NEWS OF THE WEEK A GRICULTURE : The future, II. 130; farmers and floods, 322; frost, flood and food, 355 ; farmers' great task ... ... 483 Air : Disasters in air travel, 66;...

When M. Blum broke a deadlock by presenting France with a Cabinet drawn entirely from the Socialist Party he gave as his reason that there was urgent work to be done. It has...

conclusion of a definite treaty with our I major ex-enemy, Germany, and, incidentally, but most important, with our only technical ex-enemy, Austria, it will establish a very...

It is understood that among the many tasks that are engaging Mr. Bevin's attention, he is giving major consideration to the Palestine problem. There is none that is more urgent....

Even Americans do not willingly prophesy what will happen when a new Congress assembles, and since the eightieth Congress of the United States will have Republican majorities in...

With Russia and Poland abstaining from the vote the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission this week approved the amended American proposals for the control of atomic energy,...

The treaty negotiations with Egypt are to all appearance making no headway, and it is a good thing Mr. Bevin is back to handle them in their present difficult phase. The...

The attitude of the government to the closed shop issue is so obscure that the smallest ray of light on it is welcome. The Minister of Labour in the House of Commons and the...

I T is recorded that, when the Coal Industry Nationalisation Bill received its third reading, the Labour Members of the House of Commons, numbers of them ex-miners, celebrated...

T HE New Year Honours seem to call for no special comment. Many worthy persons have got the recognition -which they deserve, and perhaps desired. Others, equally, worthy, have...

pedestal where Eros used to be, and down Whitehall and see the pedestal where Charles I used to be, I brood on the sinister influences that are depriving London of two of its...

a week or two ago about Mr. Gladstone, C.B. and a Latin quotation, I made the mistake of telling the thing as it was told to me, overlooking an obvious slip in it. 'There was...

recent decision of the House of Lords that they may stray on the highway as mnch as they choose. Someone sends me particulars of a case in which a Hull firm was mukted (not very...

Moscow is'cry good news. It is the kind of. visit that may have lasting results. For it is a mission that has no purpose except good will ; missions that have definite purposes...

Mr. Churchill on a United States of Europe aroused general and inevitable interest, which the first article when it appeared abun- dantly justified. The writer, as might be...

record of a Cabinet meeting in 1925: "I had noticed - once or twice that S.B. didn't seem to be attend- ing to me, and presently he passed an open note across the table to...

By GODFREY NICHOLSON, M.P. T HERE are times when it is right and wise to ignore difficulties, just as there are those when it is criminal not to face them in all their...

By ALEXANDER PATERSON W HEN a man in London or the surrounding area has been arrested and brought before a Bench of Justices, they will, if they are satisfied that there is...

By CLIVE TURNBULL Melbourne. W ITH the Federal General Election over and the return of the Chifley Government with a large but reduced majority— the expected...

By SIR STEPHEN TALLENTS " TT is easier to write poetry that is far away from life, but it is I infinitely more exciting to write the poetry of life—and it is what the whole...

By J. VIJAYATUNGA T HERE are cool mornings when a particular patch of sky I have made my own takes on a fleeting likeness to those never- monotonous skies over the Pyrenees. We...

By M. H. MIDDLETON I I' is worth a retrospective glance, this first year of peace, which entered on the crest of so excellent a jest as the formation (who has heard of it...

. The answers to the questions set in THE SPECTATOR of Decem- ber 27th are CIS follows: Politics and History. (a) Sir Edward Grey ; (b) Lord Nelson ; (c) J. A. Froude ; (d)...

NICOLSON By HAROLD I try to recapture the mood of 1917. In the autumn of that year I was attached to Sir Mark Sykes, who occupied a somewhat indeter- minate position as adviser...

The New Year DURING 1946 both the United States and the Soviet Union dropped well behind in the production of first-class films, and the field is now led by France 'and...

THE THEATRE "Antony and Cleopatra." By William Shakespeare. (Piccadilly) IT is impossible not to admire (among many other things) the objectivity with which Shakespeare...

MUSICAL taste varies in each person, I suppose, with a whole eries of unpredictable and virtually unknowable factors ; temperament or "complexion," state of health, mental...

and crooner had offered us the season's greetings in exactly the same phrases we were quite sure that it was Christmas Day at Broadcasting House. Perhaps the only greeting of...

cutting's long wave of grass and earth, removed completely by a window's fractional displacement and the locomotive's endless moment that closes like a wall now in the...

article on German prisoners of war, which is entirely justified. In paiticular, the system of "screening," as therein accurately described, is cool- pletely indefensible. 'It...

SIR, —I am grateful to Mr. Harold Nicolson for summarising so fairly my suggestions for immediate Fdreign Office reform. The article in which they were contained was written...

GERMAN P.O.W.s Sts,—As a prisoner of war in this country, I wish to thank Mrs. Dorothy F. Buxton most heartily for her courageous article, Friends or Enemies? in your 'issue...

two and a-half years behind barbed wire, I can underline most of everything what Dorothy F. Buxton wrote. Will you kindly give me the permission to correct and add some points...

SIR,—It was very gratifying to see Strix taking up the cudgels of the disabled ex-Serviceman. Although doubling the basic rate would un- doubtedly alleviate much distress, I...

Sut,—We are somewhat puzzled about the Government's policy with regard to foreigners entering this country. We both worked in Belsen concentration camp for over a year doing...

colleague, Mr. Crossman, for the further reform of the Foreign" Service, and -many of Mr. Nicolson's observations in "Marginal Comment" seem to me to be just. But there is one...

Sta,—As a worker trying to promote the basic principles underlying the Charter of U.N.O., U.N.E.S.C.O. and similar organisations, I feel some- what stunned by the statement of...

Sta,—The breakdown of food-distribution, the failure to house the civilian population on any adequate scale. and the paralysis of industry in our zone of Germany are now well...

Sm,—Though without those "lavish works of reference" which Mr. Harold Nicolson so lovingly describes and, I hope, possesses, I venture to enter his labyrinth of strange word...

Sm,—We have read with interest and not without appreciation the artide entitled "Out of Tauchnitz," by H. G. Daniels, in your number of December 20th. We should, nevertheless,...

Su,—Sir William Beach Thomas's reference to a landowner looking upon berried hollies as a source of revenue at Christmas-time is sur- prising and unwelcome. Holly trees...

Are birds more intelligent in Ireland than in England, as they are, in my small experience, tamer? I am credibly informed that when the telephone was first installed in Galway...

bird-table into prominence, and I would make a plea for other birds than the tits. They are the gayest and most amusing to watch ; but what with nesting-boxes and suspended fat...

The destruction of a pergola by wind and the rotting of posts has left me with a number of climbers—roses, wistaria, lyceum chinense, golden hop, clematis and red honeysuckle....

well as newspaper—has attacked the County, once War, Agricultural Committees, for high-handed and ignorant interference with farmers who knew better. I do not propose either...

SIR,—Sir William Beach Thomas mentions in The Spectator of December 20 that he has never yet found an apple seedling. The disused railway from Crotty to Kelly Basin, in...

Art and Philosophy Philosophical Incursions Into English Literature. By John Laird. (Cambridge University Press. 12s. 6d.) Jun as a man of letters is bound to treat philosophy...

The Hooded Hawk, or The Case of Mr. Boswell. By D. B. Wyndham Lewis. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 12s. 6d.) B 0 S WELL is generally analysed under one or the other of at least four...

The Primrose Path, A Biography of Ferdinand Lassalle. By . RECENT vazaries of the Eastern European and North American minds, really make it quite pleasant, by contrast, - to...

Newfoundland: Economic, Diplomatic and Strategic Studio:* Edited by R. A. Mackay, under the auspices of The Royal Institutenf " International Affairs. (Oxford University Press....

Greek Studies. By Gilbert Murray. (Clarendon Press. 12s. 6d.) DR. MURRAY'S new collection of addresses is a good book for any- one who is inclined to regard classical research....

THREE of our most distinguished poets today, one of them a veteran and assured of immortality (that is a safe prophecy), publish simul- taneously books of poems whose ineffable...

Pleasant Valley. By Louis Bromfield. (Cassell. 10s. 6d.) WHEN, after Munich, war seemed likely, and Mr. Louis Bromfield returned from France to his native Ohio and bought...

Tour of Duty. By Sir Stewart Symes. (Collins. 12s. 6d.) Barrisx administrators overseas may roughly be divided into two types. There are the " creative " men, exemplified by...

THE lamentable communal rioting in India has bestowed upon Indian Christianity a concealed but an enhanced relevance to the political future of that vast land. Everybody agrees...

Dangling Man. By Saul Be/low. (John Lehmann. 8s. 6d.) Dangling Man, by Saul Bellow, which I commend with enthusiasm to the intelligent, is by no means holiday entertainment for...

Russell's History of Western Philosophy, for which the publishers, Allen and Unwin, *printed 19,030 copies against record—for this type of work—pre-publication orders of...

laws, by I. Rothenberg, will be published by the Staples Press on January 15th. Coming shortly before the sitting of the Royal Com- mission, it should be of particular interest;...

doctors is, by book-trade tradition, destined for success. It has been suggested that the author of a book called Lincoln's Doctor's Dog couldn't prevent himself from writing a...

memoirs of Sir Arthur Harris, who was Commander-in-Chi:2f Bomber Command between the years 1942-1945, and was thus responsible for the formulation and execution of an often...

THE Oxford University Press have in preparation The New Oxford History of Music, which will be issued in eleven volumes under the general direction of an editorial board...

counter a long-standing deficiency in reprints of the classics must be added The Holborn Library and The Cresset Library. The first, published by Harrap at 55. a volume, has...

vocal chairman of Save Europe Now, recently returned from an extensive visit to Germany, where he undertook a one-man survey of affairs in the British zone. His report, as many...

s. Material suggestion of the results of French Press censorship. (6, 5.) 7. -Not so contemptible now, perhaps. (3.) 9. One Met it Out of doors. (3.) to. Such a doe as was...

propunormEran. . SA 'nal MIA p rg 13 El MOO MI 01111313 ofi CCA toN Ailik _ (:) , SE A -rle A ATSFO r ES E Afl e flis . SOLUTION ON JANUARY 17th The winner of Crossword...

By CUSTOS FOR the great majority of investors 1946 must be judged to have been a good year. It was certainly good if one applies the test of capital appreciation. With the...