southward advance along the Mediterranean coast has been slowed down, but not held up. His forces nevertheless have been checked at certain points, and are continually exposed...

T HE visit of the French Premier and Foreign Minister to London is qpportune and welcome. Whatever the subjects of their discussions with British Ministers, they can include...

in provinces as fax distant as Shantung and Anhwei must neces- sarily be received with some reserve, and when the news varies according as it emanates from Chinese or Japanese...

Speech which evoked unanimous approval was that in which he announced the secret purchase by the Government of sufficient wheat, whale oil and sugar to supply the country during...

Lord Swinton public anxiety regarding the output of aeroplanes increases rather than diminishes, and there is ground for suggesting that it would increase more rapidly still if...

Kingdom and Eire is discussed in a leading article on another page, but a special word is needed regarding the position of Northern Ireland, which profits considerably by the...

as the minimum demands of the Sudetendeutsch in Czechoslovakia were set out last Sunday was delivered by the Sudetendeutsch leader Herr Henlein, but the voice was unclisguisedly...

by Marshal Smigly-Rydz two years ago, has up to the present singularly failed to achieve its object. After taking a turn towards the Right under Colonel Roc, it is now accused...

been in a chastened frame of mind. For two or three years a great many members have seemed to regard almost light- heartedly the steadily mounting figures of expenditure. Since...

for. While no one suggests that rearmament should be slowed down there is likely to be greater insistence on safe- guards against waste. The Royal Commission on the Private...

Moore-Brabazon pointed out, the preliminary review of the past year's receipts has seldom been made more interesting. Later on Sir John exhibited all the skill of a great...

Courts of this country for some thirty years, and has had ample time to prove its value, there is nothing superfluous in a Home Office booklet issued on Monday to explain the...

the Budget came as a shock to most of the House of Commons. The majority of members, at any rate on the Government side, had persuaded themselves that no substantial increase of...

of the delays in the execution of the Government's arms programme ; it now appears that there will be further delays in the "speed up" of production for which the Government has...

a special Scottish number and will include, in addition to regular features, articles on "The Glasgow Exhibition," by Mrs. Walter Elliot ; "Indus- try or Empty Glens ? " by Sir...

S IR JOHN SIMON'S first Budget has run contrary to all expectations ; the Chancellor is certainly to be congratulated on his courage in refusing to take the easiest course and...

Ministers of the United Kingdom and Ministers of Eire formally concludes a disastrous chapter in Anglo-Irish history and initiates a new one of substantial promise. To the...

; that he is so fat that he seems to have difficulty in bringing his hands together when dapping is due to war-wounds, not to self - indulgence." — Mai or Yeats-Brown, in The...

schools reported at the Baptist Union meetings this week (Baptists 16,000 fewer in the year, Congregationalists 23,000, Methodists 66,000, Anglicans 82,000) is a serious matter...

new Nuffield College at Oxford is to be Mr. H. B. Butler, Director of the International Labour Office, is true, as no doubt it is, both the loss to Geneva and the gain to Oxford...

been divined from internal evidence) I quoted a couplet of Tennyson's not precisely as Tennyson wrote it. What he did write was : LG • • bright and fierce and fickle is the...

opinion that Mr. Wyndham Lewis is "the best portrait painter ever." But people like Rembrandt and Velasquez must be considered quite good runners-up. * * * *

Valera's re'gime in Eire is the choice of Dr. Douglas Hyde as the first President of Eire and Mr. de Valera's personal nominations to the new Senate. Dr. Hyde is, of course, the...

the West Indies of reckoning all prices in dollars and cents instead of the official sterling currency, Major-General Lethbridge Alexander, who has just come back from St....

M R. WYNDHAM LEWIS' portrait of Mr. T. S. Eliot is creating more of a stir than it really deserves. The artist will certainly revel in the publicity ; Mr. Augustus John will...

By H. POWYS GREENWOOD T HE Austrian plebiscite—to touch briefly, for the sake of completeness, on what is, of course, old history by this time—was really rather a humdrum...

By E. L. WOODWARD T HE course of events since the breakdown of the Disarmament Conference is too recent to need recapitulation in detail. The dominant fact has been the...

By WINIFRED GALBRAITH W HAT would you do if, up for your first term at Cam- bridge, you heard 1 hat an invading army had taken London, destroyed your home on, say, Streatham...

By NIGEL HARVEY T HERE are on the roads of Great Britain today some thirteen thousand tramps, of whom about a third are pathological to one degree or another. In other words,...

By H. ROSINSKI W HILE the fundamental aspects and the aims of aerial warfare are simple an . 4:1 obvious, the means both for their achievement and for the frustration of aerial...

By GERALD HANLEY O NE day he mounted his chestnut mare and rode off into the bush. It was midday and very hot, and when he glanced up lazily at the sky, he saw strange birds...

CAN I BE A CHRISTIAN ?-VII [The writer is a member of a Cambridge women's college] A LTHOUGH I recognise myself to be insufficiently equipped for such a task, being a very...

ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS IN TUNIS By ELIZABETH MONROE ON April 9th serious rioting in Tunis caused the death of a French policeman, and led to the proclamation of martial law....

THE THEATRE "Elizabeth: La Femme Sans Homme." Adapted into English by Yvette Pienne from the French of Andre Josset. At the Theatre Royal, Haymarket LIKE everyone who writes...

• • illuebeard's Eighth Wife." At the Plaza THE somewhat pedestrian attempts at naughtiness which marred Angel led one to suppose that Ernst Lubitsch, with some fifty and more...

[Von einem deutschen Korrespondenten] GUT Ding will Weile haben. Das sagte sich auch Fraulein Leni Riefenstahl, die fesche Freundin des Fiihrers, deren Filme sich in Deutschland...

ON Monday night Covent Garden opens its doors for another grand season with a performance of Die Tauberflote, as the wits now call it. Last year, it will be remembered, a...

Diary Records The country diaries this spring have a rare number of "best-on-records." For example : One of my neighbours —and the garden is well north of London—cut asparagus...

the birds were not so late after all. A cuckoo was heard and seen in Surrey on April 4th. It was not heard again till the 21st, a surprising period of silence. The explanation...

It is not often perhaps that any of us regret the death of a wild rabbit ; and of late the agricultural economists have united to urge the ideal of a rabbit-less countryside....

That favourite bourne of holiday makers, the Whipsnade Zoo, is as well worth a visit for the scenery as for the animals. The wide view reaching to Oxford, the comely lines of...

My garden and paddock have been frequented for many months by a weasel, which had been allowed the free-play of life. It was shot the other day at the boundary for the reason...

flowers is so great in these days that it is seldom possible, or wise, to say which is the best. We can give only our individual preferences. Among daffodils recently produced...

to feed our garden birds in spring-time ? An answer to such a question is needed. Birds are never so hungry as in very early spring. Among the duck it is a common fatality that...

Sta,—I have read the letter of Viscount Charlemont, late Minister for Education in Northern Ireland, in your issue of April 22nd, with interest. Whatever his system may be in...

[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...

[To the Editor of THE SpEcrAroll] Sin, — I find, as a general rule, that if I criticise the Anglo- Italian agreement to a supporter of the Government the only reply I get is the...

SIR,—I share the angel's fear of butting in—but how does Mr. E. C. Ferguson reconcile his statement that "in England, Roman Catholics get no Government assistance towards the...

letter of mine under the heading "How Vienna Went Nazi" which you published in your issue of April 15th, I find that an unfortunate misprint has occurred. The first sentence of...

• [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Mr. Crossman, writing in your issue of April 15th, 3 bjects to what he calls my attitude of superiority towards a form of government...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR' SIR,—I am really surprised that the Press Attachi: of the Hungarian Legation should reopen in your columns the ques- tion of educational...

[To the Editor of Tint SPECTATOR] SIR,—While expressing my grateful admiration for Mr. Woodward's article in your issue of April 22nd, I should like to question his contention...

Alfred Zimmern, to which Mr• Laszlo Sima takes exception, that 25 years ago the children in Slovakia "were brought up as Magyars" can bc shown to be strictly true by the mere...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Those who, like Dr. Meyrick Booth, advocate so strongly compliance with the colonial demands of the Reich, base their arguments on moral...

SPECTATOR] SIR,—I am sorry Mrs. Richey is shocked, but I really do not think I can plead guilty. For she is shocked by my "facile conception of Democracy and Dictatorship as...

the pitting of faith against mind as a religious energy, one objector sought to withdraw by subterfuge, while the other owned the impeachment but cited Scripture in his favour....

Sat,—" Janus" in your last week's issue quotes me as saying at the Young Liberal Conference, "The country is ripe for a complete political landslide that will drive the National...

PAGE Studies in Humanism (John Sparrow) .. . . 754 Odo Russell and Bismarck (Lord Rennell) 756 The English Prison (Christopher Hobhouse) 758 But We Shall Rise Again (Honor...

Ambassador to Bismarck. Lord Odo Russell. By Winifred Taffs. (Muller. 155.) STUDENTS of European history in the second half of the last century will welcome a volume which...

IN January, 1936, Mr. H. W. Wicks was convicted at the Old Bailey of a criminal libel and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. The subsequent dismissal of his appeal was...

"We bear the wrong in silence, We store it in our brain. They think us dull, they think us dead, But we shall rise again . . ." So sang Ernest Jones, the Chartist poet, and in...

THREATENED men proverbially live long, and Lord Darling, like that very dissimilar lawyer, Sir Stafford Cripps, passed from a delicate boyhood to an active and distinguished...

The New Abyssinia. By Major E. W. Poison Newman. (Rich and Cowan. 15s.) THE chief interest in Major Polson Newman's journey through Italian East Africa in the spring of 1937...

As Much As I Dare. The autobiography of Faith Compton Mackenzie. (Collins. 125. 6d.) To assess with any justice the comparative merits of five books as diversified from each...

A DISTINCTION is often made between those poets whose poetry is their central work and those with whom it is a by-product. Dr. Gogarty, full though his life has been, does not...

Pray for the Wanderer. By Kate O'Brien. (Heinemann. 7$. 6d.' ENGLISH visitors to Ireland, English readers of Irish novels. English audiences at Irish plays and, in particular,...

British Consul. By Ernest Hambloch. (Harrap. los. Ed.) IF Mx. Hambloch had confined himself to reminiscences of awkward corners negotiated and important people met, this book...

By FORREST REID Tins week's batch of novels is not a remarkable one. I have selected four, but I know I shall never want to re-read any of them. Rossetti declared that poetry...

DOM PEDRO, THE MAGNANIMOUS By Mary Wilhelmine Williams Probably few people remember that an Emperor was reigning in Brazil half 'a century ago. Miss Williams, in the 'first...

OF BORSTAL Compiled by Shane Leslie To those—and they are many—who think of prison-reform as a battle between the humanitarian freelance and the reactionary official, this...

In the opening pages of this new life of Caesar (Williams and Norgate, 15s.) Mr. Pratt shows himself all too anxious to interest American readers by likening the party struggles...

Miss Board's new book, like her previous one, will please the tourist agencies. Newsgirl in Egypt (Michael Joseph, 12s. 6d.) is little more than a brochure enlarged to book size...

By H. F. Angus This useful little work (Oxford Uni- versity Press, 6s.) is not so much an independent study as a survey of the Work of the Institute of Pacific Relations in its...

Mr. Willis, like many another, could not settle down to a quiet life after the War. He had the traveller's urge and the writer's itch, and in Restless Quest (Hurst and Blackett,...

Although its title is perhaps too positive in its implications ' this book (Chapman and Hall, 75. 6d.) is a quite serious, and very ably documented, appeal for the study of the...

This is the biography (Methuen, 12S. 6d.) of the steam barquentine 'Bear,' thr sixty years engaged in work in Polar seas. It is primarily of interest to those who sail, but the...

NORTH WALES To those who do not intend to go abroad this year, but want a quiet, yet delightful holiday, North Wales has much to offer. The scenery is on a scale. which is...

By CUSTOS IN finance as in art there is strength in simplicity, and frankly I feel that Sir John Simon's Budget has much to commend it from this standpoint. Here was a gap of...

Even Lord McGowan's bitterest critics will not deny the skill and strength of his counter-attack at the Imperial Chemical Industries meeting. This was a fighting speech which...

While I must confess to mild disappointment at the divide lad decision of Goode, Durrant and Murray, the Austral.-n warehousemen and merchants, I am still favourably impres- by...

IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES LORD McGOWAN'S REVIEW THE eleventh annual general meeting of Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, was held on April 2ISt at Queen's Hall, London,...

Admittedly, the lower prices now prevailing for these com- modities will be reflected in next year's profits, but, even so, the companies should be able to earn their preference...

CUNARD STEAMSHIP COMPANY INCREASED TRADING: FUTURE BUILDING POLICY THE sixty-first ordinary general meeting of the Cunard Steamship Company was held at Cunard Building,...

The case for holding proved gold-mining shares is so good that it is a pity to adorn it, as Throgmorton Street is so fond of doing, with fanciful pictures of gold rising to £8...

THE UNION-CASTLE MAIL STEAM- SHIP COM PANY DIVIDEND IN SIGHT FOR ORDINARY STOCKHOLDERS MR. ROBERTSON F. GIBS'S STATEMENT THE meeting of the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Co.,...

and Holt debenture stock has slithered from £44 to £40, a consequence, I imagine, of the success in the Court of Appeal of the White Star Line against the liquidator of the old...

APRIL UNEMPLOYMENT. . HE April unemployment figures are once again incon- i , usive evidence of the industrial trend. The decline of 1,217 ' 1 3747,764 in unemployment is in...

THE LONDON ASSURANCE A NOTABLE YEAR THE annual general Court of the London Assurance was held on April 27th in London. Mr. R. Olaf Hambro (the Governor) said that the year...

his risks in the gold- mining market I can think of no better purchase than the 5s. shares of Rand Mines, the Johannesburg partner of the Central Mining and Investment Company....

The chairmen of two of this country's leading steamship companies have this week surveyed the prospects for 1933 with some measure of hopefulness. Sir Percy Bates, chairman of...

Many companies associated with the Unilever combine have this year shown a rising trend of profits with higher dividend distributions, so that it was not altogether surprising...

Mr. Robertson F. Gibb, the chairman of the Union-Cast: . Mail Steamship Company, takes a rather different view aboc.: (Continued on page 785) FINANCIAL NOTES (Continued from...

A GENERAL COURT of the Governors and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's Bay was held on April 26th in London. Mr. P. Ashley Cooper (the governor) said that...

ROYAL EXCHANGE ASSURANCE PREMIUM INCOME EXCEEDS £10,000,000 THE two hundredth and eighteenth annual general Court of the Royal Exchange Assurance was held on April 27th at the...

RAND MINES LIMITED YEAR OF PROSPERITY DESPITE DIFFICULTIES DIVIDEND OF 160 PER CENT. MR. W. H. A. LAWRENCE ON THE LABOUR POSITION THE annual meeting of Rand Mines, Ltd., was...

CROWN MINES LIMITED DIVIDEND DISTRIBUTION MAINTAINED RECORD WORKING REVENUE MR. W. H. A. LAWRENCE ON DEVELOPMENT OPERATIONS THE annual meeting of Crown Mines, Limited, was...

THE ROYAL LONDON MUTUAL INSURANCE SOCIETY, LTD. THE seventy-seventh annual general meeting of the Royal London Mutual Insurance Society, Limited, was held on Tuesday last at...

within General Franco's territory, reports a dismal result from its Spanish interests.. Fortunately, the company has mom prosperous investments in the Rhodesian copper industry...

operations of the Hudson's Bay Company was fascinating and even romantic. At Tuesday's meeting he took the proprietors over the ground of the company's trading posts in arctic...

Higher motor insurance premiums were foreshadowed at Wednesday's meeting of the London Assurance by the Governor Mr. R. Olaf Hambro. He explained that as a result of the Rose v....

Scottish Industrial Estates was formed in January, 1937, under the auspices of the Commissioners for Special Areas, and only obtained possession of its site in June. Until then...

gold mining com- panies associated with the Central Mining-Rand Mines management has been holding annual meetings in Johannesburg during the past week. The speeches which have...

Mr. Lawrence also presided, in the absence of Mr. John Martin, at the annual meeting of Crown Mines. He reminded the shareholders that the bulk of the ore at present crushed...

DURBAN ROODEPOORT DEEP MR. W. H. A. LAWRENCE ON DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS THE annual meeting of Durban Roodepoort Deep, Limited, was held on April 20th, in Johannesburg. Mr. W. H....

At the meeting of Durban Roodepoort Deep Mr. W. H. A. Lawrence explained that the reduction of Is. 'rd. per ton in the working costs had made it possible to include a...

Mr. Vivian Hugh Smith provided the shareholders of the Royal Exchange Assurance with a detailed account of the arrangement whereby their Company will in future work its Marine...

A feature of the accounts of the leading insurance companies this year has been the fact that they have come through the Stock Exchange recession of 1937 with their investment...

CID1 El V I L SIDIUI 6111 1 r Al AI P A 1 11E1 SIH1 R111 S1 S SI Y Al LIN I I 1 Al P SIM El El P 51K NI PIGI 0 Al El SI 1,11 LYIG Wl E1 R N 01 T1 I 1 C E :01 RID/ T DI AIM'...

BY ZENO (.4 prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct 'elution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be...