W HEN the Government's Economic Survey, the main planning document of the year, falls as flat as does the Survey for 1950, some explanation is needed. The Government's...

The Government has suffered an earlier and a heavier defeat than anyone seriously expected. It is not, of course, a resignation matter. The Conservatives are not to be credited...

The effective suppression by the Pakistani authorities in East Bengal of the communal disturbances which flared up in February contrasts unfavourably with the failure of their...

The Minister of Food's use of the word blackmail to describe the Argentine Government's methods of negotiation was justifiable if not tactful. The immediate consequence of his...

There is no sense in keeping the constitution of the Council of Europe exactly as it is now, and it is to be hoped—rather against the bulk of the evidence—that the Committee of...

Nothing Government spokesmen say, and they do little but say the same things over again, is calculated to rally public opinion in support of their action in regard to Seretse...

Circumstances have made it possible slightly to increase the size of the Spectator from today. More space will be given to Letters from Readers, a new feature, " Books and...

sense brought to a head discussions on technological education which have been occupying some space in the columns of The Times of late. The need of industry for the best...

his ears attuned to his varying moods and styles knew within ten minutes of his rising that he was launched on one of his great speeches. Not, it must be admitted, a speech that...

Every day the evidence accumulates that new disturbances at the London Docks are being deliberately prepared. Not one of the excuses being given for an interruption of work will...

Te HE tone of the foreign affairs debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday was set almost exclusively by Mr. Churchill, and a most admirable tone it was. The only defect was...

T HE controversy about Alan Wood's book, The Groundnuts Affair, both in the House of Commons and in the columns of The Times, is getting too complicated for most people to...

a comment on the Lord Mayor's Thanksgiving Fund, that one possible objection to the plan for collegiate hostels in Mecklenburgh Square was that it made for an undue segregation...

of speed's delivered at the recent Soviet Union elections (such as they were) by five leading figures in the Union, I have been interested to observe the various Russian...

the notorious Colonel McCormick. " Mr. Laski died at a very early age," the proprietor of the Chicago Tribune is reported as saying, " in a country with socialised medicine. He...

the popular papers should be scourged it is the space they give to a personage styled by the papers in question Gorgeous Gussie. This lady, I gather, plays tennis on public...

By EMILE CAMMAERTS The members of the Congress could not foresee that a day would come when the King, as Commander-in-Chief, might think it his duty to take a certain course of...

By Professor BARBARA WOOTTON T HE rule that we embark on every war with preparations appropriate to its predecessor is not quite infallible. Forecasts of air raids in the...

By DAVID REES-WILLIAMS* T HE activities of the terrorists in the Federation of Malaya, with the attacks on military and police, the shooting of civilians in cinemas and trains,...

By EDWARD ATIYAH 0 NLY someone who knew the Sudan in the past and revisits it today after a few years' absence can appreciate the measure of its recent progress. True, when one...

By A. K. QUILTER I T is one of the hardships of this life that, when one has sufficient knowledge to enjoy a particular sort of existence, the oppor- tunity has invariably...

Cherry Blossom Election By HUGH GAUNTLETT (Balliol College, Oxford) HEN I came out from voting on February 23rd the sight of a sprig of imprudent pink blossom suddenly recalled...

By HAROLD NICOLSON P ROPAGANDA, as other forms of human excitation and incitation, is subject to the law of diminishing returns. There always comes a stage at which the...

" Summer Interlude." (Sadler's Wells.) MICHAEL SomEs's ballet was warmly acclaimed when it was pre- sented at Sadler's Wells on Tuesday night. The audience was showing its...

THEATRE "Detectiva Story." By Sidney Kingsley. (Princes.) To compare (as I see somebody has done) this American play with the British film called The. Blue Lamp seems to me...

"On the Town." (Empire.)—" Young Man of Music." (Odeon.) —"Appointment with Danger." (Plaza.) On The Town is a musical which makes no. pretensions to be anything else. It has no...

One of the few small indications of recovery from the tyranny of war is the new permission accorded to farmers and landowners to rear pheasants if they want to. Not a very large...

IT may almost be claimed on behalf of the town, or at any rate the suburb, that it is more eloquent of the spring than the country. Whole streets are lined with species of the...

All gardeners are flooded with catalogues, many of them illustrated in most gorgeous colour. One claims that its bulbs and the rest are cheaper because the expense of coloured...

THE bicentenary of the death of J. S. Bach falls in July of this year, but the festival celebrations by the Bach Choir have naturally enough taken the form of performances of...

Those who go down to the seaside in holiday times will not; I fear, find any improvement in the dispersal of oiL The refuse still makes some bathing beaches on the West Coast...

How the denizens of an area vary through the generations! I read this week an appreciation of the Fens by Charles Kingsley who picked out as typical of the district the great...

SUBSCRIPTION RATES Postage on this issue: Inland & Overseas lid.; Canada (Canadian Magazine Post) Id. / / e t wee ` ks f re o 2 7 6 3 10 0 4 2 0 3 0 0 4 2 0 5 0 0 2 12 0...

Set by Guy Kendall MR. HERBERT - READ, in his book on Wordsworth, expresses the opinion that the poet's abrupt flight from France in 1793 was due to the fact that he was in...

A prize of £5 was offered for a poem in twelve lines beginning :- Bravely in my garden grow Drangea (high) and Belie (low) . . . The opening couplet had been flitting about the...

SIR,—As a near neighbour of yours and as administrator of the largest teaching hospital group in London, I cannot let Dr. Piney's cheap sneers in your issue of March 17th at...

SIR,—During our five months' lecture and reading tour in the United States, Sir Osbert Sitwell and I could not, obviously, meet every citizen of that great nation. We were...

Mr. Stassen's Granny SIR,—Sir Heneage Ogilvie, in the Spectator of March 17th, describes an article on the British National Health Service recently published in an American...

" to deprive any churchman of his right of final appeal to the Crown in ecclesiastical causes." It is the nature of the court through which that appeal should be made that is at...

Sta,—Mr. Harold Nicolson was surely hardly fair to the humanity of our great teaching hospitals. I have recently had to spend six weeks in a public ward in a North of England...

wrote to Mr. Harold Nicolson about their hospital experiences after his review of Denton Welch's book raised " the familiar complaint that they are roused from their uncertain...

SIR, —I am sorry that Miss Elizabeth Wiskemann, for whose own writings on pre-war diplomatic history I have elsewhere expressed my unquali- fied respect and admiration, should,...

Stn.—May I suggest that we should be strictly accurate, even when we revive a controversy of nearly a quarter of a century ago ? Certain details appear to have escaped Mr....

SIR,—In your note on the Seretse Khama affair you say that a British Commonwealth that demanded segregation of black and white would have no justification for existing. You seem...

SIR,—In the Spectator of March 17th Mr. H. D. Walston says, amongst other things, that the Socialists nationalised long-distance road transport, not to safeguard the interests...

SIR,—Occasional adverse criticism of one who is on the top of a wave of popularity and success is probably a healthy and salutary thing both for the man himself and for his...

SIR,—As reported in The Times of March 20th, the Dean of Winchester is, it seems, of the opinion that the State might fairly be asked to help in preserving the fabric of some of...

SIR, —In your notice Roy Hay's Annuals, which we have just published, is described as a " reprint." Experienced gardeners will know that a special- ised book of this nature,...

Sul.—The Hakluyt Society, with the support of the New Zealand Govern- ment, is preparing a complete edition of Captain James Cook's journals of his three great voyages to the...

announced the Ministerial intentions with regard to the future of the Royal Academy, leaving the larger question of a suitable National Gallery unstated. The Royal Academy,...

I N the preface to his new History of England* the Chichele 'Professor of Modern History at Oxford refers to J. R. Green's Short History of the English People, which • first...

Thor Heyerdahl. Translated by F. H. Lyon. (Allen and Unwin. 1 2S. 6d.) FRIDTJOF NANSEN would have greeted the author of this book as a brother. Like the long drift of the Fram '...

Modern Arms and Free Men. By Vannevar Bush. (Heinemann. los. 6d.) THE subject of the next war has been bedevilled by orators. It is going to take years for the ordinary man to...

British Broadcasting : A Study in Monopoly. By R. H. Coase. (Longmans, for The London School of Economics. r 25. 6d.) THE B.B.C. is the most famous broadcasting organisation...

University Slang. By Morris Marples. (Williams & Norgate. ios.) You might have expected " varsity slang "—if you had never been to the university. The " varsity match," yes ;...

Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. By C. P. E. Bach. Translated and edited by William J. Mitchell, (Cassell. 3os.) THIS is the first complete En g lish...

" Qu'est-ce que le moi? le n'en sais rlen. le me suis un Jour reveille sur retie terre ; je me trouve lied un corps, a un caractere, d une fortune. Puis-je m'anzuser vainement a...

HERE are thirty-six short essays presented to Professor Tinker, who retired from teachin g at Yale in 1945. Inspired by his exemplary scholarship, they are written almost...

A Voice Through a Cloud. By Denton Welch. (Lehmann. los. 6d.) published as fiction, but is, in fact, autobiographical. .Thirteen years before his death Denton Welch had left...

Florentine Art Under Fire. By Frederick Hartt.. (Princeton University Press : Oxford University Press. 365.) THE most remarkable fact that must, I think, strike everybody who...

for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct 5iiution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, ,gl ril 11th. Envelopes must be...

winner of Crossword No. 573 is Edward Graham Guest, Esq., Newbattle Terrace, Edinburgh.

By CUSTOS IN face of a Budget which, at best, seems likely to be only slightly less disinflationary than its predecessor it was not to be expected that the latest Economic...