R AMSAY MACDONALD may have been a controversial figure, but he was a great figure. Starting life with no single .advanrage in his . favour; he achieved in 1924 and 193i...

regarding a possible visit to Berlin, together with the German and Italian comments on the Prime Minister's speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet on Tuesday ; bring the question of...

to hold the Soochow Creek was decisively 'frustrated this week, largely through the landing of 30,000 Japanese at Chapei, which turned the Chinese lines from the South. Though...

Bill was taken last week ; and Parliament has little time to give the measure its final form, as important provisions of the existing Act expire next March. The new Bill is...

and virtual ruler of Danzig, announced that the " Free City " would be completely assimilated to Germany ; and indeed Danzig is already in fact a completely National Socialist...

Government and local authorities over the division of the cost of air raid precautions is cut short by the Government's decision to introduce a Bill into Parliament next week...

announced several weeks ago by Kemal Ataturk, from the post of Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic has given rise to many rumours ; it is asserted especially that...

debated a question of procedure whose technicality somewhat obscures its importance ; for it affects both the House of Commons' control of the executive and the Crown's right of...

of that select band known to newspaper readers as " eminent counsel," abandoned the Bar for the board- room. As he himself has been known to express it, he is now engaged in...

article " Nationalism and God," which appeared in The Spectator of October 22nd, should be reprinted, arrangements have been made for that to be done. Reprints are obtainable...

Mr. Holmes' Inheritance Bill no fewer than eight barristers (practising and dormant) and one solicitor succeeded in catching the Speaker's eye. On Monday, when the House...

the number of the unemployed in October is not surprising, and should certainly not necessarily be taken as a signpost pointing to depression. The change is almost wholly...

underlying unity of the House, of Commons is always most apparent on the death of one of its leading members. Even those who had no personal acquaintance with the dead man, and...

Spectator will be a special Christ- mas number of 120 pages, containing in addition to all usual features a series of articles on the general theme " Reaching the Public." The...

Labour Party to spend so much time attacking the decision to send commercial agents to those Spanish territories which are now under the control of General Franco. Even under...

of the attitude of the Government to the Inheritance (Family Provisions) Bill—as one of " strict non-intervention." The object of the Bill, which received a second reading last...

W HAT change, if any, does Italy's adhesion to the anti-Comintern Pact concluded a year ago between Japan and Germany make in the international situation ? If the document is to...

T HE series of articles on prison conditions which have been published in the last six issues of The Spectator may, whatever their faults or virtues, claim at least to be...

to judge Ramsay MacDonald by his third and last Premiership, particularly by its closing days. For most of that time he was an ill and worn-out man. It was very different in...

N O one, I imagine, however critical of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, could fail to be attracted by some sides of him. Many were attracted by many sides. I have seen him in a variety of...

last week.) Bought on Friday by A. for £2 los. Sold on Saturday by A. to B. for £3 los. Bought back on Monday from B. by A. for £4 ros. Sold on Tuesday by A. to C. for £6 los....

read his moving biography of his wife—both in his weaknesses and his virtues, and the vicissitudes of his career meant the breaking of many friendships. There was a time when...

worth organising. My own entry would consist of seventeen words from Zigzag, the autobiography of W. F. R. Macartney : " Colonel Hyam, a Canadian railroad man. now head of the...

wine " broadcast last Saturday there is no means of knowing. But not many of them, I imagine, sent in protests. There was nothing to protest about, except a most abysmal...

came my way the other day through a channel which I need not specify. It includes, among other things, a remarkable testimony to the efficiency of the Moscow radio, which...

By MARY AGNES HAMILTON D RAMA was, although he would never admit it, the breath of MacDonald's nostrils. He loved movement, pageantry, colour, crisis. To the last he expected,...

By VISCOUNT ASTOR T HE world is beginning to be educated in the matter of nutrition ; but beginning only. No doubt two or three generations ago medical men accepted as satis-...

By SIR ARNOLD WILSON, M.P. T WENTY years have passed since the Imperial War Conference accepted a proposal, drafted by Sir Fabian Ware and placed before it by the Prince of...

[The writer, whose age is 25, took up professional work in London after coming down from Oxford but decided to take orders, and has since done so.] W E belong to an age which...

By J. 'J. MALLON O N the coming of age of the experiment in Public Ownership of Liquor in the Carlisle area this month, Mr. Lloyd George in an impressive letter has called...

By S. L. BENSUSAN T T seems a pity that, while the Government is giving whole- hearted hearted consideration to the problems of Agriculture and has attempted with certain...

By MICHAEL LANGLEY I WAS once in a town in the heart of Turkey where one could walk for miles over the roofs of the bazaars by a network of paths which corresponded to the...

By A. L. ROWSE W HAT an extraordinary institution the Public Record Office is ! I do not mean from the point of view of the general public. To the ordinary man in the street I...

SOUTH AMERICA'S INDIANS By SYBIL VINCENT " W HAT are you going to do about your Indian problem?" Interview a South American statesman and this is the one question he hopes you...

THE THEATRE Forbes-Robertson OF all the actors I have followed, Forbes-Robertson most consistently revealed in every part his peculiar quality. That does not mean that he was...

"The Spanish Earth." At the Acidealy FEW films of fact have ever surpassed the nobility and dignity Of The Spanish Earth. As its majestic panorama of human suffering, human...

[Von einem deutschan Korrespon1entea] DIE letzte Jagdausstellung fand vor 27 Jahren, also noch im tiefsten Frieden, in Wien statt. Kehler der damaligen Tell- nehmer hat wohl...

IF I do not add my full measure to the superlatives that have been heaped at Signor Toscanini's feet since his performances of Beethoven's first and last Symphonies last week,...

November Blooms A neighbour of mine has Cultivated the habit of making a census of flowers in the first week of November. The list usually contains about fifty names. This...

The nightjar suggests the nightshade. An account reaches me from a correspondent in Winnipeg, where newspapers comment yearly on the vanloads of the woody nightshade that are...

you could pick a barrow, load of bladder campion and white dead nettle.; and in one spot where garden flowers have strayed the bank is bright with evening primrose. I do not...

It was cheering to hear this week that the approaches to Morte Point in North Devon have been permanently saved, through local generosity and the National Trust. Some of us have...

the nesting habit of that attractive bird, the nightjar (whose song incidentally has been admirably recorded for the gramophone). The bird stays in England a very short time. It...

the opening of the hunting season and the excessive earliness of the cubbing season, told me a strange and moving tale of a pair of foxes in the Great War. The unhappy . vixen...

Under the inspiration of the recent beauty of the weather prizes have been offered for a poetic address to November in eight lines. The sort of response will perhaps be...

given much fOod for thought: I should like to lay stress on the need that 'prison industries should be of economic Value. When last I visited • young prisoners, the "...

profound interest the series of articles written by Mr. Athill. Any ex-prisoner knows that in spite of Prison Commissioners being personally humane, the system itself is so...

[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...

wish to deny Mr. Charles Prior's criticism.; about certain prison visitors, may I beg him and those who read his letter not to believe that all prison visitors are either sexual...

SIR,—May " Twenty " reply to " Twenty-four " ? There are various explanations of the general conditions in which Fascism arises, but none of these are sufficient to explain...

third article in this series is stated to be a director of a London business firm, aged 24. Would it be presumptuous to enquire whether in his capacity of director, i.e.,...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Pagc 737 in your issue of October 29th naturally attracted my attention, and copies of it have been sent me by a number of members of Toc...

you allow a brief paraphrase of your third con- tributor's article ? He was brought up in the traditional English respect for religion, but it never went very deep, and...

" may be young in age, bu: are certainly antique in thought. Here is " No. IV " declaring her belief in a God " who is the totality of the universe," and advocating as a guide...

Sta,—I admit I was asking for it ! Even the clumsy sabre- rattling of the incumbent of Bodham Rectory has been able to prick my skin in one place. Judged by my article—" The...

obvious to all that there are good and bad., wise and foolish, intelligent and stupid amongst those both- under and over thirty, it is difficult to see what possible interest...

Sta,—I am in profound sympathy with the woman who wrote " The Voice of Under Thirty—IV." I suspect that she will come in for criticism in your next issue, and so I wish to...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, — The article on " The Price of Food " in your issue of October 22nd, states that " bacon is dear very largely because Danish supplies...

Sta,—The sentiments expressed in the article under the above heading are worthy of sympathetic hearing, but there are one or two points that may bear a little further scrutiny...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It is difficult to understand on what grounds, social, material, or ethical, the writer of the article in your last issue on " The Right...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Sir Francis Acland was evidently in a somewhat skittish mood when he wrote the letter which you published on October 29th. I doubt...

' [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] _ Sm,—With one clause of your Special Correspondent's grave article I find myself in cordial agreement ; when he says " so far much too...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR —My attention his been called to the review of a book, By Order of the Shah, contained in your issue of October rsth, _ 1937. This review...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sta,—I am glad to find that Dr. Einzig and I are at least in agreement that expansion is not always and inevitably the best policy for the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sm,—Mr. Butcher, the Liberal National Member for Holland- with-Boston, is to be congratulated upon his maiden speech in the Debate on the...

Ends and Means (Honor Croome) . 85i _ Science and Music (C. E. M. Joad) . . .. 853 A.E. (J. M. Hone) .. .. 854 Von Hugel and Tyrrell (Evelyn Underhill) .. 854 The Colonial...

IF you strike a dozen single notes at random on the piano, they produce effects of which the sciences of physics and physiology between them could in theory give an exhaustive...

A Memoir of A. E. By John Eglinton. (Macmillan 7s. 6d) - The Living Torch. By A. E. Edited by Monk Gibbon. (Mac- millan. its. 6d.) Mn. JOHN EGLINTON, the Irish essayist and...

THE surviving personal friends either of Baron von Hugel or of Father Tyrrell, and all who were in any way concerned in the religious crisis in which they played so great a...

The Colonial Office. A History. By Henry L. Hall, Ph.D. (Longmans. its. 6d.) DR. HALL'S history of the Colonial Office, which he brought to completion as a Research Scholar of...

An Irishman's England. By J. S. Collis. (Cassell. 7s. 6d.) MR. COLLIS comes from a casual, impulsive, religious, ignorant, naturally cultured country to a country businesslike...

Oxford Limited. By Keith Briant. (Michael Joseph. Pas. 6d.) MR. BRIANT has only recently come down from the University. He edited The his in 1936, and of the people who were up...

London Music in 1888-89, as heard by Como di Bassetto (later known as Bernard Shaiv). With some further Autobiographical Particulars. (Constable. 75. 6cl.) HE never missed...

The Night Climbers of Cambridge. By " Whipplesnaith." (Chatto and Windus. 7s. 6d.) IT is generally supposed that the colleges of our two great university cities are no more than...

The Unpublished Correspondence of Honore de Balzac and Madame Zulma Carraud. (Bodley Head. iss.) THIS is not one of the great romantic letter cycles of the world, "bin for that...

By FORREST REID (Golden Cockerel Press. 8s. 6d.) RALPH Fox was killed fighting in the International Column before Madrid. He had already published three or four Books —among...

Bemis This book (Cape, 25s.) is especially timely, since President Roosevelt has seemed to betray hankerings after Wilsonian idealism and intervention in world affairs....

Mr. Rearden Conner has had rather a wretched time and wants to tell everyone about it. He was persecuted by his schoolfellows in Dublin because his father was a Government...

Ireland, Ph.D. Dr. Ireland has made a most pains- taking and elaborate study (Jonathan Cape, 15s.) of the highly involved series of events connected with Iraq since the War,...

SOCIALISM VERSUS CAPITALISM By A. C. Pigou Professor Pigou's contribution (Mac- millan, 4s. 6d.) to the debate summarised in his title is less academic, but not less...

book (Lawrence and Wishart, 3s. 6d.) is a Communist exposition not only of the course, but of the lessons of the American Revolution. Although the lesson is not rubbed in, one...

must leave investors to make up their own minds. Informed City views are still hopeful, although nobody can pretend to be sure. The trade risk is scarcely less difficult to...

It is surely a grim commentary on the state of speculative markets that so excellent a report as that of John I. Thorny- croft, the shipbuilders, marine engineers and commercial...

If our thesis is correct that interest rates are likely to remain low and internal trade is not likely to suffer any really severe recession, it follows that industrial...

that the search will be intensified for good stocks in the fixed interest group which offer ample cover, but something more generous in the way of income yield than the meagre 3...

FuLt marks for the gilt-edged market, but Gamma minus for commodities and most of the speculative groups of equity shares. It is good to see the Cheap Money flag flying so...

THE RALLY IN GILT-EDGED SECURITIES THE slump in Atherican securities and in commodities and, indeed, the general depression in the City during the last few weeks, have been...

LONDON MARITIME INVESTMENT SIR F. VERNON THOMSON ON THE SHIPPING POSITION THE Fortieth Annual Ordinary General Meeting of London Maritime Investnient Company, Limited, was...

The new capital is to consist of 2,000,000 LI 5 per cent. Redeemable Cumulative Preference shares, the issue being made to pay for very large extensions to buildings and plant...

To the many satisfactory industrial reports issued during the past week may be added the preliminary figures published by John I. Thomyca-oft and Co., the marine and motor...

The material rise in profits of Brown, Bayley's Steel Works, noticeable a year ago, has made further progress and enables the company, after a lapse of something like sixteen...

HAWKER SIDDELEY PROGRESS. JUDGING from the latest report of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Company, I should say that the new capital for which the company is shortly seeking powers...

It is indicative of the keen demand for high-class investment securities that although the issue recently announced of £2,000,000 in 31 per cent. Debenture stock at 96 per cent....

At the recent annual general meeting of the London Maritime Investment Co., Ltd., Mr. Percy Cross, in the absence through indisposition of the Chairman, Sir F. Vernon Thomson,...

IGI BI I IL MAI L T/T1 El Till 131 NI I' HI AI Eat! R NI AI T LILTI XI 14 71 1 1 . ..S. SRI I I N DI El P R E LI AINI CI AI SI TI - R AhiTh A A NI CI I EI E NI , S 1"CII...

Br ZENo to . prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solu tionof this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be...