HILE the discussion of the Persian question at the United Nations Security Council waits on Dr. Moussadek's health, new light on the ineptitude of the handling of the whole...

It seems probable that the Korean mice talks may shortly be resumed, though contacts between the liaison officers of the opposing armies at Panmunjom have not yet gone beyond...

The fever which is said to attack the British public at election times is mounting surprisingly slowly. Indeed the effect of Mr. Churchill's broadcast and of his subsequent...

Herr Grotewohl, the East German Premier, in his eagerly awaited speech on Wednesday, found himself unable to come straight to the point of all-German elections, add spent much...

The three important statements made in the past week on the subject of atomic weapons look exactly like three major contributions to a war of nerves. They are_ the White House...

It was apparently more by accident than design that Sir Henry Gurney was murdered ; but it is some measure of the uncertainty which still overhangs Malaya that its High...

N OTHING could be - more indefensible, legally. and morally, than the arbitrary and unilateral denuncia- tion of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 by Nahas Pasha. His speech was...

weeks ago, is a real loss to the religious life of the country. Founded a hundred and five years ago to strengthen the Catholic party in the Chufch of England at a time when...

Larter, whom I mentioned recently as collecting money for an anonymous school moving from somewhere un- specified to somewhere unidentified, proclaimed himself...

brokers embodied, as an election appendix, an excursion into the higher mathematics (higher, that is, than my mathematics). It appears that the probable relation of seats in the...

of the collective Allied forces." This seems to me very well put.*

K NOWING no language in which to characterise fitly the following extract, I leave it uncharacterised. ‘ " One afternoon I was sitting in my room at Buckingham Palace. - There...

known to all his friends, sent me a noticq,of the exhibition of his pictures now showing at the Colnaghi galleries. A few days later his son (with whom readers of the Spectator...

the Corfu Channel the Tories cried for stronger measures, but we took the case to the United Nations and we got a judgement in our favour."—Mr. 'Attlee at Witham, October 8th....

up," " Thumbs down," controversy, let me invoke authority in favour of accuracy. The term comes, of course, from the. Roman arena. " Thumbs down," I have always understood,...

General de Lame de Tassigny during his short visit to London last week had an exhilarating experience. Contact with his vital personality made it easy to understand the effect...

By J. R. ANDERSON N N army commander can plan a battle, but he depends on • his divisional commanders to win it for him. And in the struggle against our besetting industrial...

By WILSON HARRIS T HIS heading is not exactly my own. I should probably, in the ordinary way, have written " Mr. Eden." It is adapted from one of the brilliant mots of -that...

By D. W. BROGAN I T is always mildly amusing to examine the Daily Herald the days after some domestic row has made the private life of the Labour Party news. The news won't be...

By EDWARD HODGKIN I N days to come, when candidates for the diplomatic service are lectured on the Ang,lo-Persian oil dispute as a classic example of how not to conduct...

By J. D. U. WARD ICH autumn's golden quittance "; Robert Bridges' figure of speech was apt to the occasion, for this is a time of quitting, and the revelation of golds and reds...

Going to the Dogs By HUGH THOMAS (Queens' College, Cambridge) E lay back in Alex's car. Alex was taking us to the dogs. Alex drove hell-for-leather down the Bayswater road. He...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I HAVE been given a book called Ripley's New Believe It or Not. It is fully illustrated and published by Messrs. Stanley Paul for the sum of nine shillings...

" Rommel—Desert Fox." (Odeon.)—" Appointment with Venus." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.)—" The Lady Pays Off." (Odeon, Marble Arch.) ROMMEL is such a legendary figure, a...

Kenneth Home's new comedy an old lady acquires the power of divorcing her spirit from her body almost at will, and uses it to solve her children's problems. Since the gauze-clad...

THEATRE 1 " Amphitryon " and Les Fourberics de Scapin." (St. James's Theatre.) FOR most people the evening was a tribute to Christian Berard, who designed costumes and settings...

BIRMINGHAM, offering Britain its Festival celebration somewhat belatedly, had the excellent idea of a week entirely of British music ; twelve programmes in all, with works by...

" Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas." (Cambridge Theatre.) THE Marquis de Cuevas' Ballet is making a welcome return to London at the Cambridge Theatre. During the three weeks of...

Love, when your Love, your Lord, puts out the light, Turn in your bed and sleep. Take as your'children in assuaging arms The anguish and the harms He gave into your keep For...

Set by Derek Hudson The following poem on the role of the harpist in an orchestra has been attributed to Laurence McKinney : " She is the largest tuner-upper and has to have an...

dialogue from a `modern Baedeker's Manual of Conversation, dealing with a travelling contretemps. I had in mind no more than a motor-coach crossing the Alps ; but the...

on the subject of " disappearing clergy " have made interesting reading. Your corre- spondent, Mr. K. C. Stuart, in your issue of September 14th, says some very true things...

SIR,—It must be a disquieting experience to any but the most self-assured playgoer to find his impressions of a performance diametrically the opposite of those of an eminent...

sut.—if Mr. Southwold is correct about the mentality of "ordinary people", as he probably is, then this shows just what has been achieved by modern education, and, in...

SIR,—I should like to take exception to Mr. Bruce Belfrage'a article in the Spectator of October 5th. I feel that economic considerations , should not be paramount in assessing...

as his letter clearly implies, that the clergy are not to be paid at all ? And should " take no thought for the morrow "—even of their children ? Are they, then, to join the...

Is Winston an Asset? Sts.,—In regard to Mr. Wilson Harris's article under the above title, I can only say that like many thousands of others I should not vote at the coming...

SIR,—As an amateur philatelist, may I reply to the points raised by Mr. Arnold Palmer in his letter ? The Universal Postal Union ordained that certain colours be used for the...

The doors are finally shut upon the crowds, still eagerly desiring to gain admittance [to the Great Industrial Exhibition]. The success of this bold experiment has indeed...

SuL—The final paragraph of Miss Macaulay's review of John Gerard: The Autobiography of an Elizabethan seems to suggest that your reviewer does not know of the persecution of the...

SI X —As a trained social-worker and mother of children I read with -great interest the article, The Defence of the Child, by Dame Myra Curtis. It is true that children are...

SIR,—I do not understand, why Janus considers that the fact of a teacher of dancing possessing four - degrees in her profession is worthy of com- ment. The lady he mentions will...

The too Irish gardens and allotments with their formula of cabbages-cum-potatoes reveal how beneficial has been the influx of English foreigners with freer ideas. One of these...

in the pre-eminence of this church's natural setting. Backed by substantial farm-buildings of grey granite, it looks down an arc of the riverine sand-flats decorated with the...

The major Cornish contrast, of course, is the dourness, nakedness and dullness of its uplandish granite backbone and the vegetative lushness and sappiness of its pockets,...

I WONDER of how many churches in Britain it can be said that from their interiors is to be heard the wild liquid jubilation of the curlew. St. Winnow's on the estuary of the...

or shoots up straw of a length to startle English fields, the harvest has been even later than at home. In that country of smallish fields with their close-fitting dry-walled...

Post) Id.

A Defence of Roosevelt Seven Major Decisions. By Sumner Welles. (Hamish Hamilton. i is.) MR. SUMNER WELLES'S latest book is intended as a defence of Presi- dent Roosevelt...

C.H., LL.D. (Oxford University Press. 2 r s.) ON his title page Dr. Thomas Jones, with his usual wit and discern- ment, prints the text from the Book of Job which Lloyd George...

My Picture Gallery. By Lady Milner. (Murray. 2os.) THESE memoirs end with the death of Queen Victoria and the words " I had had my fun." No .reader will believe that Lady Milner...

The Shetland Bus. By David Howarth. (Nelson. 125. 6d.) • THERE is much to be said for the contention that sailors are the only true cosmopolitans. They contemplate impartially,...

Overture and Beginners. By Eugene Goossens. (Methuen. t8s.) THIS is the first volume of an autobiography, and carries the story of the Goossens musical dynasty from its...

Lost Illusions. By Honore de Balzac in a new translation by Kathleen Raine. (John Lehmann. 2 Es.) THE hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Balzac's birth and the centenary of his...

The Wanton Nymph : A Study of Pride. By Robert Payne. (Heine- mann. 2 I S.) ACCORDING to Mr. Robert Payne's introduction, the idea of the present work originated in some quite...

Occupation t Writer. By Robert Graves. (Cassell. r is. 6d.) MR. GRAVES is 'a secret man, as full of surprises as a comfortable room with secret panels, an artificial buttonhole...

jean Stewart and Robin Chancellor. (Lehmann. 'is.) COULD anything be done to promote fewer and better novels ? Consumer research, I don't doubt, works wonders, and it occurs to...

who talk to people in English villages know that there comes al moment when they say, " But then we are different from all other villages." Until this is recognised as a truth...

Fletcher. (Cassell. 635.) • ONE had feared that in these straitened limes no one could any longer be found to produce what the Germans call a Tisch- Buch, a " table-book," a...

Man or Matter. By Ernst Leli , (Faber. 3os.) GOETHE as a scientist has always been over- shadowed by Goethe the poet, and his pic- ture of Nature, a very bold and comprehen-...

(Architectural Press. 12S. 6d.) Ttus little museum of genuine = VictOrian horrors, very charmingly presented, will de- light and astonish a multitude of perusers, and...

.IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, October 23rd, addressed Crossword, 99 Gower Street,...

The winner of Crossword No. 645 is J. W. Norcurr, Esq., 36 Clarendon Road, London, W.11. 6:1116111 n OCI e 611nI n in EIL111210 120111no fl nneann Da 0 RIM BIM a Et 0 III o El...

By CUSTOS As the election approaches markets register the continuing confidence of investors in a Conservative victory. Although the mood of exuberance- is over, it has been...