I T would be foolish to pretend that the loss of Koivisto, the fortress to the west of the Mannerheim Line, whose guns have so long enfiladed the Russian forces in the Isthmus,...

The choice the Swedish Government has taken regarding Finland has been no easy one. There is no question about Sweden's sympathy for the Finns, or her understanding of the fact...

The Altmark ' case has entered the stage of diplomatic negotiation, but in the past week certain doubts and obscu- rities have been cleared up. The ship, it appears, never did...

Just twenty-five years ago, on February 28th, 1915, Mr. Lloyd George, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that drink was doing the country more damage in the war than...

The Government has got itself into as awkward a situation as can well be imagined over the Palestine Land Regulations which it has decided to issue. That is not entirely its own...

Mr. Churchill's speech on the Navy Estimates was a survey of the whole field of operations which the Navy is engaged in night and day, and of its ceaseless enterprise in...

Speaking at a luncheon last Wednesday, Mr. Lloyd Georg e returned to the question of home food production which he has been pressing again and again recently in Parliament and...

The problem of paying for the war has a two-fold aspect. One, the internal aspect, is discussed on another page. The second, the external aspect, which is concerned with the...

statement on the Navy. It was said of Peel that he could play on the House of Commons as on an instrument. Since the beginning of the war the First Lord has achieved a similar...

Seldom has an official committee been given wider terms of reference than that of the Advisory Committee recently appointed by the Prime Minister with Lord Rushcliffe as...

the whole of Monday. Labour back-benchers who had failed to catch Mr. Speaker's eye during the second reading debate leapt at this fresh opportunity to purge their stuffed...

Lord Halifax gave a singularly felicitous address as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the University in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford on Tuesday. He was speak- ing...

The problem of rates in towns that have suffered from evacuation, and especially London, is one that must quickly be attended to by the Government, for it cannot be solved by...

Our Parliamentary correspondent writes: " We want a first eleven to play for England." This demand came from Lady Violet Bonham-Carter at last Saturday's Liberal demonstration...

M R. SUMNER WELLES has arrived in Europe and begun to carry out his mission of exploration. Geography to some extent determines his route. Italy has become the normal gate of...

T is this grave difference between preparations 1 for the fighting services and for economic war— that in the one case the Government has at its disposal a Navy, Army and Air...

unexpected source. In Captain Liddell-Hart's autobio- graphy in the current Who's Who is included the following entry: " Collaborated with the War Minister, Mr. Hore- Belisha,...

naval captain, has always been rather anti-British. Since the Altmark ' incident, however, he has completely changed. He is full of praise for England, and has, moreover, now...

A natural error. Tennyson almost made a corner in

I am afraid the recent experience of a large firm of whose affairs I have some knowledge is all too typical. The firm employs a number of messenger-boys, and has had to get rid...

a new technique. In the early weeks of the war it came near cutting out anything remotely approaching the classical altogether. Now, except for Symphony Concerts, it turns it on...

who attach importance to his habits it may be recalled that he went into the Rhineland on March 7th, 1936, in- vaded Austria on March 13th, 1938, and marched into...

such a night have lovers met Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt." TENNYSON.

I T is interesting to observe the part former members of the League of Nations Secretariat are playing today in the service of their different countries. Sir Arthur Salter is...

Murray, who died on Tuesday as Governor of Papua some thirteen years after he had reached the retiring age, was primarily Professor Gilbert Murray's brother. Actually he was one...

By STRATEGICUS 0-1E events of the week have cast the shadow of the war over Scandinavia. Finland fights as dauntlessly as ever ; but it seems clear now that Russia has secured...

By W. L. BURN I will be unfortunate if the recommendations of the West Indies Commission are overshadowed by criticism based on the non-publication of the detailed report and...

By B. SEEBOHM ROWNTREE M R. MAYNARD KEYNES'S book How to Pay for the War (Macmillan, is.), in which he develops the pro- posals he outlined in The Times under the title "...

By SIR MONTAGUE BARLOW T HE central problem before the Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population, which has just reported, and of which I had the honour...

By GERHARD SCHWEITZER In Switzerland E VEN in war-time there is a good deal of travelling across the German-Swiss frontier, and scarcely a day passes here when one does not...

By V. S. SWAMINATHAN I N this mechanised war fighting forces depend as never before for their armaments and equipment as well as their maintenance on industry. Weapons have...

By A. SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT G ERMANS living abroad, said Field-Marshal Goering at a congress in Stuttgart, " are in a state of permanent mobilisation in the service of the...

By F. W. PICK G ODESBERG was proud. Not because it had witnessed the great Fiihrer receive and deceive Mr. Chamber- lain. That was over a year ago. No, all Godesbergers were...

UNDER the leafless arches Their bleeding faces move, Those whom dissatisfaction Inward and dreamward drove Haunt me, and I can hardly Hear through their broken cries, Hear...

when from the Temple Gardens I watched the sailors swing along the Embankment, ' Ajax ' and `Exeter' flashed upon their caps. The crowds cheered, the steamers hooted, the...

ourselves in an intolerable logical dilemma. It is all very well for the hundred per cent. warrior, even as it is all very well for the hundred per cent. pacifist. The former...

by the Altmark ' incident. I am among those who consider that in boarding the Altmark ' we were committing a flagrant violation of international law. Physically, I feel that in...

HAROLD NICOLSON WHERE was an expression much in use among the intel- lectuals of the reign of good King Edward which to modern ears may seem fantastic and far-fetched. The ex-...

honest mind can reconcile the irreconcilable The warrior is con- sistent because he believes that war is a good thing. The pacifist is consistent because he believes that there...

the first occasion in the week when I had surrendered to patriotic rapture. I had read the account of the boarding of the Altmark ' with feelings of (and I use this stark word...

emotion that I telephoned to a Socratic friend of mine who is .a member of the Peace Pledge Union. I told him of my emotions and he was much amused. He said that his own...

The Pastoral ' Symphony OF all the nine, Beethoven's ' Pastoral ' Symphony has suffered the greatest vicissitudes of public favour. At one time it was among the most popular,...

" The Roaring Twenties." At Warners.—" Prisons de Femmes." At the Embassy.—" Hotel for Women." At the Regal. " D'YA want a diagram? " asks one character of another who...

THE THEATRE I' The Light of Heart." By Emlyn Williams. At the Apollo. MR. WILLIAMS offers, as virtually the only alternative to strip- tease and Union Jacks, a play about an...

Walking along a familiar village street on the day when coal fell short, you might have thought that the place was a timber-yard. Axe, saw, wedge and mallet were being ardently...

At Last Never within most memories have so many people in Britain given a more hearty welcome to the first approach of spring. Farmers had not seen their land, much less...

A Scottish correspondent asks me the old question whether there is any authority for the belief that much fruit is the prelude to a hard winter. It happens that I have just dis-...

sharp a contrast be- tween food and fodder. Some fodder is better than some food. I would, for example, mention among a school of gourmets that the swede, used almost...

At Maples, and Elsewhere THE National Society's Exhibition (Royal Institute Galleries, Piccadilly) has a morbid interest. The pictures patter down every little avenue that...

On the subject of useful weeds, an attempt is being made to give a scientific basis to a sort of mystic belief in the efficacy of some common weeds. Here is one claim. In one...

[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...

Sm,—As one who in recent years has had many contacts with Germans in many walks of life, may I support most strongly the views put forward by Mr. Herbert Robinson? In the...

themselves made it clear that many of their reports are not sent on the evidence of their own eyes. In the Daily Telegraph dated February t7th, the special correspondent, Mr....

"Destroying Germany " and "Humanising the Nazis," both in your columns and elsewhere, I should like to put forward the following two propositions as worthy of general...

letter in The Spectator, February 23rd, " We default on our debts," call for some comment. With your permission I would ask whether the following facts are not wholly ignored in...

SIR,—" Strategicus " in your last number—and other writers on the subject—have quoted, torn from its context, a sentence of the Official History, which I wrote (it occurs...

Mr. J. D. U. Ward in last week's issue of The Spectator have failed of their object so far as I am concerned, since they leave me completely unabashed. Passing over the curious...

SIR,—Sir Richard Acland's letter about the Dean of Canter- bury and his Soviet-worship expresses the kind of Parlia- mentarianism which drives non-Parliamentary persons to...

SIR,—When facetiousness divorces fairness "we are not amused." Mr. T. C. Macaulay jokes copiously over the state- ment by another person which I passed on to your readers ;...

Linguists Committee of the Central Register of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, comment briefly on the letter from my friend, Mr. Herbert Loewe, published in The...

SIR,—Mr . Pritt is being pressed to show in what way the opinions he holds differ from those of members of the Com- munist Party? But what about Mr. Arthur Bryant? In the...

SIR,—Though I have not yet read Mr. Pritt's book, I feel sure that, like your reviewer Mr. Harris, I should disagree with many of the opinions expressed in it. Nevertheless...

Mr. Harold Nicolson, in yotir issue of last week, so grievously misquotes some of the finest lines in the English language? The opening words of the " Song of the Soldiers," as...

notice from a paragraph in your last issue that you are not clear as to the purpose of the questions put to the Prime Minister regarding the censoring of an article by Mr. Hore-...

Sta,—I enjoyed immensely Mr. Neil Bell's article on the life history of the common eel in your issue of February 16th. Although it is an almost incredible story, I am prepared...

SIR,—I do not think the following statement of Mr. Titmuss (" Can the Poor Save? " February 23rd, 1940) should be allowed to pass unchallenged, if only to prevent its return...

The Methods of Nazi Propaganda Here Lies Goebbels. By Vernon McKenzie. (Michael Joseph. ios. 6d.) " THE author of this book (says the publisher's ' blurb ') is a distinguished...

The Last Rally : A Study of Charles II. By Hilaire Bellod. (Cassell. I2S. 6d.) Sergeant Surgeon John Knight. By E. M. Calvert and R. T. C. Calvert. (Heinemann. los. 6d.) THERE...

Hitler's War and Eastern Europe. By M. Phillips Price, M.P . (Allen and Unwin. is.) Two back-bench M.P.s, one of them labelled Liberal—though by comparison with Sir Richard...

Ir is good to be reminded in these days that the French Revolution gave liberty of worship to Protestants, removed the disabilities of Jews, released negroes in the French...

Still Eastward Bound. By John Lindsey. (Rich and Cowan. I5S.) " IT is something to have been," wrote G. K. Chesterton with indisputable veracity, but it is quite another thing...

Our Time is Gone is the concluding volume of Mr. James Hanley's trilogy of the Fury family. Without having read the other two books, but assured that this need make little...

(S.P.C.K. 5s.) IN Canon 011ard's series of monographs on St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, Mr. Alfred Jones's scholarly and well illustrated account of the plate is of...

THIS facetiously titled book is a scrappy and jocose history of the Ministry of Information. It is intended as an attack, but spoils what is—to say the least—an arguable...

x8s.) ONE of the best stories in Sir John Lavery's autobiography records how Lady Oxford, at a dinner party, said that she wanted him to come and see her Lavery—and promptly...

6d.) MASS-OBSERVATION maintains two groups of observers, one stationed in " Worktown," a northern industrial city, one in " Metrop," a London suburb. This book consists of the...

is an excellent introduction to American Jazz Music, written with knowledge and a sense of proportion, and quite free from the fancifulness and pretentiousness which have...

The Provincial Lady in War-Time. By E. M. Delafleld. (Macmillan. 75. 6d.) WAR-TIME finds the Provincial Lady in pretty good form. She starts the war in Devonshire, and, having...

£2 25. and LI Is. are offered for the most entertaining composite poems of not more than twelve lines, beginning with the line— Who is the happy warrior? Who is he Not more...

THE usual prizes were offered for descriptions of, or reflections on, the black-out in the style of any one of the following: (z) Dr. Johnson, (2) Alexander Pope, (3) Sir W. S....

Financial Supplement FRIDAY, MARCH No. 5827 1 94 0

Treasury's Grip on Gilt-Edged—Real and Money Costs—The Banking Position By CUSTOS So far this has been an odd war not merely from the mili- tary but from the financial...

A LI Q UID INVESTMENT The special problems connected with the outbreak of war have now passed. We know from the balance-sheets of several building societies that the demand for...

THE war has presented those responsible for the management of our great life assurance offices with a variety of problems, some of them of minor, others of major character. The...

IF war conditions have provided many problems for solution by those concerned with the management of life offices, they have also brought many questions to the minds of their...

Euston and Waterloo have both fulfilled the most optimistic estimates in their 1939 dividend payments. Net revenue on the L.M.S. rose last year by nearly £3,000,o0o to...

On the much-debated question of the war-time level of railway earnings Lord Home has thrown valuable light at the Great Western meeting. He tells us that in the first four...

By CUSTOS MARKETS are so suspiciously good that one wonders how long we have yet to wait for the first instalment of the coming war loan programme. Many are arguing that so...

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY TERMS OF GOVERNMENT CONTROL THE annual general meeting of the Great Western Railway Company was held on February 28th at Paddington. The Rt. Hon....

With the tin quota back to 8o per cent. for the second quarter of 1940 and the price hovering around £250 a ton, the tin shareholder finds himself on solid ground again. In the...

Stockholders in the English Electric Company will feel confident about this undertaking's war-time prospects in the light of Mr. G. H. Nelson's exhaustive survey at the annual...