The situation in Burma hovers on the brink of complete chaos. Little is known of what is going on outside the capital, Rangoon, but it seems to be unfortunately true that a...

T HE British, American and French representatives will no doubt need all the stamina they can summon up to com- plete the gruelling course of their discussions with Mr. Molotov...

The resolution of the French Council of Ministers in favour of the convocatiost of a European, or in the first instance Western European, Assembly on the lines proposed by the...

There are two ways of breaking the truce in Palestine ; one is by starting up the fighting again and the other is by political action .which destroys the premise on which the...

The news that a brigade of Guards is to be sent to Malaya comes as a reminder that the situation there is still serious, and likely to deteriorate, as a result of the...

The inevitable having happened at the Danube Conference in Belgrade, the only interesting question at the close concerned the way in which the Western Powers would react. Mr....

There is a grave danger that the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation in Paris may be temporarily overwhelmed by the difficulties of allocating American aid, freeing...

Smoking is on the increase all over the world. In Britain, after what economists would no doubt call a period of suspended in- elasticity, the demands of smokers are once more...

The transference of the centre of interest in the American espionage investigations from Washington to New York has considerably inten- sified the excitement into which the...

Day by day Yugoslav statements about relations with Russia become more at variance with Yugoslav actions.' In a speech delivered last Friday Marshal Tito protested once more...

The protest march and demand by student nurses in London for £5 a week last Sunday was an unofficial attempt to gain a hearing at precisely the moment when a hearing is made...

T HE Lambeth Conference Encyclical is, as it should be, a document of enduring value. Only mature study will deter- mine whether it is the most important of the pronouncements...

which Russia is co- operating with some cordiality is particularly welcome. And that is happening, I am told, in the case of the World Health Organisation —a subsidiary of the...

predictions, but some of them have their interest none the less. Rummaging through some old Tauchnitzes in a Swiss hotel I picked up and re- read Mark Twain's Christian...

to say about Ireland next Sunday. Its last Sunday's issue was almost sensa- tional, with its headings "UNITED IRELAND TALK TOMORROW BRINGING EIRE INTO WESTERN UNION" and its...

so in- dicates thought about it, is one of the more foolish of literary lapses. I therefore refrain from describing the proposed demolition of Moor Park in Surrey as...

Harmsworth's death. Cecil Harmsworth was a very different type from his brother Alfred ; recognising that to the full himself, he always spoke of Northcliffe with a kind of...

have moved back chronologically, with great profit and satisfaction, to the Bishop of Chichester's Randall Davidson. Temple and Davidson were totally different, and not least...

By H. G. DANIELS N almost all the big committee rooms of the Palais des Nations at Geneva, where the Economic and Social Council has been holding its meetings, the acoustic...

By D. R. GILLIE T o . read some of the newspaper comments on the joint meeting that has just been held for a week in Oxford by the Roman Society, the Hellenic Society and the...

By EDWARD MONTGOMERY New York. I T SAID in my last week's article that what I felt the majority of Americans wanted, at this particular moment in their evolution, is "a little...

F only William were here." We are saying it all the time. I I wonder whether any man has ever been missed so long and so acutely by so many people as William Temple. If only he...

By CHARLES G. CURFtAN L ORD WINSTER'S statement, made last week to the Consulta- tive Assembly in Cyprus, marks the failure of the attempt to restore constitutional government...

By HAROLD M. ABRAHAMS T HE 1948 Olympic Games ended last Saturday, and on all hands they have been acknowledged as an unqualified success. I myself have been present at four...

By HAROLD NICOLSON • HAVE the deepest respect for classical scholars ; they maintain • the standards of industry, accuracy and taste ; by their ardent researches they keep...

"London Belongs to Me." (Leicester Square.)—" Berlin Express." (London Pavilion.)—" The Kiss of Death." (New Gallery.) London Belongs to Me, adapted from Mr. Norman Collins's...

the other day upon what must be one of the earliest direct attacks upon the concerto form as an outworn vehicle of showmanship and "personality." It was dated 1895 and already...

the swifts (about whose migratory movements a special enquiry has been organised) have almost taken the place of swallows. They are more numerous, fly low as well as high, and...

A 'curious account reaches Me from a Surrey resident of the sudden and total disappearance of the swifts (sometimes called black-martins) on the approach of a cold bout of...

DESIRE for the sun may be as ardent in this England as thirst for rain in, say, Palestine. Almost everything that grows is short of sunlight. Plums are actually rotting on the...

throwing scorn on most wild vegetables—nettles, hop-shoots and the rest—gives it as his considered opinion (in The Countryman) that Good King Henry, a common enough weed, is...

Tim Arts Council currently honours Wales and Ireland. The large exhibition of drawings and paintings by Augustus John, first brought together for the week of the Eisteddfod at...

Snt,—Much puolicity has been given in recent weeks to nurses, their' needs and their claims. Some of these claims have been referred to as out of proportion to the nation's...

issues of The Spectator that there is nothing to do in the army, I would point out that this is not so in every corps. I am stationed at a big REME training bastalion, employed...

CONSCRIPT SERVICE Sta,—Mr. Riding's letter may cause unnecessary and unjustifiable anxiety ; in the army, as in the life of any community and today in the home, there are...

Su,—I was much interested to read Mr. Brock's letter in defence of Peary's claim to have reached the North Pole. I spent the summer of 1909 on the west coast of Newfoundland,...

Sut,—Mr. R. H. Cecil's excellent article in The Spectator of August 13th does not suggest a remedy for our overcrowded-prisons, which are likely to remain in this very...

SIR,—On careful analysis the statements in Canon Howard's letter in your issue of July 30th boil down to an unnamed acquaintance of his asserting that 10,000 Greek children live...

Sin,—In The Advance of Oil in your issue of August 13th, Mr. A. L. B. Philip referring to the Petroleum Times' Review of Middle East Oil said: "Today Abadan is the largest...

SIR, —Professor Bonamy Dobree's admirable appreciation of Kipling as poet and story-teller wins our gratitude and must lead us with pleasant expectancy to Mr. Rupert...

Snt,—Every student of economics is familiar with Gresham's law that "bad money drives out good," though the phenomenon seems to belong to the sphere of psychology rather than...

SIR, —If Frau Noelke of Bad Salzuffen would re-read my letter which you were good enough to publish on July 16th, she would see that the opinion that many spurious appeal...

STR,—Unfortunately Messrs. Mather & Crowther do not follow their stimulating policy to its logical conclusion. To obtain the maximum possible "readership," the Switch, Family...

It is still difficult for your friends abroad to obtain THE SPECTATOR owing to currency restrictions. Why not take out a subscription for them? Rates : Ordinary edition to any...

Sta,—In reviewing Mr. Geoffrey Gorer's book The Americans, Mr. Taplin refers to some faults of spelling that have found their way into print. It is possible that he alludes to...

Si,—Whilst agreeing with your comments on the Olympic Games, I feel that as a nation we are tending to become dangerously smug about our being good losers. Of course we can be...

Sia,—I feel, as a musician, that an attempt should be made to better Anglo-Russian relations by means of the one truly international lan- guage—music. If, with the Kremlin's...

Sta,—Mr. Harold Nicolson makes the surprising statement that Euripides vied with other Greek poets in praise of athletes. Many of us will only recall a passage where he says...

Sta,—The administrators of James Joyce's estate have agreed that an edition of Joyce's letters should be prepared, to be published in the British Empire by Faber and Faber,...

No writer is less in touch with the contemporary mind than Stevenson, and no writer has been more camouflaged by his personal legend, that romance which he himself began in a...

The Mind's Faculties The Reach of the Mind. By J. B. Rhine. (Faber and Faber 10s. 6d.) PARA-PSYCHOLOGY is a new department of science, and Professsor Rhine is its...

To professional economists there is nothing unfamiliar about the notion of a planned Socialist State, working (with exceptions hardly more important than those found in the...

by Alexandra Dick. (Hutchinson. 8s. 6d.) The Last Attempt. By Birger Dahlerus. Translated by Alexandra Dick. (Hutchinson. 8s. 6d.) MR. DAHLERUS was a Swedish engineer who felt...

From Sickert to 1948. The achievement of the Contemporary Art Society. Commentary'by John Russell. (Lund Humphries. 18s.) THIS elegantly-produced and well-illustrated volume...

THIs is an age of autobiography. Victorian reserve has gone ; fact, too, is valued more than fiction. It is a pleasant form of literature since each individual life—even...

Cicero and the Roman Republic, By F. R. Cowell. (Pitman. £1.) THIS, the first of a new Pitman series, The Measure of the Ages i3 intended as a popular book ; there is not a...

On the Margin. By Aldous Huxley. (Chatto and Windus. 6s.) FOR those who made their first contacts with contemporary literature in the mid 193os it is still difficult to take a...

Kent. By Richard Church. The County Books. (Hale. 15s.) DRAYTON'S apostrophe in the Polyolltion admirably fits Mr. Church's panegyric of the county, and that though he is a...

The History of the British Film; 1844-1906. By Rachel Low and Roger Manvell. (Allen and Unwin. 21s.) FOR more reasons than one, the critics and the historians have always...

Mn. ALEX COMFORT, in his profoundly interesting book on the modern novel, poses a test question: "Is this writer capable of recognising a human being?" And, lest there be a...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be moarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week August 31st. Envelopes...

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By CUSTOS THESE are lean days for stockbrokers. Turnover is down to the lowest levels touched for two years or more and few are willing to forecast any early itnprovement. The...