The Moscow negotiations are jolting to a finish, with no sign of anything material being accomplished unless a sudden and un- looked-for harvest is reaped in the closing days....

is as astonishing a political performance as most people can remember. It is, of course, not a question of whether eighteen months or twelve months is the right period for...

It would have been surprising if all the adjustments to so momentous an event as the statement - of the Truman Doctrine could be made in a day. But so far there has not been the...

Second only in importance to the progressive definition of the new American policy is the clarification of the Russian attitude to it. The Soviet Government is still rather...

So long as General de Gaulle remained aloof and waited for the party politicians to become entangled in their own net there was a real chance that he would one day be recalled...

The official reaction of the Spanish monarchists to General Franco's have proclamation regarding Spain's political future is what might have been expected. The suggestion of the...

W ORDSWORTH defined poetry as emotion recollected in tran. quillity. I do not know whether there is much poetry about Parliament, but my recollection in the temporary...

On December 31st, 1946, stocks of softwood timber in this country were less than half what is normally regarded as the safe working minimum, and they continued to fall after...

The meeting of the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment which opened at Geneva on Thursday is probably more important than its earlier...

p OLITICAL rumours have strange origins, but most of them are the result of representing as likely to happen something which by the nature of things might quite possibly happen....

The last time I saw him was in the dock at Nuremberg. The last time I heard of him was, strangely enough, on Saturday in the peaceful little church of East Wellow in Hampshire,...

swallow dates but just as he does dare, arouse a little interested curiosity. One, a long one, was in Monday's Times. It was signed A. Sudachkov and was dated from Moscow. The...

So far as scoring debating-points goes, the Government's reversal on the conscription-period is a gift for the Opposition ; but there was a certain astuteness in making the...

A GREAT many things might be said about.Henry Ford. A great many things have been said. One (which no doubt has been said somewhere, though 1 have not seen it) is that his...

now in Greece: "Greece is beginning to get all the aspects of a second Spain. Strong and well-organised bands of Communists roam the country, and we are not strong enough to...

phrases offered for my execration. About one or two of them—" face up to," "check up on," "directive," I am bound to give intellectual assent to the demand for condemnation,...

Church of Scotland opens with a rather arresting statement. "Three forces," says the author (the Rev. D. Allan Easton, Minister of the Old Kirk of Edinburgh), "are struggling...

By BARBARA CASTLE, M.P. F INLAND is getting back her political nerve again. The first shock of the second capitulation to the Soviet Union in less than five years is beginning...

By DR. TERRY THOMAS (Headmaster of Leeds Grammar School) I T is common knowledge that there is a great deal of discontent -C in our secondary grammar schools. What is the...

By HELEN LIDDELL [The world is full of controversies. At a particular moment a particular phase of them occupies attention, and it is often difficult, except for close students...

By R. M. LOCKLEY T HE price of the rabbit is soaring. It is becoming almost as expensive a luxury as it was when first introduced to Britain by the Normans. Why is this? Let us...

By HAROLD MATTINGLY N OT very Jong ago a regular contributor to The Spectator un- burdened himself of his feelings on the subject of stamp- collecting, and was rather severely...

If I were a polar-bear I could amuse myself on an iceberg, If I were a rattlesnake I could live with the owl and the dog, If I were a sloth I could suspend myself and slumber,...

By D. MacOLURE i T happened on the beach at Juhu, a pleasant seaside haunt with excellent bathing facilities, fifteen miles from the shimmering heat of Bombay City. Anne and I...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HE sullen curse which in primaeval days warped the destinies of the Atridae seems to linger among the rocks of Greece and to bring disaster to her rulers....

THE THEATRE "The Animal Kingdom." By Philip Barry (Playhouse). SOMEBODY (preferably Sir Max Beerbohm) ought to write an essay analysing the temptations and the dangers, both...

THERE has been a great deal of musical snobbery about Bach's Musical Offering, and there was a small but devout clique, armed with scores, to hear the performance given by the...

"A Woman Destroyed" (Odeon, Leicester Square).—" Portrait of Palestine" (General Release). IN A Woman Destroyed the issue of alcoholism is not squarely faced. A net of...

wrote for the Lichfield Cathedral Festival last year, was broadcast twice in the Third Programme last week. It lasted two and a quarter hours and the fact that my attention...

THOSE who saw some of Mary Krishna's work at India House recently will know that she is a deft and competent draughtsman with a flair for drawing animals. The bulls and monkeys...

A GOOD month, with one or two really high spots. First of all, the Schumann concerto played by Claudio Arrau and the Detroit Sym- phony Orchestra, conducted by Karl Kruger. This...

SIR, —In his article Cyprus after Fifty Years, which appeared in your issue of March 28th, Mr. Kenneth Williams refers to the Greeks of Cyprus as "Greek-speaking." May I point...

LIVING ON CAPITAL Ste,—The explanations why this country is in its present perilous state have been many and various, and the long-term and the short-term plans for improvement...

SIR,—The member of the Soviet delegation, who was surprised to find a portrait of George Washington in the National Gallery (A Spectator's Notebook, March 28th), might have been...

Snt,—One wonders whether the British public appreciate the curious difference in method and severity adopted by the British authorities in Palestine in their efforts to suppress...

SIR,-4 must confess that I began to read the article Russian Science by Dr. Trevor I. Williams (The Spectator, April 4th) with the greatest interest. It is so rare that a report...

SIR,—Janus, in his note on the French tapestries, asks why the Minister of Education presided at the opening and why M. Georges Salles did not speak. The Spectator has always...

SIE,—There•has recently been a good deal of discussion about the pos- sibility of London assuming the cultural leadership of Europe, and on the economic level it has been...

SIR,—In your issue of March 28th, Mr. Guy Boas contributed an article on The Extra School Year. I agree heartily with many of his proposals and criticisms, but I do deprecate...

Sta,—So far as the "conspiracy of silence" is concerned Canon Smyth's letter is sufficiently answered by Mr. Somerville. But his attack upon the intolerance of the Divinity...

asked an educated person if be knew what and where the Wash lay; yet how many could give a sufficient answer? Hardly less important than the shallow replica of the Zuider Zee...

SIR,—The Spectator, in its article on National Service, says: "It has been said in recent discussions that we have never had compulsory service in peace-time before. We have...

to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold copies are non-return- able....

In a letter written from New Zealand to a small child in England I learn some new details about that almost extinct oddity the kiwi, now being revived. Thus: "Last week I was in...

Sta,—As Basic English Foundation, am shy at give answer on polite question, will some man that has learn lingo tell me how say with Basic "These premises will shortly be opened...

SIR,—Major Johnston, in his too kind review of my Strategy in the Second World War, accuses me of "Saxon tactlessness" in describing General Henry Lloyd as an Englishman. May I...

satisfaction in the unprecedented rains of March were the thrushes. To judge by one example, they started building as soon as ever the snow began to melt, and enjoyed the...

In a trip taken along the Fen floods in the neighbourhood of God- manchester and the singularly interesting region by Earith I was astonished to see the amount of glass used for...

Sts,—As long as Janus confined himself to attacks on the University of Outer Mongolia and other non-existent bodies of this type his remarks on bogus degrees and diplomas...

THE date is at hand when certain fruit-growing districts in England, such as Pershore and Evesham, Wisbech and various areas in Kent, become bridal, as do those wild places...

RATHER more than three years ago I reviewed in these columns Mr. Ingersoll's earlier war book, The Battle is the Pay-Off. It was a readable, straightforward account of American...

Shelley Analysed The Nascent Mind of Shelley. By A. M. D. Hughes. (Clarendon Press. 15s.) "Tfus book," Professor Hughes tells us in his preface, "has been written in order to...

Ego 8. Continuing the Autobiography of James Agate. Illus- trated. (Harrap. 15s.) MR. AGATE is magnificently English. Here is the type of cultured Englishman who will forever...

Some Human Oddities, Studies in the Queer, the Uncanny and the Fanatical. By E. J. Dingwall. (Home and Van Thal. 15s.) THE Studies are six in number, and they more than...

VIRGIL'S achievement in the Aeneicl is often too readily taken for granted. His direct suggestions are relatively easy, but scholars have generally shirked the task of...

Mozart : His Character and Work. By Alfred Einstein. Translated by Arthur Mendel and Nathan Broder. (Cassell. 21s.) Tins is a study of Mozart's character and his work by an...

Juvenile Drama. By George Speaight. (Macdonald. 15s.) EVEN Mr. Harold Nicolson may modify his views on collectors if he reads this quite charming book. It is the record of a...

EVER since the dawn of civilisation many philosophers and most doctors have known and proclaimed that health is not merely freedom from disease ; that it does not depend merely...

JAMES WELLARD'S The Man in a Helmet (Eyre and Spottiswoode) is a portrait of that buccaneering, larger-than-life-size character, General George S. Patton, Jun. Few men during...

Creed or Chaos ? By Dorothy Sayers. (Methuen. 5s.) MISS SAYERS has collected in this book seven papers which she calls Essays in Popular Theology. They include the two well-...

IN many ways this is an excellent and unusual book. Miss Williams, commenting on the "neglect and misinterpretation" from which pre- Conquest literature has suffered, blows away...

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[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, April 22nd. Envelopes...

By CUSTOS IN face of next Tuesday's Budget the steadiness of the stock markets is a good omen. Not that the Stock Exchange has any remarkable gift of foresight where the Budget...