THE situation is developing rapidly in the Near East on 1 what may now be called the Balkan Front, and Hitler is consolidating his diplomatic gains in Bulgaria. He has been...

It is impossible not to deplore the obstructions to the passage of the Lease-and-Lend Bill through the American Senate. At a moment when every day's delay is of vital con-...

permitting the entry of German troops it cannot be said that the Soviet Government is expressing its opinion without any previous indication of its attitude. On January rzth the...

Normal political phraseology has no validity on the lips of totalitarians. A New Order means domination A demand for " sincerity " is a demand for subservience. And mediation is...

For a civilised State the conquest of enemy territory carries with it certain human responsibilities which it cannot shirk even if they are burdensome. We can guess what Germany...

In previous speeches Mr. R. G. Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, has told something of his country's great achieve- ment in preparing men and equipment so that it is ready...

years ago, said that it was impossible for any one man to represent the views and interests of some 50,000 people, engaged perhaps in a hundred different industries. Our theory...

and overdue. But of course they raise a crop of questions. The idea of concentrating production in the most efficient units is not new. It was done before the war both in steel...

united leadership and on a united front. But the Prime Minister's speech raised a root-question. Members saw a danger that they might all become functionaries of the Government....

specific questions, the treatment of aliens, the organisation of man-power and industry, the Vansittart broadcasts and foreign propaganda, civil defence, including shelters and...

my control prevented my listening to the speeches and concessw.is made on the second day's debate of the MacDonald Bill. Reliance on the Press or the B.B.C. is generally a poor...

m easure which will enable it to extract the fullest advantage from the limitation of supplies already imposed on consumer g oods. Since the object was to reduce the manufacture...

The cut in the services' food-rations will be welcomed not because anyone would grudge soldiers or sailors or airmen an Ounce of the sustenance they need, but because the...

Drastic measures are to be taken at key ports in the north- western area and later, it is hoped, in the Clydeside area to speed-up the turn-round of work at the docks. To ensure...

T HE demand for a statement of British war-aims has been less insistent of late. There are many reasons why the time is inopportune. Confident though we may be and are about the...

Papers sometimes to four pages and sometimes to six, and affect all other publications proportionately, raises a question 50 . difficult that it will no doubt be left alone. The...

somehow. Thus there is a distant but clearly traceable connexion between Dr. Rendel Harris, who died last Saturday, and Mr. George William Rendel, still, as I write, British...

not to miss the editorial in the current Nineteenth Century on "The Obscurantists "—certain writers of the Left to whom the Editor of the Nineteenth Century devotes a singularly...

DISLIKE the B.B.C.'s political censorship very much. And 1 when I am told that "the B.B.C." will invite no pacifist to talk even on subjects completely unrelated to pacifism...

relevantly to his argument, to the casualties in the last war as cause of the paucity of first-class men in public life today. The flower of our manhood—the contention runs— all...

T HE events which have happened during the last week so far from clarifying the situation seem to have made it more obscure. Bulgaria has joined the Axis and opened her doors to...

By DR. RENDEL HARRIS [Most of the obituary notices of Dr. Rendel Harris, whose u neral took place on Wednesday, referred to the fact of his in g Mice torpedoed in the...

By ERWIN D. CANHAM By Air Mail. W ITH greater confidence than ever before, one is able to write that if Britain withstands the spring offensive by the Nazis, in whatever form...

By OUR AIR-CORRESPONDENT A IR-POWER rests on the quantity and the quality of the equipment and personnel of the air-forces engaged, on the training and the experience of the...

By EVELYN SIMPSON RANDFATHER has lived for the last sixty years in an "industrial town in the North of England," but by birth he is a Cornishman. When he was thirteen, he left...

IN last week's Spectator, under the heading " wi t h out Comment," there was published: (t) An extract from a leading article in The New Statesman and Nation, of January nth ;...

Thunder Rock." By Robert Ardrey. At the St. Martin's.— - Nineteen Naughty One." At the Prince of Wales. git. A LIMEY'S highly intelligent play about the inhabitant of an ivory...

"World in Flames." At the Plaza.---" March of Time." At the New Gallery.---6. Yellow Caesar." For General Release. RECONSTRUCTING history from news-reel material is a dangerous...

THESE are the days of waiting, when Crocus and aconite shoot their bud; In the bare gardens the birds are brave, The spring sings early in their blood: And in the veins of the...

of the difficulties of farming should disappear." He has a wide know- ledge of farming and is not one of those "urban-minded theorists, in favour of nationalisation in...

[In view of the paper shortage it is essential that letters on these pages should be brief. We are anxious not to reduce the number of letters, but unless they are shorter they...

the ills of farming contained in Dr. Orwin's articles in recent issues? The British farmer has not been beaten by want of skill. The soil and climate are far from unfavourable....

Sm, — The crux of the criticism of our educational system in Mr. Kenneth Lindsay's article, "Undirected Youth," lies in the phrase. "A divorce between school-work and the world...

separate occasions in pre- serving from irretrievable damage the scenic grandeur of the glens and lochs to the north-west of the southern part of the Caledonian Canal must view...

SIR, —In "A Spectator's Notebook" Janus" calls attention to an interesting coincidence in a review of General Waveld's Allenby by Mr. George Orwell in the December issue of...

Sue,—To the unprofessional it may seem a heretical claim that it takes a war to create favourable circumstances for the teaching of history. Even so, it would seem that...

usually fair - minded, except when he is referring to the Government of Northern Ireland, a subject which teniporarily separates him from his sense of justice, lapses very badly...

Sue,—Thank you for sparing space in the columns of The Spectator for an article on "G. D." But did George Dyer really fall into the river at Islington as the writer states?...

to be very serious in country-districts, where woods and hedgerows are convenient dumping-places for all kinds of unwanted rations. The following examples, taken from my own...

interest in uncommon vegetables ceases to be practical ; but the wide interest shown by correspondents in pre - vious lists of them prompts me to give a final dozen. In addition...

much more than a summary of the Trust's field investigations over the past few years ; but among the most interesting I find the inquiry into the distribution of the corn- crake...

devoted largely to watching and counting birds and compiling reports from the resultant data would seem to have little appeal during war-time. Yet on agricultural grounds alone....

The Lion and the Unicorn. By George Orwell, The Lesson of London. By Ritchie Calder. 'Searchlight Books Seeker and Warburg. zs. each MESSRS. SECKER AND WARBURG announce a...

100 per Cent. Americans The Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson. Presented by John Dewey; The Living Thoughts of Emerson. Presented by Edgar Lee Masters. (Living Thoughts...

Giangaleazzo Visconti. By D. M. Bueno de Mesquita. (Co bridge University Press. 21s.) Tins is a careful study of the most powerful Italian ruler the late fourteenth century, the...

The Current of War. By Liddell Hart. (Hutchinson. 12s. 6d.) THIS is a strange book. In it Captain B. H. Liddell Hart (the name is given as "Liddell Hart" on the title-page)...

Thomas Baines of King's Lynn, Explorer and Artist, 18204 5. By J. P. R.. Wallis. (Cape. 125. 6d.) THOMAS BAINES has been almost completely forgotten, and it i3 not surprising,...

THIS, like many recent ones, is a badclish week in fiction. IndA were it not for Mr. Storm's bright, promising talent which does not yet work hard enough and for a few...

For Whom the Bell Tolls. By Ernest Hemingway. (Cape. 9s.) IT seems a long time now since Mr. Aldous Huxley picked a literary phrase out of one of Mr. Hemingway's books as...

By CUSTOS A STEP at a time the Government is shepherding the country towards the full implications of total war, and one by one invest. ment ideas, which in this war have...

The Banks in War Lessons of 1940 Profits—Financing the Deficit—Investors and Bank Shares By ‘‘ CUSTOS " ANYBODY who seriously believed that war would bring a huge windfall for...

to new address are asked to post their notification on the Friday ng the week in which the change is to operate, as owing Paper shortage duplicate copies cannot now be sent.

ICIRE people are surrendering their life policies nowadays than normal times. Whether these additional surrenders are ctated by necessity or result from considered action there...

No. 102 AI .... 0!! „.IP!i.IP: g .R sw 1 e 5 'PIA A A . . 1 ..t. ILI.. F.. ii AI e L i. K S T g. III iAlfiTIL: : Ito o P 0E1 a 7 4ilalEiK , Ti`f il , .'0:ft T Ikl i E...

Token for one guinea will be gtven to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be marked with the words "Crossword...