I T is impossible to foresee the consequences of the passage of the Taft-Hartley Labour Bill over President Truman's veto. The President has, of course, made sure of the solid...

Though an actual economic crisis in France has been staved off by the debate in the Assembly on Monday, and the subsequent vote of the Finance Commission, the situation remains...

The latest figures of coal production disclose a situation grave in the extreme, and all the graver for coming at a moment when, in view of the American proposals, it is...

Speaking at Barnsley on Saturday, the Prime Minister drove home some truths that badly need to be driven home. It was hardly an accident that the speech fell two days after the...

The opening meeting of the new Economic Council for the Anglo- American Zone of Germany on Wednesday was a landmark in the history of post-war Germany. The fact that the seat of...

There is no mistaking the implication in a speech made by Mr. Herbert Morrison last week in reference to the discussions on the Transport Bill in the House of Lords. "According...

The Colonial Secretary's announcement in the House - of Commons on Wednesday of the formation of a Colonial Development Corpora- tion with borrowing powers of lip to...

Like Mr. Ernest Bevin's speech at the re-opening of the Tate Gallery last summer (in which he defined the Socialist attitude towards art collections), the remarks made on Monday...

The Royal Commission on the Press is not making an altogether auspicious start. The genesis of the Commission, it will be recalled, was a resolution of the National Union of...

N ORMALLY this column does not look back beyond the week- end. But it would be hardly appropriate if it made no mention at all of the Foreign Affairs debate towards the end of...

T HE fact that a Three-Power Conference of Foreign Ministers is already in session in Paris marks a most notable and most welcome advance in the negotiations Mr. Marshall's...

shop in Pudsey, on the ground that there is at present no such shop in the borough. As far as that goes, I did not know there was any such shop in any borough, but I admit that...

T HERE can be no question, & I think, that ICravchenko's book I Chose Freedom, reviewed by Sir Harold Butler in The Spec- tator last week, will have a powerful influence on...

Minister of Education, "to propagate the teaching and study of Basic English as an international and educational medium and there- by to increase the knowledge of English among...

be silent. So far as the coming visit of Seiiora Peron to this country is concerned the latter discipline is to be preferred to the former indulgence. The essential fact about...

new transla- tion of the Bible. It ought, I think, to be made clear that the proposal originated with the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland last year. The Bishop of...

that is being paid to the chief publicity officer to the Central Planning Organisation is £3,750. This is more, I believe, than any established civil servant gets except Sir...

It appears constantly on the menu at my regular luncheon-resort, and after some consideration I nerved myself to try it (which I have never yet managed in the case of tripe). I...

the subject of bulk-purchase, has asked the President of the Board of Trade for a list of the commodities of which the Govern- ment are the sole importers. The list includes 76...

news about my greatly valued colleague Peter Fleming. When his horse stumbled, fell and rolled on him last week he custained a broken pelvis, with various complications. The...

By SIR WILLIAM BARTON A T the beginning of June the British Government finally achieved what had seemed impossible, by inducing the Hindu Congress to agree to a partition of...

By D. W. BROGAN T HIS is a critical week, the beginning of critical months, more critical than even the more pessimistic anticipated a month or two ago. For it is now plain to...

By E. STANLEY TUCKER L AST month's advance in petrol . prices was a reminder of the dominant role still played by the United States in the inter- national oil-trade....

By MARTIN RUSSELL T HE Ceylonese who gathered in the galleries of the House of Commons on June r8th expected to hear Mr. Creech Jones, Secretary of State for the Colonies,...

By DR. J. G. HAMILTON W E have in Britain many old and famous institutions, and this year the oldest mental hospital in the world celebrates the 700th anniversary of its...

I HAVE tossed my bonnet over the windmill and sent you roses, I have kicked the traces over with peaches spilled From a thousand English red-walled, sun-warmed gardens, And...

By J. A. STEVENSON Ottawa, 7une 21st. A BRIEF recently submitted on behalf of the Canadian Daily Newspapers' Association to the Radio Committee of the House of Commons here...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I AM one of those people who loathe taking part in ceremonies. When I see a man inspecting a guard of honour, I raise silent thanks to Hermes (tutelary deity...

MR. RIC.HARD LLEWELLYN'S play is in eleven scenes divided by a shorter interval than usual into two acts. The pauses between the scenes are mostly given over to telephone...

THE THEATRE "He Who Gets Slapped." By Leonid Andreyev. (Duchess.) THE programme of this production of Andreyev's study in degrada- tion offers the audience a long...

"The Loves of Joanna Godden." (New Gallery.)—" The Home- stretch." (Odeon.) THE film world seems recently to have become strongly infected with the virus of love for our...

THIS production is the happiest of omens that in changed conditions O.U.D.S. redivivus will live up to its past. In a long memory of summer plays it is hard to recall one which...

Orfeo at Glyndebourne was a wonderful vindication of the power of music. Very little happens, and the problem is to know how best to keep the spectacle alive without distracting...

WE are moving today from a period of classicism in painting into a period of romanticism. This marked reaction to the post-Cezanne search for formal values will catch many on...

Sus,—This correspondence on the Church in France seems to me to have served a very useful purpose. It has demonstrated that the French Church is filled with vitality and...

sm,--It is recognised that in a democracy the majority shall decide, yet in the instance of the Bankside power station the Minister of Town and Country Planning is flouting the...

GOOD NEIGHBOURS Sra,—I have received a subscription to The Spectator (air edition) which I am enioYing and sharing. I have asked various English friends if I am indebted to...

Sta,—The Government has announced that it will intensify the pro- duction campaign by more factory talks and other propaganda. It is to be hoped that attention will be paid to...

Snt,—In your issue of June 13th you review a book on English Popular and Traditional Art. I venture to suggest that your reviewer in classing the popular art of the last century...

Sta,—I am sorry that I should have left your correspondent in Ceylon under the impression that B.B.C. programmes specially directed to his part of the world are so timed as to...

SIR, —The paper shortage has done and is doing untold harm to education and learning, • but it might also bring about a much-needed reform if it lead to the final abolition of "...

Cooper for his courteous letter, and if, as a Civil Servant once wrote to me, "I have contrived to mis- understand him," I am sorry, though I do not think it is all my fault....

Sra,—In your issue of June 13th Janus, in connection with the con- sidered and deliberate suicide of a member of Parliament, asks: "Who will take it on him to say she was...

Sta,—In a broadcast discussion in the series Britain's Crisis, two housewives and two representatives of the retail trade voiced their difficul- ties, under the guidance of Sir...

for his comments, I would point out that there is no official record of any consecration of Matthew Parker as Archbishop. All the recognised books of reference state categori-...

and dramatic qualities of Mr. Britten's new opera, Albert Herring, the first performance of which WPS broadcast from Glyndebourne in the Third Programme on Friday. It may be...

old-established grammar school now maintained by a county education authority, add a word in support of Principal Murray's letter in a recent Spectator? Next September I shall...

Snt,—Mr. Moore's letter in your issue of June 20th is timely. It is interesting to note that the Church of Scotland at the recent General Assembly also expressed the need for a...

Srtt,—In his Marginal Comment for June 20th, Mr. Harold Nicolson commends the organisation of the Port of London Authority as a model for the control of other public utilities....

S111,-1 note that recently The Spectator commented that the original purpose of the Northern Ireland Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act was to enable the Ulster authorities...

Chiang Kai-shek's China IT is unfortunate that English readers should have had to wait four years for a book which has attracted so much attention and has been the subject of...

MR. CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS, a master of polemical writing, confers upon all his sallies the dignity of the essay ; he can sting, slang and slash with complete urbanity ; and his use...

Handel. By Percy M. Young. Chopin. By Arthur Hedley. (Dent's Master Musicians Series. 7s. 6d.) Bohuslav Martinu. Milos Safrinek. (Dennis Dobson. 8s. 6d.) IT is very much easier...

THE Political and Economic Planning Group consider that this is probably the most important work to be published by them since their Report on the British Press of 1939. 'The...

What I Remember. By Mary Paley Marshall. (Cambridge University Press. 7s. 6d.) THERE is something dry and pungent as well as poetic about these briermemoirs jotted down by Mrs....

Trail of the Money Bird. By Dillon Ripley. (Longmps. 15s.) ONE minor but quite distinct and quite discouraging effect of a World War is the way it seems to change or spoil the...

Scotland : A Description of Scotland and Scottish Life. Edited by Henry W. , Meikle. (Nelson. 15s.) To judge from difficulties already experienced in booking seats for the...

The Happy Time. By Robert Fontaine. (Hamish Hamilton. 8s.) THE short story of to-day defies definition. It can be anything its author wills. Tchehov insisted that it should...

Before the Romantics. An Anthology of the Enlightenment Chosen by Geoffrey Grigson. (Routledge. 10s. 6d.) THE period from (roughly) the Restoration to the late mid-eighteenth...

A NEw edition of The Letters of lohn Keats, edited by Maurice Buxton .Forman and published by the Oxford University Press coincides with an appeal for funds for the upkeep of...

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By CUSTOS WHATEVER defects one may ascribe to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he cannot be accused of any lack of realism. I use that word, of course, in a realistic sense....