Sino-Japanese war is now occupied by the Japanese advance on Nanking. On Monday the Chinese forces withdrew from Soochow and the Japanese were allowed to enter with practically...

I his statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday, 1 the Prime Minister, as was expected, went no further than to say that Lord Halifax's visit had been valuable in advancing...

Brussels has come to an end without being able to exert any influence on the course of events in the Far East ; and the opposition of Dr. Wellington Koo, the Chinese delegate,...

Upper Bavaria, which was dedicated to German Youth by Herr Hitler this week, is a remarkable monument to National Socialist ideas of education and leadership. And as a means to...

and executions which have ravaged the U.S.S.R. in recent months have been an unhappy augury for the rapidly approaching elections. Now religious leaders have been added to the...

to be ending, has not reached the size of other recent outbreaks—there were 235 cases in 1932 at Malton, York- shire, and 718 two years ago at Bournemouth—yet it has proved...

enquiries by the French police into the activities attributed to Les Cagoulards (the Hooded Ones) are sensational enough to satisfy even the most ardent opponents of the French...

Roosevelt and his Secretary of State after the Brussels Conference. The American public in general will doubtless take the view that the immediate obligation of the United...

the House of Com- mons last week was directed in particular to the alleged inefficiency of Imperial Airways, but the substantiating facts were drawn largely from comparisons...

of the statement made in Standing Committee by the Solicitor- General on the Inheritance Bill. The Government has wisely decided to take over the Bill for re-drafting, which...

time since a speaker from the Treasury Bench has made a more outspoken attack upon the management of a great industry than that which Captain Crookshank, Secretary for Mines,...

Special Areas contains many facts that make an encouraging contrast to the picture which Sir Malcolm Stewart drew in 1936. The areas still contain more than 200,000 workless,...

tion of royalty owners and the national ownership of coal. The majority of speakers were more concerned with the terms on which the owners were to be bought out and the possible...

been successful in the ballot for private Members' motions, called attention to malnutrition intensified by rising prices. A young Conservative, Mr. Hamilton Kerr, moved an...

mind of the Church Assembly upon the question of the use of the Prayer Book marriage service for the remarriage of any person whose marriage has been legally dissolved. Lord...

us be thankful for the Coal Bill. Many weary months have been spent in passing comparatively non-controversial legislation. Even the most intransigent Opposition back-benchers...

L ORD HALIFAX'S visit to Germany is over, and those who believed, however foolishly, that his conversation with Herr Hitler would take the form of a crude bargain, a Kuhhandel,...

T HE series of articles which The Spectator has been publishing for the last six weeks has gone far enough for an interim judgement to have its place. Some of the hopes based on...

that I made acquaintance with, and an extraordinary person he was. When I met him first he was in an early stage of his long fight for recognition by the Royal Society, a fight...

has been assuming portentous proportions in the correspond- ence collimns of The Times. There are 615 Members of the Chamber. Is it a matter of supreme national importance...

the less said about the matter now the better. But one word is relevant on the singular variety of judgements expressed by reviewers on the volume that gave rise to the action....

and a governing body of organised Labour must be important, and therefore one is justified in thinking that the dinner arranged by the general council of the Trades Union...

N OTHING but warm satisfaction can be felt anywhere at the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Lord Cecil. It is astonishing that he was not given it years ago. As it is, the...

By SIR ARTHUR WILLERT T HE Prime Minister's announcement that the " prepara- tory and informal discussions " for an Anglo-American trade agreement have reached the stage at...

FROM A CORRESPONDENT IN PARIS F OR some weeks past the Siirete Nationale have been on the track of the greatest arms-smuggling plot in the history of the Third Republic. Many...

By J. R. GLORNEY BOLTON W HEN the King of the Belgians paid his ceremonial visit to Guildhall last week there stood next to the Secretary of State for War and other Cabinet...

The author of this article is a publicist aged 27.] T HE Tory Party, to which the writer belongs, has never been very articulate. Young Conservatives are in- articulate because...

By HELEN SIMPSON THE war songs of Spain have just come to hand in a volume called Romancero General de la Guerra de Espana. They are not all marching songs, by any means, yet...

By ANTHONY POWELL L ABOURERS on their way to work in the fields and mines of the Tyne valley and travellers who had taken the road early on September 3oth, 1868, were surprised...

And—was it fancy ?—a faint sigh— I know not what : there leapt the thought, We are old, now—she and I. Old, though those eager child-clear eyes, And lines of laughter along the...

By A. L. ROWSE I WENT when I was last in Cornwall—following my usual habit of trying to reconstruct in my mind a vanished age from the evidences that remain—to seek out where...

IMMIGRATION TO LATIN AMERICA By WILBUR BURTON DEMOGRAPHIC statistics would seem to indicate that the vast areas of Latin America—that is to say, South America, Central America...

THE THEATRE Mourning Becomes Electra." By Eugene O'Neill. At the Westminster Theatre Mourning Becomes Electra is an attempt to retell a Greek myth in modern terms. It...

" Angel." At the Plaza—" Double Wedding." At the Empire AT one point in Angel, Miss Dietrich tells her husband (Herbert Marshall) that she dreamt he was beating her. " What did...

[Von einem deutschen Korrespondenten] ER ist 75 Jahre alt geworden, Deutschlands grosster Dichter. Ein grosses und riches Leben hat sich in einem Werk vollendet, das wie ein...

After Impressionism IN the seventies of the last century the discoveries of Impression- ism provided artists with a formula so fascinating that for a time all those who were not...

The Coronation Planting Committee still wish to be informed of all the local efforts, which are now nearly complete. The idea has chimed in well with the ideals of that...

Now for this observer's evidence. Last May he and some of his neighbours were awakened, and indeed disturbed, each morning by a loud noise that sounded metallic. After a...

Some of the inferences to be drawn from this queer experi- ence seem to be obvious. The woodpecker preferred the metal to the wood because it made a louder sound, and, as seems...

are becoming more county., conscious ; and in the right way. Even those whose cardinal danger is to become a London dormitory are developing a proper county pride. In this class...

in natural history has just broken loose again, and by an odd coincidence a corre- spondent sent me—on the eve of the dispute—the best evidence that it has ever been my lot to...

Devon's Lure Devon (which dislikes the word Devonshire) joins in one society the privilege of bird watching and rural preser- vation, though the birds receive the greater...

Hoar Frost The beauty of the first hard frosts has set a flourish on the departing glories of autumn. The fringe of rime on leaf and bent surpassed the excesses of the old...

Slit,—Mr. H. B. Wilson, hon. sec. of the Western Temperance League, asks for my authority for stating that the larger the profits made by the managers of State-owned...

of being naive for condemning the State Management Scheme for making profit out of the sale of intoxicants. Those, however, who continnAlly hold out the Carlisle Scheme as the...

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week" paragraphs. Signed...

regret that Mr. Athill should continue with his in- accuracies. It is not right to say that 28 days is the limit of solitary confinement. If Mr. Atha' can quote the regulation...

Snt,—The banter and flattery, which Sir Francis Acland mingles with such engaging charm, are very seductive. But neither shall siren lure nor good red herring put me off the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In the course of his article in your last issue Sir Arnold Wilson states that " The B.B.C. news bulletin will not be worth much until the...

see the defeatist attitude of the VIth Voice of Under Thirty expressed so strikingly. From my experience of undergraduate life those around me can fairly easily be divided into...

Under Thirty—VI " is moving and impressive. The writer is so obviously afraid of life and un- sure of herself. Perhaps she can win a surer footing and a more tranquil outlook by...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—On exagire, if one must show off that one knows the language. To such an extent that one would think one's leg was being pulled if one...

not Mr: J. B. Jones entirely misconceive the relations between the English Press and that of Italy ? Nobody would deny that England has its gutter Press, and that much that...

SIR,—In your issue of November 12th the writer of the article on the late Mr. Ramsay MacDonald states that, " professedly, he belonged to no orthodox religious community." Lest...

September 21st, 1935, you published a letter of mine in which I wrote " I would suggest that if we dismiss as imaginary the economic grievances of such countries as Japan,...

Miss Dorothy Sayers' brilliant article, " The Psychology of Advertising," there is one sentence which moves me to comment. The advertiser, she says, " must not tell lies that...

PAGE India's Cultural Heritage (Mulk Raj Anand) 956 Mr. Clynes the Courtier (Vyvyan Adams, M.P.).. 957 The Problem of the Distressed Areas (Honor Croome) 958 Mr. A. P. Herbert...

IN his prefatory note, Mr. J. R. Clynes does me the honour of referring in the following manner to my review of Volume I of his Memoirs : " A reviewer who failed to give his...

The Problem of the Distressed Areas. By Wail Hannington. (Gollancz. Jos. 6d.) DISRAELI'S Two Nations are still with us, ahered but all too recognisable ; and they are now...

The Ayes Have It. By A. P. Herbert. (Methuen. 6s.) AN author's description of his book is not always reliable, but there can be no better description of this book than the...

John Wesley in the Evolution of Protestantism. By Maximin Piette. (Sheed and Ward. 18s.) MANY books about John Wesley have been published in the last twenty years ; a dozen of...

Edward Seago. (Collins. £3 3s.) The Country Scene is a book measuring 521 inches by toe ; and if, in acquiring it, you feel you are acquiring also a con- siderable acreage of...

I Know These Dictators was wrongly given in a review in our last issue. The price of the book is 8s. 6d.

Oxford MS. - by Rene Hague. (Faber and Faber. 7s. 6d.). IN 778 Charlemagne invaded Spain, not as the champion of Christendom, but as the ally of one Saracen potentate against...

Black Hamlet. By Dr. Wulf Sachs. (Geoffrey Bles. to& 6d.) Ir is nineteen years since Freud published the English translation of Totem and Taboo, hoping that it would " serve as...

THE main route to Switzerland from Great Britain is via Dover-Calais, and thence by through services to the Grisons, Bernese Oberland, or the Rhone Valley. An alter- native...

By FORREST REID WHY does nobody write a novel about a book collector ? Here is an unhackneyed theme presenting considerable dramatic possibilities. Think of the tense...

The many friends of that lovable and cultured man, the late Sir Austen Chamberlain, will doubtless be glad to have this selection from his diaries or letters of travel (Cassell,...

COMMUNICATION . HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED By Astley J. H. Goodwin Mr. Goodwin, who is the lecturer in archaeology at Capetown University, covers a wide range in his scholarly book...

On January 3oth, 1889, Prince Rudolf, only son of the Emperor Francis Joseph, was found dead beside' the corpse of his mistress at his hunting seat at Maya-ling. That he killed...

His eminent father naturally dominates Mr. Asquith's agreeable volume of reminiscences (Hutchinson, 18s.). He recalls the future Prime Minister as a poor but cheerful young...

The late Tsar's correspondence with his mother, as selected and edited by Mr. Edward J. Bing (Nicholson and Watson, 155.),- must excite interest and pity. The Dciwager Empress,...

THOUGH I have counselled safety-first tactics to investors in recent weeks, I must confess to both surprise and dismay at this week's landslide in Throgmorton Street. Wall...

ago that would have been regarded as an absurdly low valuation for Union-Castle ordinary shares, even allowing for the fact that no dividend has been paid on them for many...

Cynical investors may feel inclined to ask : If it is too soon to buy, is it too late to sell ? The answer is : It all depends. My advice to any speculative investor who might...

The winding-up of the affairs of the E.D. Realisation company is proceeding according to plan, but that has not prevented the £t shares from falling to 38s., against 42s. 6d....

of ...Dent, Alleroft and Co., the glove makers, not for bringing an inequitable recon- struction scheme—on balance I think it is a beast, but a. just beast—but for submitting it...

DEPRESSION IN THE CITY IT is probably some years since depression on the Stock Exchange was so pronounced as it has been during the past few weeks, and while I am glad to say...

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND ANNUAL GENERAL COURT OF PROPRIETORS THE Annual General Court of Proprietors of The Royal Bank of Scotland was held at Edinburgh on the 24th inst., His...

TRUST OF INSURANCE SHARES LIMITED MR. McCURDY ON MARKETABILITY THE third annual general meeting of the Trust of Insurance Shares Limited, was held on Tuesday, November 23rd, at...

ENGLISH, SCOTTISH AND AUSTRALIAN BANK MR. S. M. WARD'S REVIEW THE forty-fifth ordinary general meeting of the English, Scottish and Australian Bank, Ltd., was held on November...

MITCHELLS AND BUTLERS, LIMITED POPULARITY OF COMPANY'S PRODUCTS GROWTH OF SALES SIR W. WATERS BUTLER ON THE BURDEN OF TAXATION TtiE fiftieth annual general meeting of the...

A year ago the annual report of Tube - Investments, the Company which controls a group of tube manufacturing companies and works in liaison with Stewarts and Lloyds, showed...

STOCK MARKET DEPRESSION. IN another column I refer more fully to the further heavy fall in securities during the past week. It is difficult to recall a time when there has been...

Insurance and Investment Trust Units and the Scottish Trust large sums were made available, if required, to repurchase units without throwing underlying securities on the...

this year, and in commemoration of that event the dividend earlier in the year was supplemented by a special jubilee payment of I21 per cent. During the past week the annual...

of Mitchells and Butlers, the Midland brewers, was the Chairman's explanation of the creation of a Property Reserve Account of £15o,000. Sir William Waters Butler stated that...

In view of the long pause in the number and extent of new capital issues, it was to be expected that the Charterhouse Investment Trust, which has a well-deserved reputation in...

PIIII I ILK)! SI t PIH YIIIII S HI A l rj I Al Ai TI I I 1".151H AI PIGITIHIEICIAI 12 - 71 RI NI PI RI Al II SI I INIGI SIMIU TI I 1 RIINIA_ID 0 All A i LI AINIOlIaTr ED N...

prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be marked "...