Nothing is more important to the world of tomorrow than American foreign policy unless it be Russian foreign policy—and it is with Russian foreign policy that American foreign...

T HE statement issued by the sponsors of "United Europe," chief among them Mr. Churchill, is a curiously indeterminate document, leaving the real purpose of the signatories in...

The meetings of the Foreign Ministers' deputies have reproduced many of the familiar features of the long series of peace discussions, but they have also provided some which are...

The only important feature about the discussion on the British complaint against Albania at the meeting of the Security Council on Monday was the Russian opposition to the...

The Polish elections have taken their expected course. There are 444 seats in the Diet, and of these 382 have been filled by the four parties making up the Government bloc. The...

The well-known objective of exports 75 per cent. above the pre- war volume has a rather suspicious roundness. Moreover, the ex- pression " pre-war" has never been defined and it...

On Monday began a six-weeks period in which coal for industry is cut drastically. But coal crises are so frequent that they have lost their shattering effect. And although...

The course negotiations following the transport workers' un- offidal strike have taken emphasises, even more clearly than it was emphasised before, the absence of any shred of...

The announcement by the Minister of Education that the school age will quite definitely be raised to fifteen on the appointed date disposes of persistent and disturbing rumours....

critics of democracy may find symbolic, but which Members found just inconvenient. Watching them troop into the Chamber, I .vas irresistibly reminded of the passage in which...

A NYONE who does not know what is necessary to put the British economy on its feet has only himself to blame. He has been told often enough. In fact, anyone who is not rather...

hundred thousand people who are parasitically employed in the betting industry (" industry" is an obvious misnomer, but I use the word for the lack of a better), I am glad to...

aims and claims of that aspiring organisation, the London College of Theology. I am interested--aarl ucg dissatisfied—to note that a special committee of the United Pree Church...

a rather sharp revision of the arrangement by which passengers on the ' Queen Eliza- beth' could cash cheques up to Lim at the branch of the Midland Bank on board the vessel to...

T HE world will soon be rather full of lives of Mr. (or, to be strictly accurate, Earl) Lloyd George. The first of the new ones to ap- pear is already in the Spring Lists. The...

Regarding which it can only be said that man-power is not a headache at all, big, little or medium-sized. If anyone wants to talk about headaches in this connection, let him at...

occasionally have caused confusion, but at least they both had secondary names (or in one case a principal name) to distinguish them. The two Simons in the House of Lords—for I...

Lords on Wednesday Lord Chatfield dwelt more on what we should com- memorate—there is little room for disagreement here—than on the much more vexed question of how to...

By DAVID THOMSON T HE Communist Party and the M.R.P. in France are still wonder- ing, a little bewilderedly, how it all happened. In the elections of November which created the...

By GUNTHER STEIN New York. T HE American public seems strangely unprepared to influence the vital decisions 7947 will bring regarding the role of its country in the world...

By T. C. SKEFFINGTON-LODGE, M.P. E VEN war has its minor compensations. The worse the ex- perience of war the more it behoves a people to make the fullest use of its few good...

By STEPHEN CLISSOLD W HEN Canning coined his famous phrase about calling in the New World to redress the balance of •the Old, he may not have been aware how far that balance...

By R. A. SCOTT-JAMES T HE choice between parties—Conservative, Liberal, Labour or something else—apparently presents considerable difficulties to many politically-minded young...

By HAROLD NICOLSON HE professional historian is trained to be suspicious of history's coincidences and repetitions. He knows all too well that the a ct that events appear from...

THEATRE "The Alchemist." By Ben Jonson. (New Theatre.) IN the theatre as well as outside it an imposture only becomes really interesting when it is threatened with exposure. In...

" The Secret Heart." (Empire.) —" Hungry Hill." (Gaumont, Haymarket and Marble Arch Pavilion.) " King Kong " and "Lady Luck." (Astoria.) THE billows of psycho-neuroses which...

THE Brahms Piano Quartet in C minor (opus 6o) was a rather un- fortunate choice for the opening of the concert given at Wigmore Hall on Saturday by the Warner Piano Quartet....

So rarely does the Third Programme assume the cap and bells that I suspect Animal Farm, George Orwell's satire on dictatorship, of seeming better than it really was. It...

AT the Leger Galleries may be seen recent paintings and gouaches by Eileen Agar—together with one less recent picture which serves to give the measure of her progress during the...

Sul,—Mr. E. P. Wright, in your issue of January roth, suggests that the British Government should take the easy way out of our difficulties in India—deliver an ultimatum that on...

at least one fundamental problem—the nature of knowledge? After an orthodox account of scientific method as (t) accumulation and classification of facts, (2) formulation by...

SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES Six,—Mr. T. U. Taylor's article in The Spectator of January 17•th raises a matter of extreme interest to those engaged in education. It does,...

January 17th is a notable contribution to the discussion of one of the most vital issues of our time. May I have a little space to examine the subject further? I hold that the...

Sts,—In your issue of January Toth, under the heading of A Plan for Britain, you comment on the new Town and Country Planning Bill, and you very properly draw attention• to its...

January 17th, Richard Goold-Adams says that the Australian Government has signed an agreement with the British Government " whereby we in this country will pay the passages of...

SIR, While U.N.O. was comfortably criticising the South African attitude to the native races a few weeks before Christmas, the following thing happened in a Transvaal village...

some curious observations in regard to Southern Rhodesia's policy on Immigration in the course of his article, Exit from England. The observa- tions to which I am bound to draw...

SIR,—The Spectator and Commander King-Hall's .National News-Letter reached my breakfast-table simultaneously this morning. In the first, Mr. Goold-Adams states that " nearly...

The Spectator for January 17th concerning Mr. Seebohm Rownuee's comments on the man-power shortage and the number of people employed in the betting trade, I am of the opinion...

Sta,—The Church Missionary Society was founded in 1799, and has since come to be the largest missionary society of the Anglican com- munion. The third jubilee of the society...

Snt,—In 1943 the Methodist Church, after receiving the report of a commission of enquiry appointed by the previous conference, directed a committee to establish homes for the...

Sut,—Having read the tedious, verbose and inconclusive Report of the Royal Commissicn on Equal Pay, those people who believed that the setting up of this Commission was...

to live by a river if only for the sake of having a willow garden." Now my garden, such as it is, is on a singu- larly dry plateau, but willows flourish abundantly (as they do...

A certain controversy has risen as to whether foxes, those still sacrosanct animals in the Midlands, ought to be called vermin. That priceless book, the Concise Oxford...

being encouraged by the results of the Pacific war! A good many English amateurs have been experimenting with it, and one at any rate of our universities- Reading—but the real...

SIR, —Mr. J. M. Spaight, who wrote such an excellent book on the Battle of Britain, published in May, 1941, hardly does justice in his review published in your issue of January...

Slit,—Major E. W. Sheppard, in his article Bombers Over Japan (10111 47) is, I think, wrong in one detail. Writing of " air operations against Japan's home territory " he says,...

Some years ago, when the ravages of the death-watch beetle were discovered in Westminster Hall, repairs were begun with oak beams cut at Whiligh. At that time Sir George...

sm,—As I wish to establish contact with an English teacher or university man inclined to correspond with a Swedish teacher, and as I have in my hand a copy of The Spectator, I...

Sul,—I am grateful to Mr. Elkin for writing, and you for publishing, 3 letter that corrects, to my advantage, a venial oversight in Mr. Middleton's article. It is true that the...

The Spirit of Catalonia. By J. Trueta. (Oxford University Press. 8s. 6d.) THERE are few countries more misrepresented than Spain. Week after• week the old clichés are brought...

An Immense Sensibility " INEVITABLY the American approach •to Henry James, in its attitudes and tone of voice, differs considerably from that of his admirers in this country....

When the Going Was Good. By Evelyn Wau g h. (Duckworth. 15s.) " MY own travelling days are over," writes Mr. Waugh in his preface, and the admission can hardly fail to sadden...

The Cause of Liberty. By Stephen Bonsai. (Michael Joseph. 15s.) COLONEL BONSAL'S book is in a double sense a work of piety. It recalls a very important and decidedly neglected...

WHAT do you "follow " when you engage in the discipline of letters? Any professor of English must ask himself that question again and again, and no very certain answer is...

A Distant Summer (Queen Victoria in the Paris of Napoleon III.) By Edith Saunders. (Sampson Low. 15s.) "THE Queen's entrance into Paris was a most melancholy failure," Lord...

THIS little book, we are informed in the preface, is the first of three dealing with " the demographic or biological aspect which forms the subject of the present volume, to be...

Bolivar and the Independence of Spanish America. By J. B. Trend. (Hodder and Stoughton for the English Universities Press. 4s. 6d.) Bolivar and the Independence of Spanish...

The Haunted Woman. By David Lindsay. (Gollancz. 7s. 6d.) The Faithless Mirror. By Honor Croome. (Christophers. 8s. 6d.) THE blurb which is printed on the wrapper of The Haunted...

IN this recent addition to the King Penguin list, the Richmond Herald has contrived an introduction to English heraldry which is at the same time scholarly and simplified. Past...

wholly delightful book about the men who made the English game of cricket. In the space of Iii pages Mr. Martineau has collected (mostly from his contributions to The Cricketer)...

Dobson. 18s.) DR. SWEEZY'S publishers claim on his behalf that his book should be " readily intelligible to the interested layman as well as to the specialist in social...

for one :guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of - this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, February 4th. Envelopes must be...

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WELL within the Lcope of even a minor prophet was the guess, now confirmed as fact, that soon there would be a general increase in the price of books. The latest increase in...

By CUSTOS ForiowING the publication of the White Paper, w:ith its frank ex- position of the nation's economic problems, stock markets have entered another period of test. Not...