of Tobruk hangs fire a not unimportant and not wholly successful naval en- gagement in the Mediterranean is reported. In so far as the convoy which was being attacked got safe...

Admiral Sir Howard Kelly, General Sir James Marshall- Cornwall and Air Vice-Marshal Elmhirst were received last Tuesday by the Turkish Foreign Minister and the Chief of the...

Both in Germany and Russia the Soviet-German trade agreement signed in Berlin and Moscow at the week-end was acclaimed with enthusiasm, but none the less, while Germans appear...

Preparations for a new long-term training scheme to increase the number of pilots, navigators and technicians available for service with the R.A.F. were announced last week by...

The first results of the Ministry of Labour's inquiry into the cost of living in 1937-38 have new been published. They reveal the standard of living as expressed in the...

It is satisfactory to find a great employer like Sir Malcolm Stewart supporting wholeheartedly the proposals for wage- regulation put forward recently by Mr. Seebohm Rowntree in...

The contagion of war spreads, and the country of Thailand (formerly Siam) is now in open hostilities with French Indo- China, and her armies are invading the territory east of...

The Italians in Abyssinia have not yet felt the weight of a serious British attack such as that which has broken the Italian army in Libya, but their embarrassments are...

he hospital services of this country, already the subject of ous consideration and organisation before the war, have put to a severe test during this period when great calls...

The problem of billeting in the reception-areas has been with us since the beginning of the war, but it has become far more acute in recent months. A special correspondent of...

r. Greenwood's personal statements about the work of his mittee of Ministers who are to study post-war reconstruc- n show that the terms of reference are even wider than had n...

James Joyce, who died at Zurich last Monday in his fifty- ninth year, evoked extremes of enthusiasm and irritation among friends and opponents more than any other literary...

T HE Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Econo- mic Warfare confirmed in a public speech on Monday the general belief that the Cabinet would shortly issue a statement of...

that I was unwittingly unjust in attributing to the Religious Director of the B.B.C., and his advisory committee, responsi- bility for " banning " various well-known preachers...

R EPORTS that opinion in Italy is moving so fast. that there is even a majority on the Fascist Grand Council in favour of a peace move fall so agreeably on our ears that it is...

Huyton, near Liverpool, a good deal has been written at one time and another, but too little has been said about the com- bination of cruelty and folly involved in interning a...

deal more reading than usual, some of it cursory, some of it thought-out. There is something to be said for either method, but perhaps more for the latter. A little guidance is...

forces, by the way, obviously involves in the general humiliation the Minister responsible for the administration of each of the three services concerned. It is reported that...

death will leave a gap in other milieux than the Royal Academy. He never allowed himself to paint really distinguished pictures, and did nothing to encourage real distinction in...

By STRATEGICUS T HE " illness " of General Soddu appears to have affected the whole Italian army. The position cannot be changed by replacing him by a token leader ; and it is...

By A. L. ROWSE LIZABETHAN diaries are few and far between. What would one not give for a few pages of Shakespeare's—it ould be the most exciting discovery one could imagine in...

By ERWIN D. CANHAM By Air Mail. T HE very alarm aroused by revelations here that armament production has lagged far behind hopes and plans is in itself more than a little...

By ROBERT It HYDE N the technique of war the importance of proper feeding of the troops has long been recognised, but now that our ratesmen so frequently assert that munition...

By DONALD TAYLOR . . . Possibility of more serious friction has also arisen through the fact that home defence in Northern Ireland has been entrusted by the Government to the...

By GRAHAM HEATH HE camp bed had been bought second-hand in the bazaar, and was neither clean nor in good repair, but I clutched t tightly under my arm as I went up the ship's...

The cut in the meat ration is a depressing though not desperate thing, and it is a sad day for all of us, and for bird-lovers especi- ally, when writers begin to advocate the...

CORRESPONDENCE columns have been full of suggestions abo how to deal with the ruined City churches. Dr. Julian Huxl has proposed that they should be rebuilt where they are Mr....

There is, however, one article of war-time food on which I should like enlightenment. About a year ago a Scottish ghillie, with the rich persuasive accents of a highlander who...

Gardening Shows It is excellent news that the Royal Horticultural Society is to reintroduce its programme of small monthly shows in West- minster. In peace-time nothing seemed...

THE United States have been slow, presumably because they had to build upon European foundations, in creating a characteristic style of their own in the arts which one could...

bush (daphne• mezereum) set me wondering if the plant ever had any just claim as a native plant. Books tie on to it the vague label " garden escape " without elaboration. As a...

THE beautiful rain falls, the unheeded angel lies in the street, spreadeagled under the footfall that from the divine face wears away the smile ; Whose tears run on the...

ONE day nearer, one day in advance Of the earlier dread, the illusory tread, Tread of the years, with the bell-stroke of winter, The iron ringing of frost; the following trance...

pring Parade." At the New Gallery. " Brigham Young." At the Regal. ANNA DURBIN has now definitely grown-up. Her producer, Pasternak, having piloted her from childhood and...

Sm,—A case was recently reported in the Press of a highly-skilled artisan, exempted from military service as engaged in work of national importance, who was cast in damages, and...

people who are anxious that we should not bruise the sentiments of the German people or hurt their feelings, is the question, how many times can England stand up to the sort of...

to break up Germany and keep it broken into two or more German States against the will of their inhabitants? Is he prepared to keep great armies of occupation there for all...

shortage it is essential that letters on these pages should be brief. We are anxious not to reduce the number of letters, but unless they are shorter they must be fewer. Writers...

SIR,—In these days, when there is so much talk about freedom and its opposite, I wonder how many people realise that in Britain, Germany or any other country freedom and tyranny...

Sul,—Your readers may be interested to hear that the scheme for " Selective Evacuation " outlined in an article of mine in The Spectator about a month ago is going to be tried...

Stx,—According to Fisher's History of Europe, it was Italian troops, mainly Venetians assisted by German mercenaries, who about the year 1699, " in a bombardment of the Athenian...

SIR,—Prince Obolensky's article in your last issue, interesting and somewhat alarming as it is, calls, I think, for some supplementary remarks. We must, of course, recognise...

SIR,—Many of your readers will have seen a recent letter in The Times signed by 26 well-known ladies, and as some of them, no doubt, are also readers of your paper, and you have...

Snt,—Your contributor Mr. H. E. Bates says in your issue of Janu- ary 3rd, " Starlings are accused of eating wheat . . . but the stomachs of 13 starlings shot `in the act of...

SIR, —Miss or Mrs. Evelyn Munro is shocked in your issue of January toth that " many of the Council school children do not even know of the existence of God Almighty." Here is...

Snt,—It is strange to fmd in " A Spectator's Notebook " a protest against the refusal of the B.B.C. to permit broadcasting by eminent but- misguided members of the Peace Pledge...

new volume of the Cambridge Empire History Mr. H. V. Hodson commented on the recent centenary celebra- tion of Livingstone's first sailing for Africa, and concluded that not...

Sta,—Mr. H. E. Bates' criticism of the early Dig-for-Victory campaign is published in your issue of January 3rd, 1941. The date is significant. Warnings of vegetable surplus are...

SIR,—A big cut in feeding stuffs is shortly to be made. I suggest as a partial alternative that all cockerels should be killed when hatched except the few required for breeding....

Advance in Formation New Writing in Europe. By John Lehmann. (Pelican Books. 6d.) MR. JOHN LEHMANN'S New Writing in Europe is the examination, explanation and history of a...

Cambridge. By John Steegman (Batsford. Jos. 6d.) THIS book is companion to that on Oxford written by the late Christopher Hobhouse a year or so ago. It is less controversial,...

The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich. Facts and Documents translated from the German. (Burns Oates. 5s.) Facts and Documents translated from the German....

THESE two new volumes of the Christian Challenge Series, by the Bishop of Liverpool and by the Dean of Durham, have so far a common theme that their purpose is to correct the...

(Secker and Warburg. 5s.) PECULIAR things—peculiar commonplaces—are now expected from poets in a war ; or rather a war is expected to plant such commonplaces in the poet and...

Left-Wing Democracy in the English Civil War. By D. W. Petegorsky. (Gollancz. 7s. 6d.) IT is natural that a period of social disruption and civil war should be productive of...

Purple Dust. By Sean O'Casey. (Macmillan. 6s.) ONCE at a drama festival I was confronted with an ambitious and, I thought, extremely silly play in verse. Fortunately it was so...

By CUSTOS THE City's face is deeply scarred, but its courage is undauntea. If it was imagined in Berlin that this sort of aerial onslaught would produce any weakening of...

battle, not against other people, but against undefeatable life, simply for the sake of living, and in the end it is only death that defeats them. For no disaster kills their...

[A prise of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be marked with...

The winner of Crossword No. 95 is Mr. Edmund Balding, 6o Russell Square, W.C.