p ALESTINE is today the scene or suoject of a double crisis. That is ominously marked in the country itself by the execution of the plans for the evacuation of British women and...

It has always been clear that France will have to play a greater part in the meeting of the four Foreign Ministers in Moscow than she has played at their past meetings. The...

The debate on conditions in Germany in the House bf Commons on Wednesday brought few new facts, and few suggestions at bnce practical and useful, to light. That, no doubt, was...

It is a foregone conclusion that the nationalisation measures which the Government includes on its programme will be passed into law. That being so, the immediate interest of...

The first meetings of the United Nations investigating commission in Athens suggest that the guerilla war has been carried from the northern frontier into the council chamber...

had to close down for lack of fuel may be news in the sense that it makes good headlines, but it was not unexpected. Indeed concentration on the difficulties of a few large...

The treaties of peace with Italy and the four minor German satellites are nearing completion at the same slow pace as they were prepared and constructed. There have been no...

W HETHER it be a tribute to the vitality of Parliament or a symp- tom of the troubled times we live in, one can generally count on Monday's business being preceded by an...

Since the Report of the Preparatory Commission on World Food proposals is a document of ninety-five pages which is perfectly capable of serving as a standard text-book of the...

The final Report of the Denning Committee on Procedure in Matrimonial Causes is a document of great importance, in that it definitely recommends the creation of a semi-official...

B EFORE the end of this month there will be a full-dress debate on foreign affairs in the House of Commons. It is fully due. There are grave problems to be discussed—Germany...

W HAT became almost an informal debate on an issue of real importance blew up unexpectedly at question-time in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Mr. Osborne, the Conservative...

Curtis Report was placed in the hands of the Ministers responsible for the appoint- ment of the Committee, yet the Government has given virtually no indication of its intentions...

available—coupon-free. Here is the story of it: "In 1878 my Father had a tweed suit made in Edinburgh—that was four years before I was born. He wore the suit constantly...

know what rheology is? Neither do I. That is to say, neither .did I. Not that I really understand now, but "the new science," for so it is described in the advertisements of the...

of the wording on the Roll of Honour to be placed in the R.A.F. Chapel in Westminster Abbey. It reads, I gather, "Detailed in this record are those members of the Flying Forces...

of motor-cars. The American Fords announced recently, at a time when every other car-manufacturer is having to raise prices, that the prices of Ford cars would be slightly...

committed itself as long ago as last October, is getting started— rather not getting started—with a series of unimpressive jerks. The Prime Minister is always just going to...

only surviving son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilson, of Tranby Croft, Hull," strikes a suggestive note. The great Tranby Croft baccarat case is, I suppose, almost...

By ALAN BULLOCK T HE more I try to follow the discussions of foreign policy in Parliament and the Press and over the wireless, the more con- fused I become. Up to a point there...

By HAMILTON W. KERR W HEN, on November 23rd, 1944, General Leclerc's armoured division made its swift lunge from Saveme to Strasbourg in order to capture the Alsatian capital...

By GRAHAM WATSON A CONTRIBUTORY, if not the principal, cause of the serious economic position which faces Britain today is the fact that the industrialist and the manufacturer...

By L. D. GAMMANS, M.P. J AMAICA to a visitor from austere, sunless England seems a happy land of pre-war plenty. The shops are full of everything from hams to nylon stockings ;...

By BASSET SCOTT T HOSE of us who are interested in cricket are reading a good deal nowadays of what cricket correspondents in Australia have to tell us of happenings there, and...

By DEREK PATM ORE T HE growing rapprochement between Greece and Italy is one THE the few encouraging portents in an otherwise troubled Euro- pean scene. It is all the more...

Now winter-colourless my days go, With the undazzled evenness of snow That hides the lilting rose-tree and the laughing house, Whose minstrel roofs were hung with wild green...

By HAROLD NICOLSON 1 T is prudent to treat collectors delicately, since they are sensitive folk. When I ventured last summer to question the value of the contribution made by...

THE new company at Covent Garden chose Massenet's Marton for its second production. Mr. James Bailey's sets were pretty; his dresses were very pretty; and Mr. Ashton's groupings...

'Odd Man Out." (Odeon, Leicester Square.) AN old priest and a shady, seedy little man clutching a bird-cage sit each side of the fire ; in slow conversational tones they spar...

THE THEATRE "Jane." A play by S. N. Behnnan based on a story by Somerset Maugham. (Aldwych.) JANE was, originally, a frump, a comfortably amorphous widow knitting tea-cosies...

At the Lefevre Gallery half-a-dozen artists with opposing aims and a wall apiece share an exhibition with Mr. Douglas Percy Bliss. His conscientious watercolours frequently...

WHATEVER else the Third Programme's Shaw Festival may have done, it proved one thing conclusively—that Mr. Shaw was writing first-rate radio plays long before radio was...

misconception in my article, namely, my speaking of the need for a philosophy inte- grating science and religion. What I did say was that we needed a new integration of...

SIR,—Dr. Martyn Sanders and Mr. Morrison rightly emphasise the dangers of specialisation in universities and consequently in schools. Mr. Morrison says, "We require a single...

with a good deal of copy for his column, and I have never thought it worth while to correct the inaccuracies in the opinions which he is so apt to attribute to me. But his...

RURAL ECONOMY sm,--It is important that some reader of The Spectator with experience of rural life and the conditions of agricultural progress should promptly repudiate a...

SIR, —Miss Krystyna Barcz has misunderstood my reference to the Polish Underground Army in your issue of the 20th December. I was not re- ferring to the present " underground...

Sin,—" If a girl is walking with a soldier in the street, the Military Police may take her away at any minute to examine her. My dear Roberto, it is not done. They're very...

for Spanish refugees in the South of France, may I reply to the misappre- hensions of your correspondent, Krystyna Barcz? She asserts that Lettice Jowitt, in her letter...

SIR, —You must permit me' to make some reply to Mr. Zvegintzov's• review of my book In Darkest Germany. I dare not ask you for the space which would enable me to deal fully...

Si,—I think that it is Mr. Gilchrist who is taking the superficial view. (a) Betting and particularly football pools were well established before the war when there was no...

SIR, —We are told that the nationalisation of British railways will result in greater efficiency in their working. That suggests that the present earnings will be maintained....

Sta,—Might I add a few more apposite Shakespearean observations to the list sent in last week? On the Underground at rush hours: "Be, then, desired, A little to disquantity...

Sig,—There are several inaccuracies in Mr. Cleland Scott's article, Tsetse and Fauna (The Spectator, January 3rd, 1947). Game is not being " butchered " because of a theory....

manufacturers. of cloches) of a swan that dived among the gardens just outside Cheltenham because it mistook the carpet of glass for water. Just such an impression- struck me...

of Huntingdon and Cambridge, where alone (unless the rivers freeze as in '61 and '82) skating is a real mode of motion. The most famous of the Fens in ice-time is Lingay,...

containing too much, misses the main point. The more there is in an agreed syllabus the wider surely is the area of agreement and the greater the choice for the teacher. Has...

It behoves bird-lovers to remember that birds need more food in the later frost than the early. They store fat against the winter ; but have less of it to draw upon when St....

I do not endorse) that hive bees after all are not of much use as pollinators. A great fruit-grower and ex-beekeeper in Herefordshire (at this unseasonable date) avers that he...

Britain have quite ousted the bell- jar, but not the Dutch frame, they are perhaps most useful in this month of February (if it should improve at all on the last week of...

Spectator of January 24th is a distortion of its scope, which is clearly stated in Sir Patrick Abercrombie's foreword, and indeed in the title. I do not assume, not even for a...

A Character of the Trimmer. By H. C. Foxcroft. (Cambridge University Press. 18s.) VOLUME 50 of The Dictionary of National Biography appeared in 1897. The life of George Savile,...

The Scapegoat The Anatomy of Peace. By Emery Reyes. (Allen and Unwin. 7s. 6d.) MR. REVES has written an important book, if only because of the influence it has had on public...

War in Val d'Orcia. By Iris Origo. (Jonathan Cape. 10s. 6d.) War in Val d'Orcia is the record of her life kept by an Englishwoman, Marchesa Origo, from January 30, 1943, the day...

Alexander Blok: The Spirit of music. ,(Lindsay Drummond. 5s.) THIS is the fifth volume in the Russian Literature Library, and con- tains six short essays by the great Russian -...

REGIONAL surveys for the purposes of town-and-country-planning date back to Sir Patrick Geddes' study of Edinburgh in 1910. Many of the regional reports made between the wars...

THE practical consideration, at the highest political level, of the future of Germany—and that means the future of Europe, and hence the future of the civilised world—is...

Masterpieces of Bird Photography. Edited by Eric Hosking and Harold Masterpieces of Bird Photography is a carefully compiled anthology of the best bird photographs by the most...

Foreign Mud. By Maurice Collis. (Faber and Faber. 21s.) How greatly public morality was improved by the invention of sub- marine cables is the thought uppermost in one's mind as...

TAKING up his first General Staff appointment in 1938 with a captain's rank, Major-General Sir Francis de Guingand retired from the army eight years later at the end of a...

fA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week February 18th....

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By CUSTOS One can be impressed or just surprised by the behaviour of stock markets, according to taste. It is certainly remarkable that in face of such news from the fuel front...