which Lord Samuel records some of the impressions gained during his recent visit to India. Next week's concluding...

By DR. T. K. DERRY (Headmaster of Mill Hill) [This is the fifth of a series of articles on conditions in the principal careers open to boys and girls from . public and...

By R. F. SCOTT M OST people know that the Relieving Officer exists, but relatively few know what he does, or how, and under what jurisdiction he does it. He is concerned, of...

By A CORRESPONDENT WAS planning to go to Austria this summer, but I suppose, after what's happened, I'd better change my plans ? It really isn't safe, is it ? " That is a...

By FRANK SINGLETON M Y friend Mrs. Weston has, I always think, a mind of unusual clarity and is endowed with a gift of precise analysis. When therefore the other day she was...

[So far as space permits questions from readers, particularly those arising out of articles in THE SPECTATOR, and dealing with fact, not opinion, will be answered on this page...

THE USE OF LEISURE -V O NE of Cardinal Newman's biographers, in depicting the Oxford of the Cardinal's youth, has contrasted it with the Oxford of today, finding the most...

THE WEST INDIAN PROBLEM By W. L. BURN THERE is no part of the British Empire upon which we can look with less satisfaction than upon the West Indies. Our conquest of them...

OPERA " The Ring" at Covent Garden OF the two cycles of Der Ring at Covent Garden I have heard the second Walltiire and Siegfried, and the first Glitterdom- merung, besides one...

" Orage." At the Curzon ROBERT BROWNING, you remember, wrote a poem called " A Light Woman "—about " my friend and the mistress of my friend with her wanton eyes and me." An...

People in Concrete THE vital impulse in the work of Laszlo Peri, whose sculpture in concrete is to be seen at 36 Soho Square, is an intense interest and curiosity about people....

[Von einem deutschen Korrespondenten] HANDWERKER der ganzen. Welt haben sich in Berlin zur Inter- nationalen Handwerksausstellung getroffen. Von den Lapp- landern bis zu den...

the day, is being secured with excellent results - in the defence of rural England against the Goths. Oxfordshire, which has done notable work for what we hope are winning...

Farming Research Just twenty - five years ago Oxford and Cambridge divided between them the study of agricultural problems. Oxford started the economic branch and Cambridge...

A correspondent asks me whether there is any plausible explanation of the behaviour of a bird that tapped insistently at the window at night. Some of our home birds will do this...

in my experience in South Wales) that this night tapping at the window is a precursor of calamity. There is indeed something strange and disturbing in the unwonted sound. The...

fish which spend all their life in the sea carry scales not much less legible than the salmon. The writing on their scales is made not by salt water and fresh, but by summer and...

been adding new facts to our knowledge of the way of a fish in the sea. We all know that parts of a salmon's life, though much is still mysterious, can be read from the...

gardener speak slight- ingly of the lupin as a rough, wild plant, scarcely worthy of the garden. Perhaps once this view was almost justified, but the flower has been steadily...

Sra,—Preparatory schools, as other educational establishments, must expect criticism, nor are they afraid of it provided that such criticism be fair and reasonable and is...

Sitt,—Mr. Roger Clarke's article on Preparatory Schools will undoubtedly arouse much discussion. It is doubtful whether his criticisms apply to any great extent to the majority...

[Correspondents 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...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sta,—That great multitude of men and women who still pin their faith to the League of Nations—its Covenant, methods and principles—have watched...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Your article in last week's Spectator on " Locum Tenens " prompts me to write on another aspect of the subject closely affecting the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sna,—The article in your issue of May 27th by E. L. Hasluck on Careers in the Local Government Service necessarily touches but briefly on the...

inform us how " to re-cast the examinations for scholarship and common entrance to Public Schools so that 13-year-old boys at grant-aided secondary schools could take them "...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sre,—The Spanish Medical Aid Committee ask me to appeal for books for our English staff of doctors and nurses in Spain, and for the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Inasmuch as Mr. Rennie Smith, Secretary of " Friends of Europe " calls attention to publications of his organisation it would, I suggest,...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR' SIR,—I did not identify George of " George is a Christian " with Septuagenarian. Septuagenarian's splendid letter left me in no doubt, but it...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] have read the article on the Sanitary Inspector in your issue of June 3rd with interest and some astonishment. You mention among the beneficent...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sra,—I have recently returned from an eleven years' residence in Kingston, Jamaica. It is emphatically not true that , a married white man could...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Many comments might be made on the article " Women in Prison " which appeared in The Spectator of May 27th, but I will confine myself to...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,-Mr. Chirgwin's interesting article on " Prohibition in India " paints a very rosy picture of the immediate benefits from the experiment in...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—May I correct a statement made by Sir Walter Langdon- Brown in his letter on " influenced " books? I have not my original article on this...

THE kneeling boys in a dark line ; Dark earth where rain has deepened the Yorkshire loam ; Hands rustling, uprooting a living green, Lifting to the heaped cart ; labour the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Compulsory insurance of motor-cars has produced many surprising results which can hardly have been contemplated when enacted by...

Persons in Hiding (Mark Benney) New Poetry (William Plomer) The Faithful Mohawks (D. W. Brogan) . The " Truth " of the Bible (Edwyn Bevan) • • • • • • • • PAGE 1063 1064 1064...

The Faithful Mohawks. By John Wolfe Lydekker. With a fore- word by Lord Tweedsmuir. (Cambridge UniversityPress. 12s. 6d.) THE Iroquois have many claims to fame ; they were the...

The Earth Compels. By Louis MacNeice. (Faber and Faber. 6s.) Memory and Other Poems. By Walter dela Mare. (Constable. 6s.) Poems. By Eileen Duggan. (Allen and Unwin. 5s.)...

The " Truth" of the Bible. By Stanley A. Cook, Litt.D. (S.P.C.K. 9s.) ANYBODY who saw only the title of this book, with " Truth " in inverted commas, might suppose that it was a...

My New World. By Ernest Dimnet. (Cape. tos. 6d.) IN this second volume of reminiscences the Abbe Dimnet takes up his narrative at the point he left it some three years ago in My...

Tim book falls into two unequal halves. The first consists of an unpretentious account of the life of a well-to-do family of the Russian noblesse thirty to fifty years ago; the...

MANY admirable memoirs have been written by diplomats of different nations who have served their term; very few, for reasons of discretion, by those who are still in mid-career....

By FORREST REID PERHAPS I am super-sensitive, but there are certain authors for whom one has a respect and a regard, an almost personal affection, and I wish Mr. Ford Madox...

With each successive issue of the Annual Register one marvels at the thoroughness and extent of the survey of the domestic and foreign events occurring in the particular year...

South Latitude (Longmans, 9s. 6d.) is one of the best books of Antarctic travel for years. It is difficult to imagine anybody not enjoying it, what- ever his taste. The sort of...

was incorrectly described in our issue of May'6th as;an American-born Italian. Dr. Megaro is an American.

LECTURES ON THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION By Sir Maurice Sheldon Amos No set of governmental institutions in the world is so legal in character as the American. To understand the...

The reputed birthplace of Homer, the second of the Seven Churches of Asia in the Apocalypse, the leading port of Asia Minor since Ephesus silted up—such are the main facts...

IRELAND THE worst of visiting Ireland is that the longer one stays the further England recedes, and the less one feels inclined to return to it. Ireland either makes you...

ULSTER THOSE who like a walking holiday will find plenty to delight them in Northern Ireland. The Mourne Mountains, for instance, is an excellent district for such a holiday....

THE optimists are still doing their best to rally their scat- tered forces, and it really does look as if markets may have reached a new resistance level. On the home front the...

the investment merits of Edmundsons' Electricity Ordinary shares, that one day the board might see fit to capitalise part of the group's internal reserves and give shareholders...

A correspondent, whose wishes may be typical of those of many readers of these notes, asks whether it is possible, "without too much risk," to obtain a 5 per cent. income on a...

companies which have written down their capital, or contemplate doing so, are always a promising speculation, I invite investors who do not mind taking a risk to look this week...

me to be very good indeed. For the year ended March 31st, 1938, the total income has risen by £69,458 to £867,609, which is equivalent, after allowing for all prior charges, to...

tin producers of Malaya had voted in favour of the " Buffer Pool " by approximately 2 to t, although the majority of European producers in favour was very narrow. On the...

HIGHER UNEMPLOYMENT ONCE again the British unemployment figures give no indication of an immediate reversal of the industrial recession. The rise of about 30,000 to roughly...

year showed a profit of £65,476—a reduction of about £3,000. After paying a dividend of 25 per cent. for the year, and carrying £25,000 to reserve, the balance carried forward...

Mr. H. Eric Miller, at the annual meeting of Sialang Rubber Estates on Wednesday, gave a very hopeful interpretation of the outlook for rubber. He believes that a great volume...

• I MUM • i 6 FIEIR NI T1 I INID!I UlOIT S MI A El S Al TIT CI IIR I El Fl Ul IL ON C LI El F A T TI CI I R EIH I HITIHI E LI EINI I I R 011•4 T A ID Al ' DI Q I UI 01 RI I...

BY ZENO m 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 should be...