us the stories of fierce I. intensive battles at sea, in which surface vessels and air- craft have both played epic parts in engagements which must affect the whole course of...

A S the epic struggle in Crete sways on through its second Week the almost insuperable handicap imposed on the defenders by the lack of fighter-planes (apart from a few long-...

The rebellion in Iraq has not gone according to the German plan, partly because the Germans themselves, delayed first in Greece and now in Crete, have not been able to keep to...

The people of France who listened to Admiral Darlan's broadcast last Friday found little enlightenment about the advantages derived from his conversations and agreement with...

A large number, probably the great majority, of French soldiers and officials in Syria view with intense disgust the hilmiliating surrender of Syrian aerodromes to German...

On his return from a world-tour of supreme importance the Australian Prime Minister appears to have made a profound effect on the audience which heard his stirring speech at...

Expenditure has come out with a most timely report on (among other things) the better organisation of the civil defence services. True to its terms of reference, it approaches...

Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : The big events move so quickly that Parliament can scarcely comprehend them. Hess, Vichy, Crete, ' Bismarck,' Roosevelt : each deserves...

deeply concerned with the Home Front. Once again a report from the Select Committee on National Expenditure has stirred up a problem of first magnitude, Civil Defence. The House...

Attention is called to another matter of the utmost urgency by the Select Committee on National Expenditure in its report on conditions in aircraft-factories. It points out that...

questions unanswered in the public mind. The speeches of Mr. Clement Davies and Sir John Wardlaw Milne, on the Finance Bill, suggested that the country was not yet mobilised for...

health and welfare—and we can do both by more resolute effort—we must also see that our propaganda machine is overhauled, both at home and overseas. This is an essential...

The Prime Minister's announcement that conscription is not to be applied to Northern Ireland will be received with universal relief everywhere outside Ulster, and by a sub-...

T HE basic theme of what is rather singularly called President Roosevelt's fireside talk—actually one of the most momentous utterances ever made by an American statesman—was...

a Field-Marshal in the British Army has, I see, revived the story, which is perhaps not as generally familiar as I thought it was, of the incident at the Conference of...

immobilisation of cars in case of invasion. "The distribution head, magneto or fuel-injection pump," it says, " should be smashed with a hammer, and high-tension leads removed,"...

and until there are new facts to base it on that is just as well. But there is one point on which obscurity might be cleared up with advantage. It was freely asserted when Hess...

Miss (I presume her to be Miss) Evelyn Turner, who was Chief Escort for the British children who crossed the Atlantic in the ' Samaria' as the guests of American families, to...

before his arrival by air? Did he address a letter to Lord Clydesdale, or the Duke of Hamilton, as he became in 194o? Sir Archibald Sinclair, in the House of Commons last week,...

A PART from the obvious lessons to be drawn from the battle in the North Atlantic, two or three points of secondary interest emerge. As to whether the distressing loss of the '...

THE LESSONS OF CRETE By STRATEGICUS I T is not wholly fanciful to detect in the events of the last ten days a new and important factor. This may be described as an added...

13y THOMAS LODGE N O one who had any part in the work of reconstruction, national and international, after the last war will be inclined to under-rate the magnitude of the...

By DAVID THOMSON [The existence of a plan for the permanent annexation by Germany of a large portion of North and East France has been announced this week] I N the middle of...

By J. L. HODSON T HE first stage in what is a very interesting—and may prove an important—development in Ang,o-ludian co- operation in this war can be observed in a...

By OLIVER WARNER L AST Saturday—appropriately enough on Empire Day—two resounding teams met at Lord's for the biggest, if not the first, match of the season. Sir Pelham...

By E. L. WOODWARD H E has no pants, No socks, No money, No method. This short poem was composed, or at all events chanted, by a Chinese houseboy. I find it a satisfactory poem...

THIS is the day, the cock has crowed the passing of dreams, the death-cold dawn, the setting of the star of Bethlehem behind a brow of stone. This is the day the cock crows in,...

" Married Adventure." At the London Pavilion.—" March of Time." At the Gaumont. WHEN the objective is fact rather than fiction it can often be better attained by one man and...

" Up and Doing." At the Saville Theatre. THE productions bombed out of London last 'autumn are return- ing like homing birds (Mr. Firth Shephard's nest at the Saville has been...

After the Queen's Hall THE destruction of Queen's Hall deprives London of the only building it possessed that was really adequate for orchestral concerts. Other halls there...

WHOM ARE WE FIGHTING ? SIR,—You have performed a very great service by raising once again the question " Whom are we Fighting?" and as a German who has been fortunate enough...

SIR,—We often see it stated that we are fighting for the defence of Christian civilisation ; but it seems to me that the meaning of the phrase needs to be brought home to the...

a useful purpose in clarifying thought on the problems victory will bring. Germany presents a psychological problem, and its solution must be psychological. You warn us against...

Sin,—When the President of the Board of Education is formulating his plans for educational advance, I hope that he will give his atten- tion to the fate of many of the most...

StR,—To answer fully the comments made in last week's Spectator on my Contemporary Review article—which was the mere suggestion of a forthcoming book—would require very...

Sra,—" Acting Unpaid Lance-Corporal " is perturbed because muni- tion workers are earning £7 to Do per week. I would call his attention to the following facts : 1. Earnings...

Sni,—Your correspondent, Mr. J. L. Hodson, appears to take himself very seriously as a critic of our national war effort. He asks us to believe that not merely something, but...

Sut,—Mr. F. E. Seely has expressed what many of us in the A.R.P. service have been feeling for a long time but have not had the courage to express. Like him, I am one who...

Germany After the War," I find a letter by Mr. W. H. Dawson, author of a much- remarked article in the Contemporary Review, answering a critic. I do not wish to enter into the...

31st„ " Janus " quotes a letter about Fiji which is a travesty of the facts. I do not wish to occupy your time by describing the usual types of dress worn by Fijians; it will...

Sett,—Is it too much to hope that the new National Fire Service will lead to a rajaid development of local government on regional lines? Half our administration-difficulties...

Sur,—I t is apparent that your lay correspondents who are contribu- ting to the discussion on " Young Offenders " have not taken the trouble to make even a casual acquaintance...

Sin—There can be no disputing the fact that anti-vivisection societies are " good charities " to the extent that (to quote Mr. Rodenhurst's words) their activities " include...

Hill's letter in your issue of April 25th, and hope it is not too late for me to point out that while it is true that every consistent anti-vivisectionist must oppose medical...

interested in mis-shapen and ill-constructed omnibus words, may I draw his attention to the fact that in official Ministry of Health circulars, air-raid casualties who have to...

SIR,—The perversions a simple statement of fact can undergo by the time it reaches the " I am told " stage pass belief. Here is a sentence from a letter addressed to the...

Clearly herb-collecting is a case for communal organisation. Women's Institute branches are obviously just the thing; schools under efficient guidance, could do a great deal....

comment on some remarks in " A Spec- tator's Notebook " in your May 2nd issue? They occurred in a review of The Rationalist Annual for 1941, your contributor drawing attention...

interest is a booklet. It is im- possible to think of any potential herb-collector getting along five minutes without it and I should recommend any interested reader to send for...

Herb -Collecting When I first introduced the subject of medicinal-herb collecting last year, quoting what seemed to be the fantastic prices which the wholesalers were then...

be remembered that almost the entire source of pre-war supply from the European Continent has long since been cut off) it seems worth while examin- ing the possibilities of...

Out of the Night. By Jan Valtin. (Heinemann. t5s.) THIS book is news. In America it has already sold 350,000 copies, beating even Hemingway's new novel. The question of its...

A Great Interpreter NOTHING could be more opportune than the appearance of this volume in a week which has seen Lord Lothian's warnings of the naval danger to the United States...

Defeating the Bomber. By H. E. Wimperis. (Dent. is.) Our Ocean Lifeline. By Commander D. S. E. Thompson, R.N. (Dent. is.) IT is interesting, important and chastening to read a...

SIR RICHARD LIVINGSTONE'S little book is, perhaps, unfortunately named. The reader, finding it in a series entitled " Current Problems," might expect it to contain a discussion...

Five and Ten ; The Fabulous Life of F. W. Woolworth. By John K. Winkler. (Robert Hale. I25. 6d.) THE rise of Woolworth has overawed Mr. Winkler, so that his book is a rather...

The Jacobean and Caroline Stage.- By Gerald Eades Bentley (Clarendon Press. 2 vols 42S.) IN two admirably arranged volumes, Mr. Bentley fills the gap between the work of Sir...

Judgment Reserved. By the Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Slesser. (Hutchinson. 18s.) Tins is one of those all too numerous books which, if it is not harsh to say so, might be much better...

all that concerns the sun except two things—its birth and its death—and it is these exceptions that Professor Gamow has chosen as the ostensible subject of his very...

I AM unable to arrange these four books in any order of merit. By ordinary rules, Mr. Freeman is the best novelist in the list, but I find him dull ; Miss Mack tells a tolerable...

Britain and Europe 1900-1940. By Douglas Jerrold. (Collins. 7s. 6d.) IT would be useful to analyse the assumptions of British foreign policy, or even to state clearly what they...

12s. 6d.) WHIMSICAL, wordy, sentimental in a large blowsy way, another big chunk of autobiography follows Miss Stern's Monogram. If one can talk about form at all in relation...

NORWICH UNION LIFE INSURANCE SOCIETY RECORD VALUATION SURPLUS Tan 133rd annual general meeting of the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society was held on May 27th at Norwich....

ALLIANCE ASSURANCE COMPANY SATISFACTORY RESULTS DESPITE DIFFICULTIES THE annual general court of the Alliance Assurance Company, Limited, was held on May 28th in London. Mr....

THAT Persia exercises a nostalgic influence on al Europeans who have lived in it is well known. Mr. Harold Nicolson, for instance, has expressed sentiments about the land in...

THIS short book, rich in quotations from the Elizabethans, and from Dryden, Burns, Johnson, Mozart, Valery and, above all, W. B. Yeats, is a plea for an art of song in which...

6d.) MR. VALE has collected, possibly with more industry than dis- crimination, a large number of curiosities—some trivial or over- familiar (ducking-stools, the Panyer Alley...

By CUSTOS IF there are still some cynics left who distrust the stability of the war-time yield basis in the gilt-edged market they are having a succession of nasty shocks. Hot...

=S. 6d.) MR. PoLoraus, a -Polish teacher in an English University, went home for his usual holiday early in August, 1939. He describes very clearly his personal experiences...

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 with the words...

SOLUTION ON JUNE 13th The winner of Crossword No. 114 is the Rev. W. H.- Spencer, Ecclesbourne Avenue, Duffield, Derby.