The official particulars regarding the proposed Council of Europe, published last Monday, show that the new organisation will be substantially what, after recent discussions, it...

By civilised standards, two things were required of the trial of Cardinal Mindszenty before a Hungarian court on charges of treason, espionage and illegal currency dealings. The...

I T is, as an American correspondent points out on another page, a fact astonishing to anyone even superficially conversant with the history and the constitution of the United...

It is not surprising that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with knowledge of the Supplementary Estimates in his mind, should need a short rest in the country. For the figures,...

In view of the considerable amount of nonsense that has been talked on the subject, by interested persons and others, the state- ments made by the Foreign Secretary and the...

The day before the Shah of Persia was shot at, there had been demonstrations in Teheran directed against the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Imperial Bank of Iran. The two...

With a stronger sense of duty than of hope the Western Powers have begun negotiating again with Russia for an Austrian peace treaty. Hitherto negotiations have broken down over...

There is no subject on which dogmatism is less justified than sex-teaching, regarding which there is at the moment very animated discussion in different parts of the country....

A FTER last week's drama of personalities and principle, this week's House of Commons business has been pitched on a minor ,key. Except at Question Time, the Chamber has been...

The results in the General Election in Northern Ireland will be known soon after these lines are in print, and since their nature cannot be anticipated it would obviously be...

M HE news which came from Wall Street last Saturday, of a sharp fall in share prices and an increase in unemployment by two millions in one month, no doubt gave rise in Moscow...

N O doubt the Observer is right in saying that the Royal Press Commission is toying with the idea of setting up a Press coun- cil to establish some sort of Press standards....

obtained Free under the National Health Scheme." So an adver- tisement in the Western Mail (inserted by someone who wants to sell these object & and get reimbursed by Mr. Bevan...

Economic Council for Europe, I read, "all the Governments of Europe (except Spain) have been invited." How irritating that per- sistent " exception " becomes. The political...

mention it last week, but it already seems old history.. Not very much was said in It that was helpful, and the view that the debate might well have ended after the opening...

so, but I doubt it. Anyhow, this is what the Bill, to be introduced by Sir Dymoke White, to restrict the docking and nicking of horses, says about it: " horse ' includes...

the 'Royal Sovereign' home to Rosyth must be regarded, I suppose, as a slight chink in the iron curtain. There is a certain camaraderie between all navies, and the Scotland v....

of by-elections. Of the four seats at present vacant only one, South Hammersmith, is held by a majority of less than 6,000, which, in spite of Edmonton, is something...

By PETER TOWNSEND W HEN, one day in December last, Randall Gould, the editor of the American-owned Shanghai Evening Post, plaintively discovered one of the contradictions of...

By A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT HAOS may seem a strong word, and to use it does not mean that everything is going irremediably wronig with the groundnut scheme in Tanganyika. It is...

FIJI, SAMOA AND TONGA By DR. J. W. DAVIDSON tiOINCE Byron was in Greece nothing has appealed to the 0 ordinary literary man so much as that you should be living in the South...

By PAUL BOTHA A SPEAKER in the House of Commons recently said, "Things which make sense in other industries make nonsense in this industry, and it is extremely difficult for...

By EDWARD MONTGOMERY New' York, February 4th. T HE United States is just entering upon one of its perennial great debates on foreign policy, a debate which will determine...

By JAMES POPE-HENNESSY M Y first sight of Norway, three weeks ago, was of the ragged islands and long rocks that fringe the south-west coast. My next was of the unromantic...

AN ENGLISHMAN AT BONN By PETER WILDE (St. Edmund Hall, Oxford) T HE predominant impressions which strike an English student at a German university, suddenly transported into a...

By HAROLD NICOLSON OUCH of the French newspapers as I have seen during the last week have treated the findings of the Lynskey Tribunal and the ensuing debate in the House of...

THE THEATRE The Heiress. By Ruth and Augustus Goetz. (Haymarket.) As observed by Henry James, on one of whose novels this play as based, the life of upper-middle-class...

"The Glass Mountain." (Empire.)—" Sorry, Wrong Number." (Carlton.)—" The History of Mr.'Polly." (Leicester Square.) THE first half of The Glass Mountain, located in England,...

the genus that you could have an iris in blossom in every month of the year. Most of us would meet a blank month in late autumn, but what might be thought the most unlikely...

to quote from a piece that I wrote a while ago about a2hedgeless England. The surprise was due to the source of the request. The passage, the lamentation was desired for...

some 1,500 years (and as a law festival in Scotland for very many years), and perhaps more directly than any other adopted from a pagan predecessor. Our months mostly derive...

DOES any one now read Sir Thomas Browne or, if he reads him, read him for anything else than the force of his language? He was, after all, a good naturalist, and had a certain...

of the arrival of the close season. At any rate a pair of partridges played happily about my rose garden on the first safe day. They had paired, but kept to the adjacent fields,...

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS'S fourth and sixth symphonies were both played at the Albert Hall this last week, the fourth by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Richard Austin on February 4th...

and on any subject, should be sent to the Editor, the "Spectator," 99, Gower Street, W.C.; and the envelope marked "Undergraduate."

THE FATE OF THE KARENS Sut,—Recrimination can serve no purpose. Nevertheless, the lesson of Burma must not pass without note. We have clearly mishandled the minority problem....

Sut,—Two points in Rawle Knox's article on the Ulster General Election, published under the offensive heading In Darkest Belfast, call for refutation. (1) Discussing Government...

SIR, —In his review in the Spectator of February 4th of my book Partnership for All? Mr. F. C. Hooper pronounced my father's management of his business to have been "a tyranny...

Sta,—Your editorial note seems to assume that, although public opinion is not yet prepared for the suppression of foxhunting, it ought, solely on humanitarian grounds, to be...

February 10th, 1949: Contents The Proposed Council of Europe : By Walter Tap/in. Poland After Revolution : By Bernard Forbes (BBC Correspondent in Warsaw). Palestine and the...

Sta,—My father, a voluntary contributor to National Insurance and a pensioner of World War One, died on April 26th last year. His insurance payments were regular, his cards...

item: `.` Hounds have been rather hard on foxes in my locality, and their last exploit was to kill my only vixen, on which I was depending for a litter of cubs. . . . I asked...

must apologise at once to Mr. de Montmorency and your other readers for the mental black-out which caused me to include Degas among the painters available for inclusion in the...

Snt,—You were kind enough to publish, on December 3rd last, my letter upon the future of Eritrea which has been replied to by Miss Sylvia Pankhurst in her own propaganda...

Sts,—May I draw your attention to the Advanced Study Courses for Non-Graduates. These courses offer opportunities to women engaged in earning their living, more especially those...

SIR,—As a footnote to a letter of Mine in the Spectator of January 21st you commented that "the average age (of all candidates taking the London University Midsummer 1948...

Sra,1—Mr. David Steele, in his article, Amber Light, calls attention to the failure of the national Press to report developments in the North-East since the Transport Commission...

Sin,—Dame Una Pope-Hennessy in her pleasant review of Mr. O'Casey's latest book says that "in London he was destined to win the appreciation that his genius as a playwright...

Sitt,—I read with interest Mr. Langley's letter in the Spectator of February 4th. The main, if not the only, reason why grandmothers insist on the circumcision of their...

SIR,—You will have seen from retorts in the Press that theHill Wootton power-station project has been Withdrawn and that our beautiful country- side has been spared from...

Sut,—The public concern over the failure of the recruiting drive for the Services has led to a good deal of interest in the living conditions of the men. Speaking as an A.C.2 in...

Sta,—It would appear that on principle no insured person making a claim for a benefit secured to him by law should have to disclose more personal details than are strictly...

Sut,—Mistletoe grows plentifully on many trees in a small area immediately to the south of Magdalen Bridge, Oxford, and the lime just outside Nicholas Stone's gateway into the...

Sta,—Janus states that no country seems to have experimented with the gas-chamber as a method of execution except at Belsen. I would refer him to a book called Sing Sing Doctor...

SIN—The directors of the Abbey Theatre have commissioned me to compile a history of our theatre. I shall be very grateful for data dealing with the productions of the Irish...

In Pursuit of Proust TOWARDS the end of Dr. March's very interesting study he discusses the vicissitudes of Proust's reputation. Perhaps Proust's great novel will never again...

Family Background. By Gladys Scott Thomson. (Cape. 10s. 6d.) Tms book is another of the important series of volumes produced by the author from the Russell family papers. The...

Wingfield - Stratford. (Hollis and Carter. 185.) ALTHOUGH the third' volume of this trilogy on the life and death of King Charles I has still to appear, there is enough here to...

Adolphe ranks amongst the ten or twelve greatest novels in the French language—and maybe in any language—and it is right that it should now reach a large English public. Its...

Primitive Money. By Paul Einaig. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 25s.) DR. EINZIG'S first post-war mirk is of a very different kind from the stop-press tracts with which he used to...

Florentine Confusion .Sitic:E its issue in 1924 Monsieur Jean Alazard's Le Portrait Florentin de Botticelli a Bronzino has been the standard, because the only readily...

Social Pragmatism. By Lan Freed. (Watts. 15s.) PHILOSOPHERS are like housewives ; their ideal is the total, abolition of untidiness, with - a subsequent elevation of all human...

IT is always heartening to find a new writer breaking new ground, and Mr. John O'Connor, who published some memorable short stories in The Bell, has written a first novel of...

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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, February 22nd....

the New York Times since 1942. He ought to be well informed on the major strategic questions with which his book deals. This was, no doubt, one of the reasons why the cachet of...

By CUSTOS LONDON manicErs have been subjected this week to one of the intermittent bouts of nervous liquidation which always follow a mator break in stock market and commodity...