j " APAN is at the cross-roads. She must either rise or fall," Japan, moreover, if she chooses war must choose it quickly, for economically she is growing daily less capable of...

Just as Germany is compelled to re-shape her military plans of campaign owing to her failure to overcome Russian resistance, so, too, she is compelled to modify her diplomatic...

There is no great group of workers in this country who were so seriously underpaid before the war as those engaged in agri- culture, and the country's urgent need of them has...

The peace-plan outlined by Dr. Benes in his speech at Edin- burgh on Monday deserves fuller consideration than it can be given here, and we shall hope to recur to it. Its main...

The most significant passage in the Prime Minister's speech at the opening of Parliament, on Wednesday, dealt with the course of the war at sea. It cannot be a war of naval...

There is scarcely a man or woman in the country who cannot do something in response to the campaign for the salvage of waste paper. How important it is to the main war effort...

The Prime Minister's replies to Members who questioned him on Tuesday regarding an emendation of the Emergency Powers Act Regulation -r8a, - in the light of the recent ruling of...

Mr. Churchill gave the cheering news in his Mansion House speech that the Royal Air Force is now " at least equal " in size and numbers to the German air power. In quality,...

bending itself to the task of calling up its last reserves of industrial labour, and has reached the stage when its appeal is most urgently addressed to women. " Give me six...

competence on the Bench to affluence at the Bar. His elevation is deserved and will be generally popular, for unlike some great advocates he possesses an essentially judicial...

work at Calvary Church at its best will continue to be the basis." The Rev. Samuel Shoemaker, quoted by the Daily Telegraph. Not the first time a. place of worship has been...

Peace (Rout- ledge, 2s. 6d.), which he would have been glad to think of as his testament. In the last letter I had from him, towards the end of last month, he said, " I hope you...

Consti- tution of 1936 the other day, I came on an article which surprised, and still surprises, me. Article XII states, among other things, that in Russia is now realised the...

farewell must be said to two such men as Henry Nevinson and Frank Pick. It is hard to start a paragraph about Nevinson and not end by writing a page, but tribute is being paid...

his frank admission to the Council of State at Delhi that he made a miscalculation about the possibilities of an enemy attack in Libya last March, and everyone will welcome...

intolerance creeping into the leader-columns of the Sunday Times. Last Sunday that admirable and influential journal called on the Government to silence out of hand any German...

on Lord Halifax's staff at Washington is among the startlingly unexpected happenings that this war is bringing about, for if there is any place on earth where Prof. Tawney would...

IMPENDING EVENTS By STRATEGICUS G REAT developments are now impending. Apart from their general bearing upon British and Imperial interests, theSe must concern us more...

By F. R. POSKITT (Headmaster of Bolton School) I N recent years the main criticisms of secondary education have been based on its stereotyped and academic character, and its...

By M. VAN BLANKENSTEIN T HE latest news from the Netherlands mentions the great unrest in the land. The people are in a ferment. The execution of the hostages in France has...

By H. SINSHEIMER p RUSSIA is Germany's chief problem, just as Germany is Europe's. It follows that in any consideration of Europe's future Prussia must be given a place. A...

By R. A. SCOTT-JAMES ENRY NEVINSON was Literary Editor of the Daily Chronicle when I first met him, and it happened that he gave me my first commission in daily journalism....

our generals and our armies, we comforted ourselves by asserting that everything which was not quite perfect was the fault of the War Office. I am prepared to believe that our...

in war-time is that these tangents along which the civilian mind seeks to escape from central anxiety are demonstrably different in successive wars. A . distinct type, or rather...

By HAROLD NICOLSON A LL wars, in that they are by their nature nonsensical, are a strain upon the common sense of the ordinary civilian. The events themselves (the occupation,...

country had endured since the American War of Inde- pendence. A. few brave men, such as David Lloyd George, faced the central problem and denounced the war openly as something...

the last war was neither sentimentality, jingoism, hero-worship nor unreasonable abuse of the War Office. It was a particularly unpleasant brand of suspicion which took the form...

AL FAR% Wezen, Hamal, Nath, Guide me on my aery path ; Denebola, Procyon, Bless the wings that I fly on ; Acrux, Altair, I?eneb, Shaula, Bring me brightness in my dolour ;...

Director of Kew Gardens, will cause the widest regrets, not least in South Africa. He had many rare gifts of character and intelligence. - Perhaps I may give one small example...

as a dead time in the garden, is one of the busy months among French gardeners or maraichers, and indeed Dutch gardeners. The very early vegetables or primeurs with which they...

How peculiarly blessed are some gardeners. There is one with a large garden in South England who had not seen a single slug or snail since the three-quarter acre plot came into...

Whether we shall be allowed to buy Christmas cards or whether we ought to buy them, I do not but it may not be unpatriotic to confess to a certain gladess that the Norfolk...

" Ships With Wings," March of Time. At the Gaumont.— " Special Dispatch." Generally released. THERE was a devil-may-care young naval officer whose motto was " Love 'em and...

• MoOn and Muck • A land-girl's letter, after giving some account of the long and laborious hours spent in saving the harvest, records that the harvesters came in at night on...

seem to be, raised but •not examined in your able article " Detention Without Trial." You rightly draw a distinction between " what the law in fact is, and what anyone may think...

HELPING RUSSIA Sut,—Mr. E. Strauss is almost certainly right when, in connexion with my _review of his Soviet Russia, he suggests that the Nazi attack on Russia was caused by...

Sta,---May I thank you for your fine leading article on this subject, which is in the great libertarian tradition of The Spectator? There is, however, one small point which...

Sta,—The arguments put forward in my letter of October 24th were, I hoped, obviously intended, not as a sweeping generalisation applying to all estates developed on the...

housing needs is of any help in corroborating the findings of surveys I can give a few facts. I. The first demand of an applicant is to be near the man's work, near enough, if...

sin,—rt would be instructive to learn the process of reasoning by which your contributor, Mr. Wilson Harris, in writing•" . . . it was left to his son George V to be the first...

Sit, Why has not every ship that has been loaded for jou in Canada and the U.S.A. during the past year contained a sizeable quantity of evaporated, condensed and powdered milk?...

Snt,—I always read "A Spectator's Notebook'' with great interest. A month back the writer ventured to state that next to the Bible the most widely read book was Euclid. Are you...

the question is very aptly asked—" Could not Greek, like Latin, have its own defined place in school courses in the interests of a wider and more liberal education? " It prompts...

Sut,—There is still time to stop the growing use of " canned," which I see, alas, used under the heading " Rationing .Innovation " in your issue of November 7th. For the last...

SIR, —It has seemed to me for some time that the force of appeal for women's labour in the services and factories tends to rouse a certain amount of opposition. Most definitely...

Sm,—In your issue of November 7th, 1941, under the title of " A Spectator's Notebook," " Janus " writes as follows: " It is fantastic that at a time when every Government...

Six,—Planning is, no doubt, a matter for experts. But one does. not need to be an expert to know when a pleasant district in a town or a beauty spot in the countryside is likely...

MRS. CRAN has the gift of the green finger. What she plants, thrives—whether it is a seedling dibbled in in her garden or an idea that she sets on paper. The idea of her new...

The Last Peace—and the Next The Lost Peace. By Harold Butler. (Faber. los. 6d.) THE Warden of Nuffield has written as good a book as he might have been expected to write on...

Thoughts on Pakistan does not, as its title suggests, attempt to pronounce a decision or even express a view. It is, in fact, a report made by a remarkable man to a small...

The Higher Civil Service of Great Britain. By H. E. Dale, C.B. (Oxford University Press. los.) MR. DALE has not produced the perfect, dispassionate, bureau- cratic study of a...

The Empty Room is only .a hundred and sixty pages long, -but it is not really a short novel so much as one conceived elaborately and afterwards lopped about, redesigned and...

There are no South Africans. By.G. H. •Calpin. (Nelson. cos.) IT is unhappily only too well known that the two main races of which the white population of the Union of South...

ACROSS 1. The best address in. America (3 words) (3, 5, 5)- io. Little devils on the stage (7). 11. Township (7). 12. "Pkesumptuous - ! with looks. intent Again• she...

The winner of Crossword No. 138 is Miss Seth-Smith, Four- acres, Lindfield, Sussex.

Lofoten Letter. By Evan John. (Heinemann. 3s. 6d.) THERE is often a great deal of sense in a little book and this is an example of how much of wisdom and humour can be put into...

and Edward L. McAdam. (Oxford University Press. 25s.) THIS superb volume in which for the first time Johnson's poems appear in a complete, scholarly edition, as projected but...

By CUSTOS MARKETS are not merely demonstrating their now familiar powers of resistance ; they are displaying a capacity for counter-attack. Indeed, every setback seems to...