T HE sale of France to Herr Hitler has not yet been com- pleted. Details of the negotiations such as they are (and if negotiations there be ; French diplomats abroad deny even...

In a speech at Gosport last Sunday Mr. Amery spoke of the victories won by the Air Force during the last two months as constituting one of the decisive battles of history. The...

T HE .United States will on Tuesday elect its seventy-seventh Congress, and one of the two candidates for its thirty-ninth Presidential term. That bare fact should bring relief...

An apologia is not the same thing as an apology. It is a defence, and may be a perfectly valid defence. Whether the Postmaster-General's statement on the difficulties he has to...

The losses of merchant shipping by enemy action reported by the Admiralty during the last two months have been serious, and for the week ended October loth reached the high...

The fact that General de Gaulle should have broadcast from Leopoldville, in the Belgian Congo, his appeal, to all Free Frenchmen to recognise the Council of Defence of the...

That the Select Committee on National Expenditure should have devoted its latest report to the subject of camouflage is interesting as an indication both of the wide view the...

by a recital of the improvements in health in 1939 and by comments on the enhanced well-being of school children removed to the countryside and by praise of the new milk policy...

another year; it could do no other. But Members are under a solemn obliga- tion to show themselves as local leaders in their constituencies during the anxious days ahead. They...

In a broadcast on Tuesday Mr. MacDonald dwelt on the new danger to public health that may arise from the gathering of people to sleep night after night in large air-raid...

ance of Mr. Lloyd George. His son is taking over the duties of Mr. Boothby for the time being. Mr. Hudson, as usual, was clear and competent, though uninspiring. He compli-...

Our Parliamentary correspondent writes: Although debates have recently been held on the health and food of the nation, little interest was created and few Members were present....

F OUR months ago when Italy declared war on Great 1 : Britain and France Signor Mussolini made a " solemn " declaration that she did not intend to " drag other peoples who are...

view, it is likely to bear belated but rather important fruit before long. As everyone knows, the iron-ore, indis- pensable to Germany, from the north of Sweden is at normal...

pressed in this column lately (I make no exclusive claims to their advocacy) have been or are being adopted by Ministers. One is the employment of Welsh and other miners to...

about five minutes to a vote of a further Er,000,000,000, to carry on the war for another four months or so, at the present rate of £9,000,000 a day. A comparison with the cost...

two-hundredth anniversary of Boswell's birth—a date that even in these days of stress should not go unnoted. For even Macaulay, who belittled Boswell so dogmatically, agreed...

is likely to find itself rather more in the public eye than it has been. Lately, for very obvious reasons, the Air Force has been getting all the glory—because it has been...

I IT seems hard to believe that Dr. J. J. Mallon has been Warden of Toynbee Hall for twenty-one years, but since it is a historical fact that he started there on November 1st,...

By STRATEGICUS I TALY, having found Greece unresponsive to her. threats, has now taken the plunge and crossed the frontier. It cannot be said that the attack was wholly...

By KENNETH LINDSAY, M.P. I N previous articles entitled " London Defiant " and " Leaderless London " I have tried to describe the con- structive efforts being made by a host of...

By JULIAN HUXLEY I HAVE done various odd things in my time, but few odder than what I was doing early one morning recently. At that hour, rather dimly-lit by the light of...

By R. A. SCOTT-JAMES U NDER the theory of total war it is generally agreed that the period when the armed forces become engaged is only the culminating phase ; the years of...

By STANLEY UNWIN A IR raids can prevent our doing much that we enjoy, but A fortunately they cannot deprive us of many of the things that matter most. On the contrary, for...

By H. E. BATES T HE October leaves have fallen on the lake. On bright, calm days they lie in thousands on the now darkening water, mostly yellow flotillas of poplar floating...

THE siege of London has been waged now for nearly two months. Theatres and cinemas in the West End have been destroyed by bombs, publishing houses have lost their stocks of...

THE musician has this advantage over the actor, that he is not so dependent upon time and place. The drama must have its theatre and its two or three-hour span. Music may be...

You would hardly know there was a war on if it were not for the occasional announcements of air-raids from the stage, and a great deal of Mr. Farjeon's Diversion, at Wyndham's...

FIFTY-FIVE years ago the New English was born, in time for Alma Tadema to be pained by it, for William Morris to frown on it and for Aubrey Beardsley to become a bright young...

Among the fruits that have ripened peculiarly well this year are grapes, and their excellence suggests the query why the vine has fallen from popularity. There is plenty of...

from a conquered country. They were conquered too, those violins, and the wind in the reed was the wind of desolation –out of the dark I heard the music come— and the air...

An Autumn Legacy If anyone should wish to leave to a friend a sort of legacy he might perhaps do worse than give reasons for feeling that autumn days are the most cheerful as...

What a large number of local wines, so to call them, have disappeared from the cottages and farm-houses! One of the most popular was a drink made of the Yarrow, or Milfoil, a...

R a ngers of Fortune at the Plaza appears to be a sophisticated T ans:a:ion of William Wyler's famous early sound-film, Hell's. fkroes. Whereas the latter dealt with the efforts...

ordering The Spectator " regularly, since newsagents :an no longer be supplied on sale-or-return terms.

S1R,—I have been reading your magazine for the past few years and I have enjoyed it immensely. I have often noticed, however, that your columnist here in the States does not...

[In view of the paper 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...

Six,—No responsible person will dissent from Canon Roger Lloyd's main thesis that: a. The basis of reconstruction after the war must be the British Parliament. 2. The Health...

done; in peace Canon Lloyd asks us to resume party differences—in order to get nothing done? To restore the health of Parliament, why not take off the party whips? The House...

the views ex- pressed in the article "Facing Winter " in The Spectator of Octo- ber a th, the references to an Imperial War Cabinet are, to say the least, open to discussion....

SIR.-Mr. Wilson Harris's review of Why England Slept sent me— as all good reviews should—to the book itself. " The British Foreign Office did not know," quotes Mr. Harris, "...

SIR,—Mr. Evans's letter shows no appreciation whatever of the nature or extent of the disabilities under which the railways are continually suffering through " incidents " at...

SIR,—The origin and development of the Battle of the Marne have been so well thrashed out that I do not propose to reopen it except to say that the swerve to the east of Paris...

Sm,—Whilst I am delighted that you have pointed out once more in your issue of October 18th the fallacy of the dispersal policy, for which, unfortunately, not only Mr....

SIR,—Surely the one way to rebuild London is to get out the plans that Christopher Wren made after the Great Fire and to put them into execution without alteration. After 30o...

Six,—Your correspondent Mary Fisher's most interesting letter on the subject of the Norman invasion of England, and on King Harold's ill-fated plans to frustrate it, invites...

SIR,—Many people are not quite convinced of the accuracy of Mr. Corbett's statement on page 417 of your issue of October 25th that " the use of the beastly word Britain is a...

Sm,—May I commend to all humane persons the suggestion of Madame de Marcellus that refugee children should be evacuated from all European countries to the U.S.A. or to the...

heard across the radio that Mr. J. B. Priestley has himself decided to bring to an end those talks to which so many of us have looked forward week by week. Mr. Priestley's...

SiR,—History never " repeats itself "---exactly. But, mutatis mutandis, there are many cases on record of parallelism between past and present, arising from the existence of...

Willson, quoted by your correspondent of October 18th as having a similar theme to Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray. But I have read Bulwer Lytton's A Strange Story, which I...

October 18th, calls attention to the similarity of theme in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of William Willson. Poe's motif is still...

Snt,—May I, as a subscriber, put in a plea for the restoration of your always excellent Crossword Puzzle, which has disappeared from your last issue? There must be many...

Last and Best IT is a hundred years (or so) since I reviewed a book ; and the Editor of The Spectator, very kindly wishing me to celebrate this centenary, has sent me...

Happy Days 1880-1892. By H. L. Mencken. (Kegan Paul. 15s.) MR. MENCKEN has among his many charms an attractive taste for pedantry, and if one were to imitate him one might...

England is a Village. By C. Henry Warren. (Eyre and Spottis- woode. 7s.6d.) NONE of these books is another England's Green and Pleasant Land. Perhaps the time is not right,...

THESE are the two latest additions to the Phaidon Series: as usual, very good value. Each has about Igo illustrations, most of them full-page and all of them from expert...

Europe's Apprenticeship. By G. G. Coulton. (Nelson. 8s. 6d.) How pleasant it is to turn away from the present, if only for a moment, to consider with Dr. Coulton the not very...

Quick Service. By P. G. Wodehouse. (Jenkins. 7s. 6d.) IN the closing stages of this absurd but engaging frolic Mr. Wodehouse's hero makes a remark which will startle even the...

LATE in the day and unnecessarily Mr. Wells defends the novel of ideas—his novel of ideas. But the formula he has evolved whereby to harness his great novelistic powers to the...

Comments and Characters. By John Buchan. Edited by W. Forbes Gray. (Nelson. 7s. 6d.) RATHER over thirty years ago John Buchan had general editorial charge for two years of a...

Martin. (Gollancz. 2s. 6cL) This energetic, rather breathless, account of the Prime Minister's life is written by a journalist with claims to attention. " I was at the Sidney...

position of a patient becomes more than ever precarious: he is in danger of being a subject in more senses than one. Mr. Sava's talents as a writer are of a certain flamboyance:...

Polish Profile is the story of a young woman from Manhattan who married a Polish nobleman, lived for some six years in Poland, and escaped from that country last year one jump...

IT is a commonplace that war conditions bring a rise in bank deposits. That was demonstrated in the 1914-18 war, and is being proved again now. As the Government disburses in-...

&loamy before the outbreak of war Mr. Hilton, accompanied by his wife, set out from his Lancashire home and walked to the south. Pushing their essential luggage in a pram, the...

perhaps be criticised as depending unduly on paste and scissors, the book should be welcome to anyone who wants to get in small compass a picture of the Royal Air Force as it is...

States is a valuable addition to the Everyman Library now that Professor D. W. Brogan has added a long introduction and has corrected in footnotes the main errors in the text....

By CUSTOS To some people writing about investment in these days may seem too much like fiddling while Rome burns. In any case, many are inclined to argue, the political and...

By CUSTOS AFTER stealing several neat singles off some good-length politi- cal bowling from Berlin and Rome, markets are stone-walling again. The Italo-Greek developments were...

HARRISOAS AND CROSFIELD, LTD. MR. H. ERIC MILLER'S REVIEW PRESIDING at the 32nd annua. meeting of Harrisons and Crosfield, on Tuesday, October 29th, the chairman, Mr. H. Eric...

TRINIDAD PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT BENEFITS OF DEVELOPMENT EXPENDITURE PROPOSED ISSUE OF NEW SHARES MR. KENNETH MOORE ON THE TAXATION POSITION THE annual general meeting of the...

Token for one g uinea will be given to the sender of the fires re.r solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be m arks ,.' with the words...

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