T HE survey of the situation given to the House of Commons by the Prime Minister on Wednesday leaves one predominant impression behind. We are doing in the first fortnight of...

T HE announcement, issued significantly enough not "by the German High Command" but "from the Fi1hrer's headquarters," that the German forces intend hence- forward to bombard...

Russia, a little time ago in the centre of the European picture, has fallen into the background in recent news, but it is a significant if shadowy background which we cannot...

After a strong lead by the Cabinet the Canadian House of Commons decided on September loth withou" a division to participate in the War, and a formal declarati , -1 has been...

On the face of it Lord Halifax's notification to the League e! Nations of the aggression of Germany against Poland, anc the consequent entry into effect of the Anglo-Polish...

Germany's assault upon Poland and challenge to Great Britain has automatically solved, or at least shelved, some of our problems in Asia. Iraq came to a quick decision to sever...

The evolution of the policy of the United States in regard to the European War could be predicted with more assur- ance if any certain answer could be given to the question...

Agriculture must now rank with munition-making as a war-time industry, and skilled men employed on the land are doing essential war work. The Minister of Agriculture demands...

The difficulties which some consumers have had in buying certain kinds of food are not due to any scarcity of stocks, but to the dislocation caused by movements of population...

It is all to the good that an Entertainments National Service Association has been set up for the benefit of the forces, with Sir Seymour Hicks as controller and Mr. Basil Dean...

It is a regrettable fact that some glaring examples of profiteering should have occurred at the very opening of the war, and that the public with reason has been expressing its...

tude in apologising unreservedly to Belgium for the error committed by two or three British aeroplanes in flying over Belgian territory when returning at night from a pamphlet-...

the present emergency is called to the notice on page 383 of this issue, regarding arrangements by which "The Spectator" may be posted to them direct from the publishing-office...

Cabinet's announcement of the decision to prepare for a three-years war was a deliberate or a fortuitous response to the speech delivered by Field Marshal Goering in a Berlin...

rip HE task of the Ministry of Information is a difficult one, calling for reticence and frankness, for quick- ness of judgement and courage in taking decisions. The Prime...

restrictions has fortunately borne fruit. No one will revolt against any regulation that makes for public safety o r the efficient prosecution of the War, but the black-out...

this week comes as something of a godsend to harassed hosts with children billeted on them. Not that the children are displaying any special iniquity, but removed as they arz...

towns, there has all this week been a general and soul-searching review of tasks to be done and people to be seen "before the petrol goes." Friends who will soon be out of reach...

some sign a few days ago that an effort was being made in each news bulletin to put the fresh items first, so as to spare hearers the necessity of listening to the bitter end in...

talk given by the Polish Ambassador, Count Ftacynski, last Saturday. It was one of those things which are far easier to do badly than to do well. The Ambassador might have...

W AR is generally supposed to be good for the daily papers, particularly the evening papers, and this war may so far be running true to form. But unless conditions change...

By STRATEGICUS IELD MARSHAL GOERING on Saturday stated that r "with its three great armies Poland is overpowered and hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers are throwing away...

A MERICAN wartime policy, so far as it has emerged, may be summarised as follows : (I) President Roosevelt has pledged, and the nation has overwhelmingly demanded, every effort...

the German Reich, despite its show of military strength, heading for internal revolution at an early date? That was the question with which almost all the Berlin corre-...

By EDWYN BEVAN A WAR between nations armed with modem scientific instruments of destruction would in any case entail a great mass of horror and suffering. The peculiar sadness...

By GEOFFREY FABER FF EW of those who carried on as publishers during the last war are still alive and publishing ; and it is strange how little they have to tell their...

By SIR EVELYN WRENCH T HREE of Moscow's greatest problems are space, shopping and transport. The population since the Revolution has nearly quadrupled, and the citizens of the...

By MARTIN CASTLETHORPE cc FFICERS will send their swords to be sharpened by the armourer-sergeant." This extract from battalion orders of August 5th, 1914, was pasted in the...

TOMORROW being the day on which petrol rationing comes into force, we are prompted to offer prizes of a Book Token for r is. and a Book Token for los. 6d. for the best letters...

The Hindu, Madras. Mr. Gandhi has expressed the mind of the nation with instinctive rightness when he says, " I am net thinking just now of India's deliverance. It will come,...

telephoned to another German friend of mine, a man of older years, who has lived for long in London. I told him the story and said that I would send the student round to see...

many Germans for many years, and have found them kind, courageous and true. Yet I admit that the German character is contradictory and uncertain, and that it contains a greater...

living for many years in Berlin and had been asked, when war was imminent, to befriend some stranded English undergraduate, would I also have refused? I do not think so. When I...

a shower of correspondence. The majority of the letters which I have received are on the whole favourable to my point of view. There were a few listeners, however, who wrote to...

By HAROLD NICOLSON S PEAKING on the wireless the other night, I ventured the remark that we were fighting to defend certain human values against a system the avowed aim of...

instance of the average German's lack of moral courage and loyalty. A German student, whom I had met casually when lecturing at a northern University, found himself stranded in...

other." I admit that I have frequently been struck by the lack of generosity shown by one German towards another. We must remember that there is no word in the English language...

The Petrol Ration AN allowance of about zoo miles in every month for private cars is very short commons—so short, in fact, that I imagine the ration to which we are from now on...

News Bulletins IN the first days of the war the radio bulletins became a focal point in millions of homes. The essential difference between the function of the radio and the...

Autumn Glory September brought, as often, the loveliest weather of tce year. All the proper symptoms of the date are at the highest power. Growth is of almost fantastic speed...

We are all urged to grow more vegetables, and this may be done in many places without destroying flower gardens or bringing much new land into cultivation. It has been recently...

Those who have returned from Scotland, leaving the bulk of the grouse to rest in peace, have had some unusual experi- ences. The birds themselves were incredibly numerous on...

At nine o'clock, after the sun had set and before a very red moon had risen, the farmer was still driving his tractor round the great square of his clover field. It was too dark...

There is much in these second crops of clover to interest the naturalist as well as the farmer. They are often grown for the purpose of the seed, and the amount of seed may...

The next field but one to this clover field, whose , rostrate crop already looks brown under the sun, is a picture f war-time farming. It was grass, and is now filth; but it ,...

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must...

SIR, —It is refreshing to find Mr. Rene Elvin standing up so stoutly for the "War Guilt" clause in the Versailles Treaty. If there is one fact in history which is proved up to...

C. K. Ensor's truths on the evacuation outrage. Yours is the only paper, to date, which has broken the careful conspiracy of lies, organised on the Nazi model, to blanket the...

SIR, —It is an ironical reflection upon the validity of Nazi excuses for their aggressive policy towards all their weaker neighbours that not only the doctrine most insisted on,...

SIR,—For some time now the words "Enemy Alien" printed on the Registration Certificate of Refugees from Germany have stigmatised them. As one of these, I am compelled to utter...

Sut,—The problem of employing the leisure of the evacuated children and parents is one which must, at present, be a source of worry to those responsible. The National Book...

Sm,—May I be permitted to answer a few points raised by Sir Evelyn Wrench in his article on Moscow? Having spent three weeks of August in Moscow and other Soviet cities, I may...

Sm.—Although A.R.P., black-outs and gas-masks have accus- tomed people to accept the deliberate bombing of civilians as inevitable, there is still hope that efforts to prevent...

WAL fER BAGEHOT, Christopher Hobhouse 381 MEN AND THE FIELDS, Honor Croome 382 SULNCE MARCHES ON, F. Sherwood Taylor 382 Clitt.DREN IN THE CINEMA, Philip Toynbee 384 A...

THE author promises too much. The Origin Progress and Significance of Scientific Knowledge is a sub - tide fitted for the magnum opus of a great archaeologist, scholar and...

The English Countryside. By nine contributors. With an Life. los. 6d.) THE English countryside is still beautiful, still a breeding- ground of strong and cunning-handed...

Each to the Other. By Christopher La Farge. (Jonathan Cape. 8s. 6d.) THIS is the year's second poetic curiosity, and one even more eloquent of ambition and pertinacity on the...

Children in the Cinema. By Richard Ford. (Allen and Unwin. 7s. 6d.) THE chief merit of this book lies in the importance of its subject. Over four million children go to cinemas...

By KATE O'BRIEN SOME weeks ago the whole British public was counselled emphatically over the air to read a forthcoming American novel called The Grapes of Wrath. The gently...

THESE are shadow markets in the City, but who can fail to be impressed by the smoothness of the transition to condi- tions of war? Every market is working under some form of...

In face of these uncertainties the market has begun to formulate some kind of estimate of investment possibilities, and its first thoughts already find expression in the move-...

If any shareholders of Richard Thomas and Co. WC 7 - hoping that Sir William Firth's speech would give them a definite hint of the early resumption of preference di' dends, they...

I am not surprised at the official decision to concentrate the nation's gold reserves, however revolutionary this step may seem to the orthodox banker. Virtually the whole of...

ALLIED INDUSTRIAL SERVICES INCREASED PROFITS THE fifth annual meeting of Allied Industrial Services, Limited, was held on 6th instant in Bradford. Mr. W. H. Rhodes, who...

RICHARD THOMAS AND COMPANY PAST YEAR'S OPERATIONS THE 9oth ordinary general meeting of Richard Thomas and Co., Limited, was held on September 8th in London. Sir William Firth...

Allied Industrial Services, whose business is to supply overalls and working garments to factories and workshops, has enjoyed another excellent year. At the meeting last week...

[A prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the >rder of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle be opened. Envelopes should be marked "Crossword...

The winner of Crossword No. 27 is Miss Harris, 45 Fair- field Lane, Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire.