N EXT Wednesday, when the new West German Parliament meets for the first time at Bonn—ten years to a week Since Germany plunged the world in war—will be a momentous day in...

Apart from its incredible length and its intolerable tone the further Note addressed by Moscow to Belgrade on Monday contains nothing new that is important and nothing important...

A year ago the suggestion that this summer would see the Greek army firmly established along the frontiers of Albania and Yugo- slavia would have sounded absurdly optimistic....

In Canton, which offered virtually no opposition to the Japanese in 1938, discretion rather than valour seems once more to be the keynote as the, Communist armies close in from...

One significant fact about the Trades Union Congress which opens at Bridlington cxr Monday, perhaps the most significant, is that it is the last Congress before a General...

, The strictly limited success of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, which has at last succeeded, after much delay and dispute, in agreeing on a division of...

Sir John Russell's presidential address to the British Association ought to be studied in detail by all those citizens of the world who have developed an uneasy fear that this...

This is hardly an opportune moment for the British Transport Commission to publish a scheme for the State acquisition of the passenger road transport undertakings of...

While the T.U.C. is enunciating sound principles, and re-empha- sising them impressively in a fresh statement published on Thursday, one union, the Tobacco Workers', is adopting...

The Association of Cinc-Technicians, which is dissatisfied with the wages paid by the B.B.C. to television camera-men, has attempted to bring to a head the whole question of the...

The Report on Agricultural Services by the Select Committee on Estimates, is both concise and constructive. No working farmer will have been surprised to learn that he and his...

T HE Washington conference on the dollar crisis is 'to last five days. That simple fact must not be forgotten for one moment when the chances of its success or failure are...

was offering respectful congratulations. " I never thought, Sir," he declared with fervour, " that I should live to be working for an

an inch or two about Professors, who according to the dictionary mean holders of chairs at universities. They do exist, and are so described, at university colleges. Should they...

must be admitted, without some reason. Last year the weather was bad, and many guests cut their stay short and went home. This year there has been little wrong with the weather,...

Cram- wellians of today—associated in the Cromwell Society, under the chairmanship of that stalwart Roundhead, Mr. Isaac Foot—gather at the Cromwell statue in, or just off,...

has arisen at Ashridge must clearly be suspended till we get a clearer statement of all the facts than is available yet. A financial problem, no doubt, had to be solved. Costs...

last week had better not have been written. Also, I overestimated the time it would take to decide the championship. All was over by Monday evening, and Middlesex and Yorkshire...

By G. II. CALPIN Durban, August 24th. T HE marriage of Seretse Khama, chief designate of the Bamangwato tribe, to a London typist is bound to have serious repercussions in...

By ROBERT WAITILMAN ELL—won't be long now ! " " What won't be long now ? " Won't be long now before Big Chief Cripps and Big Chief Bevin come rolling into Union Station and...

By DAVID THOMSON• T HE expansion of British universities which has taken place since the end of the war has been officially urged and popularly accepted on a whole sequence...

By SIR HAROLD BUTLER F OR forty-eight hours the first European Assembly postponed the election of its President, because Monsieur Spaak was not yet available. As soon as he had...

By SIR RONALD DAVISON T HE economic machine of Great Britain is out of gear, both externally in world markets and at home. The crisis is upon us and many unpleasant things are...

THE SPECTATOR readers arc urged to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold...

for Paris occurred on Sunday evening, in the Place de la Bourse. Soon after six o'clock, a young and well - dressed Englishman got upon a post with a small pocket Testament in...

By HARLEY WILLIAMS T HE announcement this week that the Ministry of Health has sanctioned the experimental use of the new anti-tuberculosis vaccine known as B.C.G. is an event...

THE PALIO OF SIENA By RAYMOND ULLYATI' (St. Edmund Hall, Oxford) AF TER meeting a Sienese alchemist in Hell, Dante turns to Virgil and asks him if there ever was a people so...

By HAROLD NICOLSON l '1' is a common experience that when the russet harmonies of middle-age turn to shape themselves in expectation of the closing chords of senility, we...

THE THEATRE DURING the last few decades there have been many attempts at establishing a new form of verse drama. Some playwrights have been successful in escaping from the...

THE Glyndebourne Opera's performance of Cosi fan Tuue at Edin- burgh was a triumphant success. It is difficult to compare it mentally with last year's, but I had the impression...

bowled all ends up when it comes to cricket. It really is something to be able to watch great batsmen in close-up in one's drawing-room. The finest television picture of the...

discern a new Variety programme likely to enliven the evenings now drawing in. I have been listening expectantly to Luck's Way, with Miss Ethel Revnell in its series of "...

"The Fountainhead." (Warner.)—" The Blum Affidr." (Academy.) —" The Barkleys of Broadway." (Empire.) The. Fountainhead is a pretentious film with characters who speak in...

Goethe, in honour of the bi-centenary . This series of Goethe programmes during the year would, as they say, fill a book, and indeed has done so. The B.B.C. are now publishing...

we know that summer is fully on the wane. How unhappily, therefore, I greet their reappearance! Yet there are millions who listen to them raptly, whereas for me they carry no...

title of Professor to such as hold one of the higher teaching posts in a recognised university, and there is much to be said for such a restriction. But there is at least one...

SIR,—The writer of the article Farming Revolution in the Spectator of August 12th makes a very true statement when he says that, "The successful farmer is not he who grows the...

SIR,—Being a faithful reader of your paper for mare than twenty years, I was particularly interested in your remarks of August 19th on the vexed problem of dismantling German...

SIR,—In order to make the National Health Service something more than a Disease Service the Ministry could make use of the propaganda method now used by all States for many...

SIR,—Janus, I am not surprised to see (in your issue of August 26th), does not care for inaccuracy of language. What, then, are we to think or Strix (in your issue of August...

HITLER'S FIRST AGGRESSION SIR,—In an article on Hitler's First Aggression in last week's Spectator, Elizabeth Wiskemann says: "Lord Kemsley is credited with having told...

archives of the German Foreign Office to cry, "Oh, Villainy! " in fine, round terms. " Mr. Chamberlain and an unnamed clique, by intrigue and unconstitutional means, encouraged...

the days of the Roman occupation. I hope to learn more about this shortly, for I have just had a letter from a man who lives near Canterbury. He says that he is shortly...

IT is impossible to turn to country matters without showing oneself to be obsessed by the drought, especially if one lives, as I do, in the south-east of England. The dry spell...

plants, setting theml in nicely matured compost, loam. There is nothing more promising titan that squashed-bun tuber lying on top of the deep-brown of the den Soil ; a row of...

want them [poets] 'presented ' to Us ; we can reproduce their melodies for ourselves in our own heads." Unfortunately the majority of people cannot hear poetry in this way—at...

both generally and iit•detail, of nature to that heavy shower on St. Swithin's morning. The-rain came down suddenly, and the valley was filled with great scarves of precipi-...

SIR,—The article which appeared on the Undergraduate Page in your issue of August 19th set forth admirably the difficulties encountered in their studies by external students...

our readers is drawn to the special air transport facilities offered to subscribers of the SPECTATOR overseas. These enable readers in many parts of the world to receive their...

Lawrence's Mantle Eastern Approaches. By Fitzroy Maclean. (Cape. 15s.) MR. CHURCHILL coined the name " Ambassador-leader " for the type of man on whom he expected the mantle...

The Bible: a New Translation in Basic English. (Cambridge University Press. 12s. 6d.) THE New Testament in Basic English has been available to the general public for some...

The Rainbow : A Portrait of John Constable. By Andrew Shirley. (Michael Joseph. 15s.) MR. SHIRLEY has already devoted much of his time to the study of John Constable. He is the...

The Face and Mind of Ireland. By Arland Ussher. (Gollancz. 9s. 6d.) GLANCING backwards, Mr. Ussher confesses that the Ireland he knew in his boyhood was almost too good—or too...

France, 1814-1940. A History. By J. P. T. Bury. (Methuen. 18s.) THERE was room for a new text-book on the history of France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Mr....

THE passion for building all things new is dying and one can take satisfaction in it, for it would be odd indeed if this particular age, which has so many dubious...

Should Women be Priests ? By R. W. Howard. (Basil Blackwell. 2s. 6d.) IN three sermons recently , preached before the University of Oxford, the Master of St. Peter's Hall has...

The Making of Music. By Cedric Cliffe. (Cassell. 12s. 6x1.) THE author's admission in his preface to this book that it is " written by an amateur for amateurs " merely makes...

London's Birds. By R. S. R. Fitter. (Collins. 10s. 6d.) THERE is probably no place in the British Isles where a more systematic study of birds is made than in London, and Mr....

Fontagre. By Jean Orieux. Translated by Naomi Walford. (Lane. 8s. 6d.) The Devil in the Flesh. By Raymond Radiguet. Translated by Kay Boyle. (Grey Walls Press. 8s. 6d.)...

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one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened alter noon on Tuesday week, September 13th. Envelopes must be...

A Beardsley Miscellany. Selected and Edited by R. A. Walker. (Bodley Head. 42s. Edition limited to 500 copies.) " SURELY this must be the last Beardsley book ? " Even his most...

is an undistinguished but agreeable account of the river from its source near Kemble to Tilbury, with historical and descriptive comments on the towns and villages and other...

By CUSTOS IMPORTANT questions of principle affecting the whole investment community are raised in the terms of the capital repayment scheme proposed by the directors of the...