T HERE is no sense in pretending that the situation which is developing in Western Germany can be contained indefinitely within the present policies and administrative machinery...

The opportunity which M. Schuman's visit to London gives for a reassessment of relations between France and this country and, indeed, between France and the world in general, is...

Among the Chinese people the desire for peace at any price is now universally manifest, and Kuomintang leadership is giving way to the inevitable like a cumbrous and intricate...

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is not an unduly taciturn man. He does not retreat into silence when his duty impels him to proclaim the most unpleasant truths. On Sunday, when...

The steel industry has sometimes been criticised during the past few months for being insufficiently articulate in the defence of its own interests. Sir Andrew Duncan's...

The information which the Colonial Secretary gave last week regarding the progress of the new University of the West Indies serves to lay further stress on the policy which this...

I N some ways the most disturbing feature of the profoundly disturbing situation in Palestine is not what is happening in that ill-starred country itself, nor even the effect...

R EARRANGING some books a few days ago I came on a copy of Otto Strasser's L'Aigle Prussien sur L'Allemagne, bearing the inscription Hommage de Otto Strasser, and having inside...

evening paper, was at Land's End on Wednesday night. A turn of the knob and I was there with him. Fortunately it wasn't Land's End really, but Sennen Cove, where there are live...

is occasionally to rt encountered in the columns of the Daily Worker. He is also, appears, London Correspondent of the West African Pilot, an prgan of the well-known Zik...

calamity. frhe death of the Prime Minister would obviously be a far greater 'disaster than the death of Mr. Tommy Handley, but there are millions of people in this country who...

year. Everything reasonable is being done to induce them to come. But one good suggestion I have just heard is new to me. Probably four out of every five of the prospective...

By D. W. BROGAN - 11 - F only God were as great a man as George Marshall ! ": So JL the irreverent Washington wits of two years ago illustrated the attitude of the then...

By PETER TOWNSEND Shanghai. L IKE ribaldry to ease the tension of the audience at a tragedy came an Associated Press report from Peip'ing as the Nationalist forces withdrew...

By C. M. WOODHOUSE O NE of the confusing things about international politics today is that the world seems to be going in two opposite directions at once. One direction is...

By OWEN TWEEDY T HE Negeb has suddenly become a storm-centre. We read of it in every newspaper ; we hear of it in every news bulletin ; we are shown where it is on tactical...

As was stated here last week, The Spectator is, as from February nth, setting apart a page in every issue for contributions by undergraduates, men or women, of the universities,...

By EDWARD MONTGOMERY New York, January 7. 4011HE state of the Union," Mr. Truman announced to the new Congress last Wednesday in his flat, unemphatic Missouri voice, "is...

By R. H. CECIL W E all live in a mounting volume of din. It is measured in " phons " at the National Physical Laboratory, where the scientists decide how much of it we ought to...

The pain of nations uneases the brief sleep Of night and reaches into even The soft night-dreams • the nervous hand will sweep All ease away, reveal the face of Eden Savage,...

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged 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...

By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. E NGLISHMEN admire solid worth. They hang its picture in art galleries. They preach' about it from pulpits. They raise it to the peerage. But they...

By HAROLD NICOLSON F OREIGNERS, I have often observed, are not very quick at understanding the methods or purposes of our boarding-school system. A French or Italian mother...

THE THEATRE " Harvey." By Mary Chase. (Prince of Wales.) A MONDAY night in early January is almost the last occasion on which one expects a curtain-speech to a crowded house...

WITH, the Winter Proms filling the Albert Hall all the many problems connected with performance become once 'again urgent. The whole question of performance is, of course, a...

" The Paradine Case." (Leicester Square.)—" The Saxon Charm." (Astoria.)—" Third Time Lucky." (Odeon, Marble Arch.) ROBERT HICHENS' The Paradine Case has been turned into an...

Do you recall, 0 do you now recall The word I whispered first : Time is the frailest, fairest flower of all ;- Now that your flowers are dust ? (Thymocles: Palatine Anthology,...

ABOUT the Chantrey Collection little remains to be said. Committee after committee, report after report, has discussed ad nauseam the failure of the President and Council of the...

SPECTATOR SUBSCRIPTION RATE Ordinary edition to any address in the World. n weeks £1 103. Od. 26 weeks 15s. Air Mail to any Country in Europe 52 weeks £2 7s. 6d. 26 weeks 41...

THE EXAMINATION ARGUMENT SIR,—I find your editorial paragraph in the January 7th issue most sur- prising: You say: " The new examination—and this is the only thing to be said...

SIR,—Certain statements in the recent article by R. H. Cecil on the increase in crime among children call for some protest. Citizenship (based on the Christian ethic) is in Mr....

Sin,—Your editorial note in The Spectator of December 31st, on the claim of the workers employed by the London Passenger Transport Service for time-and-a-half payment for...

you are adopting over the new Secondary School Examination. Just as the scholastic profession and the universities know more about education than the officials of the Ministry,...

Sta,—Mr. Vulliamy's letter about war criminals is a very tactless one. Most people reading it will reflect that it is not necessary to go back to Napoleon to find embarrassing...

Sta,—You have in your columns so often exposed or derided the grosser forms of modern English usage that it is a matter for regret that your contributor Janus should have...

Sta,—As a footnote to the exposition of the evils of the Catering Wages Regulations by " A London Hotel Manager," it might perhaps be men- tioned that it is not the public only...

Sta,—The letter of Mr. C. A. Milward on the above subject in your issue of January 7th is another indication of the powerful underground forces of reaction working continuously...

sm,—May I—an Egyptian—add a word or two to your well-informed comment on "murder in Egypt " in your issue of December 31st? Had the Egyptian Government dealt promptly , and...

SIR,—I was much interested to learn, from Mr. Fleming's review of Mr. Edmund Wilson's book, Europe without Baedeker in your issue of December 3rd which reached me here today,...

SIR,—Mr. Dennis Outwits has seized upon two of the subsidiary points which I raised in justification of the Dutch_action, but he has not refuted what was in fact the main cause...

naturalists, has been oddly illustrated by some sportsmen's experiences. The French partridge which is a rarity in a good many districts has exhibited this year more remarkably...

The habit of trussing both hay and straw has much increased of late. Such trusses are easily procurable and have surprising uses. They make, for example, excellent walls. I have...

Srn,—In The Spectator of December 31st you reviewed a selection of Keats's poetry chosen by me and published by Messrs...Peter Nevin, Ltd. It might easily , be thought from the...

SIR, —In A Spectator's 'Notebook Janus asks what Mr. Churchill meant by " knowing English " when he wrote: " I would whip boys for not knowing English." He explains what he...

We all know that spraying produces many other effects than those directly intended. One spray may, for example, lull bees and another first damage and then benefit the orchard...

THE inmates bf a Gloucestershire farmhouse have been much interested in the daily observation of that seasonable appearance, a snowy robin. The colour is uniform, except for a...

Corresponding to the remarkable increase in• local and county literature —as recently in the shires of Bedford, Leicester, Rutland and Herts- is the formation of defence...

Sta,—There is a spot in Bristol known as Tankard's Close. The university has begun to put up buildings on it ; this has raised much feeling in the neighbourhood, but, as it...

Sut,—With due deference to Robert Kee as a reviewer (The Spectator, January 7th) he will find if he re-reads Some Trust in Chariots that - Rhys Tewdwr is the uncle of Harry...

Sm,—Mr. Alban J. L. Bacon overstates his taxation liability by approxi- mately £175 (assuming the allowances due to a married man with child receiving full-time education). But...

Sta,—In the answers to your Christmas CoMpetition questions you attribute " The atrocious crime of being a young man I shall attempt neither to palliate nor deny " to William...

Eugene Fromentin The Masters of Past Time. By Eugene Fromentin. Edited and intro- duced by H. Gerson. (Phaidon Press. 8s. 6d.) Dominique, By Eugene Fromentin. Translated by Sir...

A Short History of the Middle East. By George E. Kirk. (Methuen. 16s.) THE modern history of the Middle East is a terribly shapeless affair. Starting with Mohammed (it is...

Books on America and Russia THE French have been discovering America. There are many motifs ; but I will confine myself to the cultural relations which have existed for many...

Tit whole philosophy of clothes, even the clothes of one country, is a subject of enormous complication ; and I think it may be doubted whether any one country provides adequate...

Egypt from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest. A Study in the Diffusion and Decay of Hellenism. Being the Gregynog Lectures for 1946 by H. Idris Bell. (Oxford University...

SIR HUGH ALLEN, as Dr. Bailey remarks in his preface, was "a great man, who had a profound influence on his generation." Historians may still over-rate the importance of...

The Role of General Weygand. Conversations with His Son. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 12s. 6d.) THIS book consists almost entirely of General Weygand's replies to the questions of...

THE well-known warmth of American public opinion toward China, which always persists, even when faced with temporary bewilder- ment or disappointment, derives from many factors,...

10s. 6c1.)_ MR. LEWIS begins the second part of his book with this sentence : " Up to now my feet have been firmly planted in history." Alas ! Mr. Lewis is wrong. All the...

11 H El n ru li n t ri l Tti c '1 A rt s . El 4-4 7 la_CI 11 NAs T AL owLuiii., 0 MI C H 0 T A 1.11A / Re-} o.NIE( ..r E VIA I, EltiPle RIS IvEatALL E T A IA Plai 2 ncto g ....

[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, yanuary 25th....

THE brochure issued to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Phaidon Press records an educational achieve- ment without parallel in contemporary...

By CUSTOS IT is good to see industry presenting a reasoned case well in advance of the Budget in support of the tax changes appropriate to the problems confronting the great...

(Rockliff. 8s. 6d.) THis short study of the mystic of the early eighteenth century who had such an influence on the Wesley brothers is by a French student (whose English...