AS the situation in Persia has slithered nearer and nearer towards chaos the Conservative Opposition has grown increasingly impatient of what it believes to be the weak- ness of...

Spain is the skeleton in the European cupboard. Every now and then the Americans, to the acute embarrassment of theit, British and French allies, insist on opening the cupboard...

It is a curious comment on the Western attitude to the whole question of the future of Japan that singularly little news has come in, or apparently been sought, on reactions to...

When the question of the admission of Turkey and Greece to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was last in the news, two months ago, the British Government's official reasons...

The truce talks at Kaesong seem to be going about as well as was to be expected. They were broken off last week, when Communist guards turned back a convoy of United Nations...

Neither the last week's White Paper on the Beveridge Report, nor the earlier White Paper of l946, which last week's quotes with approval, nor indeed the Government's policy on...

Mr. Nehru is a sufficiently informed student of international affairs to know that the statement of peaceful intentions is no substitute for peaceful actions. " There is no...

T HE slow development of the Persian drama has disabled the House of Commons for debating the question. Members could only wait and see whether Mr. Harriman, as • the welcome...

After years of patient ngotiation the plans for reorganising the parishes of the City of London and restoring the war- damaged churches are at last in final form. It is unlikely...

I N a single phrase, in his speech at the opening of the great new Margam Abbey steel works on Tuesday, Mr. Hugh Gaitskell managed to turn an industrial into a political...

have an appeal for the British, and the project for asserting our right of passage in the Suez Canal by sending a tanker through it under naval escort has at first sight a kind...

of the B.B.C.'s revenue from licence-holding listeners and viewers into the public funds has revived (in my mind, at any rate) a basic dilemma in the field of citizenship. Out...

prudent fellow,' how grave would be the financial plight of our community !! From the point of view of his fellows' pockets the ideal' citizen is a fearful rip. He drinks like a...

If you look at him in the light of his own economic interests, you seem to see an austere, abstemious figure, domiciled in a barge (to avoid paying rates and to lessen the...

Moscow this week and which is dedicated to the . cause of co-operation between Russia and the West, may h ave some deep international significance ; but I find that it is upon...

into deep water. One of the objects of the Welfare State is to enable its citizens to lead " a full life." Nobody has yet laid down what a full life ought to be full of, but it...

By ERNST FRIEDLAENDER Hamburg HE return to Germany of John J. McClo', American High Commissioner, after a three weeks' trip to the United States, marked what may be called a...

Americans By ROBERT WAITHMAN T HERE is no way of knowing how many . Americans have read in its entirety the Bevan-Wilson-Freeman pamphlet, One Way Only. The number is unlikely...

I3y A RETIRED SCHOOLMISTRESS B EFORE the First World War I was appointed to my second school post, from -which I finally retired. My salary was £120 a year, rising by annual...

By GLYN DANIEL C ONTRARY to Napoleon's view—if indeed it was Napoleon who said so—an army does not march on its stomach. It marches on its maps. The Ordnance Sur- vey, like...

readers are urged to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold Copies are...

Princes to Act By DAVID WAINWRIGHT (St. Edmund Hall, Oxford) W E are crammed, a kindly audience, into a long narrow hall with a steep roof, its windows curtained so that the...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I REFERRED last week to an anonymous correspondent, whose days are darkened, and whose reading must be seriously hampered, by his hatred of the small word "...

Tp give Idomeneo at Glyndebourne is the boldest and most dis- interested of Mr. Christie's actions. It is a connoisseur's piece, known in this country hitherto only by amateur...

CINEMA “ No Resting Place." (Rialto.) — " Fine and Dandy." (Warner.) THE weakest part of No Resting Place, which is far from being a weak film, is the first five minutes. A...

IT seemed at one time as though Graham Sutherland was not much longer to be classed among the contemporary romantics, so intel- lectually formalised was his work becoming....

that at the peak of the garden- ing season I must give the rest of my space to them and my vine. I have almost a surfeit of hybrid perpetuals and hybrid teas, many of which...

In spite of such capricious experience, I did not expect to find a partridge's nest at the end of last month bn the edge of my potato- ground in the kitchen-garden adjacent to...

BRIGHTON is truly en fete. On Monday her flags, gardens, freshly painted houses, light-encircled lamp-posts and banners gaily wel- comed visitors to the opening of her...

HAVE known some queer nesting sites in my time and on my land. A pair of linnets once nested in the folded secrecy of one of my dwarf Irish yews. Willow-warblers brought up a...

a Royal Muscadene vine when about four feet high. It now extends for sixteen yards, and has had to be supported overhead by a colonnade of white brick pillars connected to the...

THE bill for the alteration of those • phrases in the oath of abjuration which prevent its being taken by Jews, and thus make of it an instrument for excluding gentlemen of the...

of £5, which may be divided, is offered for a limerick with rhymes conspicuous for their absence, c.f. the Old Man of Tralee who was stung on the leg by a wasp. Entries, must...

Report by John Usborne A prize of f'S was offered for an old English teacher's Poem of Revolt on " doing" either " The Lady of Shalott" or " A Mid- summer Night's Dream" for the...

he declares that the success of a business " depends entirely on the workers." The workers (that false cognomen) hate simply but cagefully to carry out the orders from the head...

Sta.—Your contributor " A Miner " asks many questions in his article, Making Ends Meet, and it would require considerable space to answer them all. I will only deal with a...

at the rising price of goods aocompanied by a deterioration in their quality, I am struck by his failure to mention coal. Is this because he does not have to pay for it ? The...

SIR,—Janus is always a delight to read, though sometimes he is a little provocative, as when he asserts that " rowing, so far as Oxford and Cam- bridge are concerned, is...

interesting and illuminating. Apparently all these people live in towns and their food bills are very high. Living in the 'country, with a garden for fruit and vegetables, cuts...

The French Elections SIR,—It is certainly a sound maxim for every writer that when he is misunderstood it is at least partly his fault ; but surely it is also a sound one for a...

Sac—It was a laudable gesture on the part of the Postmaster-General to revert back, after a lapse of many years, to the Universal Postal Union re g ulation colours for the...

Sitt.—The droppin g of a word by your printer in my review of Chris- topher Fry's A Sleep of . Prisoners must,, foil the theolo g ically-minded, have made nonsense of my summary...

Sm.—Janus su gg ests that the level of salaries paid to British nationals who 'are members of the Unesco staff should- be challen g ed in the next Ministry of Education...

Sut,—Some of the lawyers who annoyed Mr. Nicolson by not walkin g under a ladder -may have Ifeen aware of the Christian-interpretation of this superstition, which rA r Alls that...

Snt,—May I say bow much I have enjoyed the deli g htful article, The Rails Run Over the Hill, in the Spectator of June 29tq. Having known Thaxted and district all my life (bein...

SIR,—It would be interestin g to know how Mr. Mallalieu, in his flight from Nottin g ham to Baker Street, mana g ed to arrive at Euston.—Yours

SIR,—I am writin g to you on behalf of the recently formed West Country Writers' Association, whose first President is Eden Phillpotts and whose Vice-Presidents include H. A....

SIR,—Janus does not • mind -identity cards. In 1938 the Postmaster- General said to Mr. I. N. Vestor, " Lend me three pounds. You can have it back at any time at any of my...

SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. Spooner, implies that, because his own marria g e is a success, An g lo-German marriages cannot fail ; and that, because he is unaware of the...

I N his Hill of Dreams, an early novel, Machen tells the story of one Lucian Taylor, of his genius, of his garret-starvation, - of his hallucinated walks through the streets of...

WHOEVER shall' attain the goal of Wisdom, Will shut his lips for good on " Where " and " Why "11 The Camel-bell relapses into silence When once we reach the Caravan Seral....

; Canada (Canadian

Totalitarian Eclipse OFFICIAL photographs of the Japanese armistice ceremony on board U.S.S. `Missouri' in August, J945, show in the foreground a grave young frock-coated...

. FRIEDRICH VON HUGEL was a unique person. Doubtless this is, in a sense, true of all of us, but there are not many whose uniqueness appears important. Von Htigel was a man who...

THERE was something of the Savage—or at least aggressively mis- understood—Messiah about Schoenberg. His tone was apos,alyptic yet aggrieved ; and it is clear that, with all his...

A Dragon Apparent. By Norman Lewis. (Cape. Iss.) THIS is a • travel book of unusual interest and distinction. Apprehending that it may not be long before the whole of the Far...

)mmortal Wheat. By Kathleen Wallace. (Heinemann. i as. 6d.) THE sub-title of this book runs: " A personal interpretation mainly n fictional form "—the italics of mine—" of the...

Fables for Our Time and The Last Flower- By James Thurber. (Hamish Hamilton. I2s. 6d.) Fables for Our Time and The Last Flower- By James Thurber. (Hamish Hamilton. I2s. 6d.)...

The Sky was Always Blue. By Admiral James. (Methuen. 2 t S.) - • Tins is a pleasant record of a sailer's life,.quietly and simply related in a manner that is almost...

os. _6d.) WOMEN are brought up to regard the whole male Senior Common Room ethos with awe. Thus, discovering Mr. Snow's new book, The Masters, was concerned solely with the...

themes of Swift's satire in A Tale of a Tub the larger part of the purpose in this study has been the reconstruction of the contemporary intellectual milieu, in philo- sophy,...

Miss Buck writes, explaining why she is making public her experiences with a daughter who has not developed mentally past the age of four. She has received many letters from...

that The Pavement and the Sky is a book of a new kind. Though Mr. Clarkson is a new writer his book is not that. There is a name, if an awkward one, for the category into which...

IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, July 31st, addressed Crossword, 99 Gower Street,...

AjwiEiLit.!o . N.0.5 e T 0 E -r!yitzles T SOLUTION ON AUGUST 1 The winner of Crossword No. 633 is Miss H. M. DIXON, 16 Clifton Place, Shipley, Yorks.

By CUSTOS INvEsroas are still waiting on events and are understandably content to do very little. The international political situation, as I see it, is not a dominant factor...