The kind of approach to the Soviet Union which has just been made by seven members of the Society of Friends—the approach which is inspired by good will, invites honest...

T HE Opposition, both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, has spent a good deal of time in trying to discover what are the conditions, if any, in which - the...

Tshekedi Khama has returned to Bechuanaland, but there is no certainty that a kgotla will be held at which the question of his permanent return will be considered, or that if a...

The public was bound to .get impatient sooner or later with the steadily growing preoccupation of the House of Commons with questions of Parliamentary privilege. The sharp words...

It is something of an achievement to have turned the Middle East into a subject for party strife when neither the Government nor the Opposition speak on 'the issues involved in...

The ineradicable distrust with which each delegation regards the other continues to prolong fatiguingly the truce talks at Kaesong. The Communists are holding out for a...

On the first of November last year the Labour-controlled Durham County Council decided that all its employees must be members of the appropriate trade unions and took action to...

The main interest of last Sunday's elections in Israel was to see whether the votes of the new immigrants would upset the general balance (or lack of balance) which had marked...

T HESE lines are written on the eve of Parliament's rising! for the long summer recess. Members of both Houses.' after working for some days like beavers, are preparing their...

HE holiday task with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has sent the Members of Parliament home for ten weeks is a stiff one. Any of them who may at first have been tempted...

knows that it could not, run the country if it did not itself rely extensively on the principle of " tied " cottages. Almost none of its agencies, from the Foreign Office to the...

took his horse out on a recent exercise, which was held in country unsuitable for the vehicle with which the Army pro- vides him. " There may," he told me afterwards, " have...

into the cowman's cottage and then decides to go and work for bigger money in a nearby factory or (as happened the other day to a cowman I khow) wins £50,000 in a football pool,...

town-bred, is well exemplified by the question of " tied " cottages, to which at the week-end 'Dr. Dalton made some characteristically statesmanlike references. The principle...

letter to The Times this week, that passports should have more pages in them. My current one, like its predecessor, is already double-yolked ; that is to say, it consists of two...

T HOUGH it is a pretty good waste of time arguing with the Russians, who only get indignant if you question their assertion that (for instance) black is white, one point in...

National Union of Protestants, I had not realised how many of our troubles were due to the fact that Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Pope in the Vatican...

By D. W. BROGAN T O an old-fashioned diplomat the present controversy over the role of Spain in western defence would seem incom- prehensible. He would see in existence two...

By WALTER TAPLIN T HERE are two ends to the cost of living problem—an income end and an expenses end. But the articles in the " Making Ends Meet " series in the Spectator have...

By ROBERT HUDSON D URING the past week many thousands of people have been introduced through the medium of television to the novel spectacle of women playing cricket. The...

THE crumbling walls receive Their annual renewal, by the sight Of a thousand searching eyes. Cameras flicker: I am pinned Lepidopterous in the arch Of my staircase, and...

By BRUCE RENTON T HE middle-aged gentleman was really an ex-enemy colonel with a false name. The emigre needed some money, told a policeman, and had him arrested. But that...

By LAIN HAMILTON F OR the first hour of the journey there was no talk. It was too early in the morning, too cold and comfortless. ,But at Arrochar, where the train halted...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I T is sad to feel sundered from one's kind. We are assured that laughter can be " infectious," and I certainly recall occasions in my school-days when even...

"No Highway." (Odeon.)---“Stranger on a Train." (Warner.) Red Mountain." (Plaza.) MR. JAMES STEWART never fails to move the heart in some direction or another, and in the...

THEATRE " Intimate Relations." By Jean Cocteau. (Strand.) THERE is not overmuch poisie de thedtre about Cocteau's Les Parents Terribles, but it is a pretty good play...

I DO not owe my earliest musical experiences to the Promenade concerts ; in fact I cannot have attended more than half a dozen in the old Queen's Hall before the war ; and I am...

Ler us first salute the reopening of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, remodelled and enriched, after twelve years of enforced recess. The extraordinary number of Festival...

On the way home, I was as surprised as delighted to see a field of tri-, poded hay. Why the Proctor tripod is not in universal use has long been a mystery to me. It is by far...

I have been trying an experiment with a new cross of the Laxton family—Royalty, a cross between the Cox and the Wise Apple (Couil Pendu Plat), a Russet so called because it does...

PAYING a visit to a remote manor in my neighbourhood, I passed throitgh the patch of new buildings tacked on to my village as to every other. First, the utilitarian new houses...

The manor I was bound for stands at the end of a mile of private road shaded by white poplars and stag-headed elms, and the moat studded with water lilies—moats necklaced nearly...

Rom free ; deceased with the Welfare State. They say he died too soon: he knew he lived too late. J. S. B., .

Set by Colin Shaw A prize of f5, which may be divided, is offered for an extract from a discussion between King Lear" and Lady Capulet on the problems of female education....

Re port by D. R. Peddy A prize was offered for an extract from a B.B.C. broadcast in the series " In the Kitchen" ; the dish described being one of the following : Red Herrings,...

A COWKEEPER and his wife of Liverpool, having circulated statements that Fleet, a " pork" butcher of North Street, used diseased meat for his sausages and other delicacies,...

readers are 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 copies are...

THE EDITOR Conservatism and Liberty SIR, Mr. Homer's promise, or threat, of a strike among the miners if the Conservatives are returned to power, may be no more than a...

SIR,—May I reply to a letter in your issue of July 13th from Mr. A. Sillery ? Mr. Sillery does not mention that he was the Resident Commissioner for the Bechuanaland...

Sta.—Mr. Chuter Ede's acceptance of certain of the recommendations of the report on Punishments in Prisons and Borstal - Institutions is surprising. Whenever there was a clash...

Sut.—A United Nations communique states, with reference to the Korean armistice conference, that "preliminary discussion began immediately after the agreement on the agenda in...

SIR, It is a maxim of the English" courts that a plea of "ignorance of the law cannot be entertained. A citizen must inform himself of such laws as apply to him. Last.week a...

to make a comment which seems to me important. One of the earlier cod , ' tributors referred to the necessity of spending £100 on his wife's abnormal confinement. There is today...

- Sta.—May I be allowed, in the interests of present as well as future historians of English art history, to correct an extraordinary and rash statement in Mr. Derek Hill's...

SIR, —Mr. Derek Ypung's explanation of why I should arrive at Euston from Nottingham is:. of course, eleMentary. Indeed. I can think of only one living man who could not work...

the subject " How to make ends meet" mention one way of doing so—eliminating waste. I find that I waste all sorts or things from the time I got up to the time I go to bed, e.g.,...

Sia,--AIMough I agree with much that A Bank Clerk has to -say in Making'Ends Meet, I should like, as a member of the banking community, to make some protest at the manner-in...

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo. Edited by Piero Sraffa with the collaboration of M. H. Dobb. Volume I, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Volume...

The Hinge of Fate THE least happy thing about Mr. Churchill's fourth volume is its title. " Fate," wrote Emerson, " is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of...

The Technique of Persuasion. By lan Harvey. (Falcon Press. 13s. 6d.) MR. IAN HARVEY is a Conservative Member of Parliament, a director of a leading advertising agency—and a man...

Tim names of the star constellations, with the exception of those in a belt of sky around the south celestial pole, and also the figures commonly associated with them, are of...

THESE are exciting poems, and now that we have at last Professor Mavrogordato's magnificent translation of the whole corpus, only 154 short poems, the Greekless reader may find...

Major Byron : The Incredible Career of a Literary Forger. By Theodore G. Ehrsam. (Murray. ;Ss.) THE discovery of T. J. Wise's literary forgeries caused astonishment because of...

Studies in Milton. By E. M. W. Tillyard. (Chatto & Windus. T OS. 6d.) ANYTHING on Milton written by the Master of Jesus is bound to be fascinating, even though it does not...

A Journey to Florence in 1817. By Harriet Charlotte Beaujolois Campbell. Edited with notes by G. R. de Beer. . (Bles. sos. 6d.) THIS day-to-day account of a family expedition...

The winner of Crossword No. 635 is Miss W. H. MILLER, 57 New Road, Solihull, Warwickshire.

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on, Tuesday week, August 14th, addressed 'Crossword, 99 Gower Street,...

Is THIS WHAT I WANTED ? is an important and extraordinarily interesting book. Mr. Guthrie has taken the two major dilemmas that confront us in England, war and class, and has...

AN interesting little study for someone with time on his hands would be an examination of the fictional plots of detective stories that form the sub-structure to the detection....

Tins useful survey of the events of 1950, running to more than 700 large pages, gives special attention, as was required, to the Communist movement and to China and Korea. There...

Press. 12s. 6d.) SAINT TERESA OF AVILA has made an irresis- tible impact on those who have been seriously attracted to mysticism in the pre- sent century, when the writings of...

By CUSTOS MARKETS are still staggering under Mr. Gaitskell's hammer blow of dividend control. This is at once the most unjust and the most irresponsible attack yet made on the...