T HE strikes now affecting the railways, docks, mines and metal industries of France present a threat which no Government can ignore for long. They are approaching the stage at...

produc- tion, assessments of the present situation must be partly quantitative but mostly qualitative. The quantitative measures are almost uniformly good. Coal production keeps...

Palestine Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations have voted for a partition, with 13 against and 19 abstentions makes little difference to the prac- tical...

British experience with the American loan has demonstrated that the device known as " non-discrimination " is a two-edged weapon. Whether it is desirable or not depends entirely...

There was unusual unanimity in Parliament on Monday in the approval given to the National Assistance Bill on its second reading, one Opposition member even going so far as to...

The election of Sir Richard Acland at Gravesend by a majority of 1,675 over his Conservative opponent is being hailed as a great psychological victory for the Socialists. A...

The fact that the Criminal Justice Bill, which is under discus'sion in the House this week, contains no reference to the question of capital punishment does not mean that the...

It is satisfactory to have got an authoritative official ruling on the right use of the terms " Commonwealth," " Empire," and " Colonial," and characteristic of British methods...

The hotel strike in London, with its paraphernalia of pickets and of strikers or their political supporters, usually the latter, who lie down in front of lorries and have to be...

T HE debate on the Second Reading of the Housing (Temporarj Accommodation) Bill had various points of interest for tha student of politics and of the ways of Parliament. First,...

I T would be hard to imagine conditions more unpropitious for a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers than those existing today. The gulf between Russia on the one hand...

instruction to " all Parsons, Vicars and Curates within this Realm " to include the name of the Duke of Edinburgh in the prayer for the Royal Family. What, specifically, is a...

a familiar figure to most people in this country, in spite of the part the plan that bears his name plays in every political or economic discussion. Some measure of his calibre...

principal London dailies is a matter of some importance. Mr. Gerald Barry (who is a brother of the Bishop of Southwell) has been editor of the News Chronicle since 1936, and it...

T WO people attended morning service in Romsey Abbey last Sun- day for the purpose for which that ancient and noble pile was raised—the worship of God. It was the first Sunday...

mace is in its place the House of Commons cannot sit. Not only in the Dominion Parliaments but in many colonial Assemblies the mace plays its accustomed part. A high authority...

he would appoint a small committee to consult with him about the disposition of London statues. The future of two of them, General Gordon and James II, is being...

By ELIZABETH WISKEMANN I s it for lack of space that the British daily Press since the war has seldom published news about Italy other than that of violent incidents? This is...

By GEORGE BRINSMEAD A NOTHER British trade mission, under Sir Clive Baillieu, is leaving for Buenos Aires this week. There is nothing essen- tially new in that. Year by year...

By F. J. ERROLL, M.P. S EVERAL references have appeared in newspapers and technical periodicals recently to the possibility of bringing hydro-electric power from Norway to...

By DEREK PATMORE if OST travellers to Italy have heard of the Palio which is held at Siena every mid-August, but few seem to know of the Bruscello which is held each year at...

By DR. E. L. ALLEN A GERMAN philosopher of last century said of his countrymen , that they were so addicted to metaphysics that even an apothe- cary's assistant could not make...

By BERNARD FERGUSSON C OMING home from the Middle East by light aircraft rates pretty low in terms of speed ; it is analogous to a slow breast- stroke. But I wanted to visit...

By HAROLD NICOLSON IN the train coming down from Oxford last Friday I read an article which Professor Joad had contributed to the New Statesman and Nation on the subject of the...

JoHN TUNNARD'S new exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery shows him moving—as Piper and other painters of romantic temperament have moved before him—steadily, if slowly, away from...

THE CINEMA n Mine Own Executioner." (Rialto.) (Empire.)—" La Belle et la Bete." Ar the Empire there is one of the finest films, both from a directional, photographical and...

IT has been a week of star singers, Flagstad and Gigli acknowledged and passing or past their zenith and Todd Duncan and Set Svanholm on the map of the heavens but not yet...

duration of the flowering period. Roses, violas—especially gracilis, perhaps—valerians and marigolds are valued on this account. The weeping willow boasts such a quality. Mine...

Someone recorded the other day that he accidentally scorched an apple- tree with a garden bonfire, with the strange result that the scorched boughs presently produced a crop of...

The mountains beside the sea are golden-barren In the bright sunshine as Midas, and the sea Luminous turquoise green with milky edges, And tiny boats bird-seed specks along the...

the strangely punctual habits of certain birds in Iceland. There is a small island in a park lake which is thickly populated with terns in summer, and it has been alleged again...

ONE or two rather surprising facts have been brought out in the course of the present intensive study of the lamentably extensive river pollution. It has been an agreeable...

GERMAN BALANCE SHEET Sut,—A little more than a year ago you published under the above title an article by me summing up the first eighteen months of our occupation of Germany....

any rejoinder were forthcoming to the masterly (not to say headmasterly) article of Mr. George Riding entitled Gaines—or Butter? in your issue of October 31st. I feel strongly...

SIR ERNEST BARKER, who has inspired and assembled this imposing collection of opinions about England by distinguished English men and women, is well aware of the risk of relying...

THIS is not an easy book to read, but it must be considered for the new perspective in which it sets the Elizabethan and the so-called Metaphysical poets. Professor Tuve...

Powers it is hardly surprising that Germany is miserable, distracted and without hope. The most interesting question discussed in the second part of the book is denazification....

A Journal by Thos. Hughes : For his Amusement and Designed only for his Perusal by the time he attains the Age of 50 if he live so long. (1778-1789). With an Introduction by E....

THESE volumes are the first of a series dedicated to the English novelists. They are designed, say the publishers on the dust-jacket, to have a "freshness and contemporaneity"...

IT is difficult to decide what qualities a book must have if it is to interest and amuse children, but I think there are some essentials. First, though the characters in the...

THESE collected prefaces, which have all appeared from the same anonymous hand during the last twenty-five years, display a pungency and directness which subscribers to...

LOOKING at these three American novels with a nostalgic eye one wonders how soon the restriction against the importation of foreign books will reduce us to a state of literary...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct so l u tion of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week December 9th....

!FID '6;EAO:R GE 1,110 s tit NitIJCA Hio; el A W N 911 - 411 L A E .- rTri Li I INIGiO L O vir4 '011611c ILL T c_BIL.19u o 1 , 4 - 4 == G IA VIH E M 'HIE It_ CI- 13 A Ais: 4...

By CUSTOS FEW people would have predicted that within a fortnight of Sit Stafford Cripps succeeding Mr. Dalton we should have a firm market in home industrial Ordinary shares...