No country has better reason than Israel for believing that possession - is at least nine points of international law, and its Government's resolve to move bodily to Jerusalem...

Anyone who views with misgiving and concern the native policy of Dr. Malan's Government in South Africa—and there are few persons in this country who do not—will welcome...

to be the cause of the present strike of manual workers at London power stations was concluded on May 31st, 1949. Its effect was to give an increase of If d. an hour to certain...

Nothing could be less surprising than the outbreak of rioting in Eritrea. Whatever merit may be claimed for the General Assembly's proposals for disposing of the other...

Mr. Harold Wilson's announcement on the British film industry in the Commons on Wednesday was not so much an anticlimax as the climax of a period of procrastination. It must now...

• If the Minister of Food has made his sudden visit to the ground- nut area of Tanganyika out of a consciousness of the grave disquiet and unrest prevailing among the servants...

In putting the main emphasis on the need to provide more houses for policemen, the second part of 'the Oaksey Report on Police Conditions of Service, published on Monday,...

In Monday's debate in the House of Commons on the ill-treat- ment of children outside the aegis of the Curtis Committee not one speaker was opposed to an enquiry, though there...

T HIS Parliament has been certified as dead so often in the Press that this week's activities must have been due to the nervous energy which remains in a decapitated body. Both...

There is not a great deal of solid encouragement for any party in the result of the South Bradford by-election, though Labour may be satisfied to have held the seat by such a...

The miscellaneous mass of curious arrangements for the issue of Government stock to the former owners of nationalised industries is a standing witness that, whatever governs...

New Zealand verdict. While many causes contributed to the result in either case, in both one main cause operated, a reaction against Socialism and all its consequences in the...

E NTERTAINMENT duty is in the public eye for more reasons than one. There is first of all the question of the exemption of a number of plays, The Lady's Not for Burning and...

a number of people seem to be under the impression that the advent of 1950 means the beginning of the second half of the century. A daily paper, for example, announces the early...

House last week gives a kind of oblique appropriateness to the following, which I have lately filched. In Edinburgh, where booksellers' assistants are said to be as erudite as...

demise of the Strand Magazine that I can add little new comment of my own. The event shakes belief in the stability of any human institution, even though the great days of the...

refer- ence last week, leaves me more confounded than ever. I pointed out that, in alleging that in the 30-month period January, 1947, to July, 1949, British payments out under...

By CYRIL RAY I T takes an aeroplane, a jeep and a mule to get you from Athens to Ammouda, where a Greek Army outpost looks across the frontier at the Albanian villages folded...

By LESLIE SMITH Hongkong, December 5th T HE possibility of Communist domination of South-East Asia from China to Indonesia is the uncomfortable thought that is worrying...

Ir is not snow under which the downs are sleeping Or a frost that has touched the valley So that the fields are like ghosts In their deep rest, And their girdles loose and...

By C. M. WOODHOUSE A casual glance through the cinema trade papers for the last year or two suggests nothing but one continual crisis. Studios closing, dismissals for...

By G. H. CALPIN Durban T HE year 1949 will surely go down in South African history as the Afrikaners' year, a sort of annus mirabilis in retro- spect. It has proved notable for...

Why not a SUBSCRIPTION to '11W SPECTATOR ? 32 weeks 26 weeks SUBSCRIPTION RATES ORDINARY EDITION L s. d. L a. ti. by post to any part of the World ... 110 0 0 15 0...

By M. H. MMULLTON Cc AINTING," wrote a Frenchman, " is nothing but an image of disembodied values, for it represents only the arrange- ments. proportions and forms of things,...

Atomic Sleight-of-Hand By JAMES FORRESTER (University of Edinburgh) I N a secluded Edinburgh lecture-hall a world-famous physicist, lecturing to an academic audience,...

By HAROLD sICOLSON T HERE is a story which I have often heard and never been able to verify of the Parisian who, when asked in 1875 to name the greatest living French poet,...

THEATRE Bonaventure." Ry Charlotte Ilastings. (Vaudeville.) " VERY flat, Norfolk," observed a charataer in one of Mr. Coward's plays ; and it is this peculiarity of the county...

HONEGGER'S Joan of Arc at the Stake was given at the Albert Hall on December 7th, and proved once again, in spite of a per- formance in many ways admirable, that it is not a...

"Thc Reckless Moment." (Odeon.)—" The Rocking Horse Winner." (Odeon, Marble Arch, Thursday next.)—" Look for the Silver Linin g ." (Warner.) M. Max OPULS has directed The...

THIS week, with the opening of the Sutton Coldfield transmitting station, television reaches a stage in its life rather like a twenty- first birthday ; it now has the key of the...

never oust radio) is one of our own great achievements of this century. When you have a champion, and expect him to fight, you don't starve him. In fact, you pamper him ; for...

There is much argument about whether television should be divorced from the control of Broadcasting House. Into this argu- ment, which is concerned with policies of the purse...

I call this, if we permit it to happen, inattentive on our part. If television is to cover the country (and you would have to be as misguided as Canute's advisers to try to stop...

Scotland's Claims SIR,—May I point out, in reply to Mr. Logan's letter in the Spectator of December 9th, that even if the present Cabinet only includes one Scotsman, the...

Sta.—1 suggest that a great deal too much attention has been paid to Mr. Herbert Morrison's political bluff. It is sheer nonsense to suggcs( that the expenses of a firm or...

Sik—As you rightly stated in the Spectator of November 18th, " the supreme achievement of the Education Act of 1944 was the agreed settlement of the religious question." For...

I am astonished at the tone of your editorial paragraph, Scotland's Claims, in the Spectator of December 2nd. First of all, you state that "250,000 persons out of an adult...

Sta.—As a Scot I have been greatly moved by Professor John Baillie's tribute to the metrical psalms in his review of Dr. Millar Patrick's book on that subject. It is. as he...

SIR.—It is depressing for the wife of a young schoolmaster to learn (tern your correspondent "U.H." that Mr. Lewis" reflects faithfully the require - ments and attitude of the...

SIR,-1 was very glad to see Mr. Armstrong's letter on the subject of the clergy. It is a fact that in most cases teachers arc considerably better paid than the clergy,...

SIR,-1 have read with very great interest the letter from Mr. C. S. Chapman, published in the Spectator of December 2nd. As a hill-farmer, I ,consider the points made by Mr....

schools, and should like to add one or two points. I take your editorial note to Mr. Engert's letter in the Spectator. December 2nd, to mean that the Ministry of Education did...

able view I should, in effect, be charged with " special pleading " and of writing the book either " from good nature or the desire for novelty." I take this ai a reflection on...

Thursday sennight, Patrick M'Cafferay was charged with being found secreted on board an emigrant- ship, under suspicious circumstances. Mr. George Bennett, a gentleman employed...

WHEN we see accounts of shiploads of mistletoe coming over to this country we may well wonder why this strange plant is common, say common, in France and, in general, rare in...

'districts miss the brown squirrels that once were plentiful, to know that they still abound here and there. One favourite ground appears to be Sheffield ! Here is the pretty...

trees by the side of roads is urged with force by a notable owner of trees in the county magazine for Hertfordshire. This idea and the more general subject of tree-planting in...

SIR.—You applied the epithet " brutish " to the mind of the Russian sentry who recently shot an American sergeant in Berlin (Spectator of December 2nd, page 762t Is this quite...

In his standard, but occasillnally pugnacious, book on gardens, William Robinson seldom lost an opportunity of urging horticulturists to grow their trees and bushes from seed....

Schacht and Hitler Account Settled. II) Dr. Hjalmar sk hada. 1 ranslated by Edward Fitz- gerald. (George Weidetileld and Nitokon. t Ss.) Tins book provides a translation of an...

On the Making of Gardens. By Sir George Sitwell, with a Preface I , Sir Osbert Sitwell. (Droprnore Press. les.) " To many excellent people who take a gloomy view of life,...

The Woman in Fashion. By Doris Langley Moore. (Batsford. 255.) THIS is a capital book. It supplies a genuine addition to our know- ledge and understanding of period costume. The...

The Diary of a Dean. By the Very Rev. W. R. Inge. (Hutchinson. 2 Is.) WHAT seems likely to be Dr. Inge's last book (" I am in my ninetieth year, and hope soon to be at rest ")...

John Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland. Edited by William Croft Dickinson. Two Volumes. (Nelson. .C.s. BY Scots John Knox is sometimes regarded as a Scottish...

Michael Ernest Sadler. A Memoir by his son Michael Sadleir. (Constable. 2os.) BIOGRAPHY, a delicate undertaking at best, presents almost super- human difficulties when the...

1,4 Book Token for one psinea will be awarded so the sender of the first coma uluuon of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, Eticniber 27th. Envelopes...

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With Strings Attached. By Joseph Szigeti. (Cassell. 1p.) 'MESE reminiscences and reflections of a world-famous Hungarian violinist were written for America, where they appeared...

Heavenly Mansions.. By John Summerson. (Cresset Press. a is.) IT is said to have been Mr. John Summerson himself who described architecture, in contemporary England, as an...

A Provincial Affair. By Francis Williams. (Heinemann. tos. 6a. Ceremony of Innocence. By Elizabeth Charlotte Webster. (( • ,r 93. 6d.) THAT nice people can or cannot be...

Peter Quennell. (John Murray. 2s. 6d.) THE disappearance of the London Mercury left a gap in the ranks of literary periodicals that has not yet been closed. This gap was...

By CUSTOS THE City, it seems, is not prepared at this stage to give man hostages to fortune. Any idea that the Labour defeat in Australia following so quickly on the heels of...