What is meant nowadays by the phrase "business as . usual " was illustrated by the fact that the general resumption of work on Monday muting was marked by a heavy load-shedding...

R ARELY has the weight of argument, and argument on the highest plane, been more evenly balanced than in the debates on the Government's Indian policy in the House of Lords on...

The ritual murder case in the Gold Coast, which in its later developments has so deeply stirred the House of Commons twice this week, has a special interest for this journal,...

The British decision to refer the problem of Palestine to the United Nations is now over a fortnight old. Consequently the sooner the next step is taken the better. But what is...

In the past forty years there has only been one real argument against an Anglo-French Treaty of Alliance, and that was that it was not necessary—that understanding between the...

A week ago it was possible to get the impression that the future of Greece was being settled in Washington. The British are re- ported to have said that they were unable to...

The Government's decision, taken in the face of all argument, reason and respect for Parliamentary tradition, to force the Transport and Town and Country Bills through committee...

The recent White Paper on Defence indicated that the number of men and women serving in the armed forces on March 31st, 1948, would be 1,o87,00o, as against 1,427,000 on...

M ONDAY in Parliament was a day to make the conscientious Parliamentary reporter of the four-page daily paper bite in ineffective despair on the chains that fetter him. It was a...

The reappearance of The Spectator in its normal form cannot be allowed to pass without some reference to the circumstances attend- ing its suspension. k is now dear that,...

T HE Foreign Secretary has set out on a fateful journey. The Moscow Conference must affect the destiny of nations, and of European nations in particular, decisively for good or...

at Eatans- will ; I think they were. That would no doubt account in part for the heat engendered over cheese in the House of Commons last week. The Ministry of Food, represented...

pass weekly through St. Stephen's Hall on their way to the Central Lobby of the House of Commons stop to study the eight frescoes which line the walls. Those who do may take...

Some odd things are happening about Basic English. A question on the subject to the Minister for Education on Monday brought the answer that the £23,000 which the Government has...

Poles at present in this country as tough. So, pretty clearly, if in a rather different sense, is the Prime Minister. The burdens he is carrying at present, and physically at...

accuracy in its weather-forecasts throughout this unprecedented period. It may be argued, no doubt, that any second-division clerk could go on saying morning after morning "...

hand to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with an explanation which seems to me to deserve some publicity. " At the beginning of 1946," she writes, " I decided to give up...

where the ancient and modern jostle one another strangely. Meeting the Emir Saud (the eldest of His Majesty's 32 sons) and his retinue a few days ago, I was surprised to find...

sung at Westminster Abbey, and no doubt in many other places where they sing, awakes in places rather sombre reflections. The exhortation "0 ye Frost and Cold, bless ye the Lord...

By WALTER TAPLIN T HE right to be ignorant on the subject of coal-mining does not exist for any British citizen. The importance of the issue is clear and the facts are...

By GUNTHER STEIN New York S OMEWHAT warily, the American mind is opening itself a little more to the stark reality of Britain's crisis. Countless families in the old country...

By ELIZABETH WISKEMANN Berne T HE casual visitor to Switzerland is apt to be over-impressed by sumptuous meals in the hotels and restaurants, which com- prise a traditionally...

By RICHARD CHANCELLOR p ARLIAMENT is sitting in Moscow—not, perhaps, a Parliament in the Western sense of the word, but a gathering of men and women from all parts of the...

By FRANK BESWICK, M.P. W HEN the Nazi resistance in Europe collapsed in 5945 there were, it is estimated, 12,000,000 human beings displaced from their native countries. Of...

By JANET HILLS W HEN I came home from a year spent with the Occupying Forces in Germany, people often said to me: " We hear about Hitler's political and religious opponents—but...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HAVE been reading this week the Blue Book published in 1 Ottawa upon the Gouzenko revelations. It is a curious story. Igor Gouzenko, a young Lieutenant in...

" Coal Crisis " and " Margie " (Gaumont, Haymarket and Marble Arch Pavilion.)—" Hue and Cry " (Tivoli.) Coal Crisis is by far the most important of the new films. It is the...

THE standard of music in London during the Great Frost has been rather naturally below the average. Arctic concert-halls and a faint sprinkling of heavily-coated audience in a...

THE THEATRE " The Eagle Has Two Heads." By Jean Cocteau. (Haymarket.) M. COCTEAU'S play has now come to the Haymarket and should be seen by all those who like either classical...

How has the B.B.C. emerged from the ordeal of the past three weeks? Not entirely with credit in my opinion. The alacrity with which the Third Programme was dropped has excited...

THE fundamental necessities of life have demanded so much of our attention during the past few weeks that comparatively few people have cared to brave the elements in order to...

IF one leaves the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition with the dan- gerous illusion that all is well with British industry, then at least, in these bleak days. it is a very sweet...

all winter flowers has reached me. The darker variety of the Algerian iris is found, at any rate in Northern Ireland, to be a better "doer " than the paler forms, and to come...

AMONG the letters that arrived on the same morning were, first, a most welcome and surprising suggestion from the Ministry of Agri- culture that birds should be fed, as...

has been proceeding off and on for several hundred years and is not yet exhausted, the size makes more difference than the nature of the wood. The truest of the old tags is:...

not hear some ill news of one or other of our rivers. The latest concerns the Usk, where in certain reaches every salmon—and a great number of them—has been killed br poisoning...

of the stare or starling, has suc- cessfully practised the following device, which " has for years defeated the Hun." He has made a balance tray, which is attached to a hinge,...

Sta,—From the first of next month every child in this country is to stay at school until after he has reached the age of fifteen. In con- sequence there will for a year be no...

SIR,—In so far as the Jewish problem is religious, there would appear to be no solution of it. The orthodox Jew accepts the utterances of his prophets as eternally binding, and...

THE MINER AND THE NATION SIR, —The actual productive capacity of British coal mines today with their present equipment and man-power is not less than 250,000,000 tons per annum...

SIR, —If an individual were to borrow money to buy tobacco or grapefruit or to see films his sanity would be questioned, and yet we are using the American Loan for those...

should be more acutely aware than we are of the realities of the situation in the Union of South Africa with regard to all relations between white and black and basic human...

he mentions the "odd" fact of limbless persons being granted an extra soap-ration. It is less than a year since this concession was " wrung " from the Ministry of Food by the...

by results " is surely a tacit confession that the main principle of Socialism has failed. If the more efficient worker is to receive a bonus above the basic wage, either this...

_Beach Thomas, has not taken the opportunity which I gave him of withdrawing his gross misrepresentations of my views on agriculture and rural life. Instead, he refers to my "...

as a factor in the appalling housing situation, the incursion of expellees. I showed by quotation that, on the contrary, I emphasised it. Mr. Zvegintzov could have with- drawn,...

justification for the closing down of about 500 weekly publications, many of which are important organs of public opinion, and an essential part of the national Press. By a...

Frederick the Great. By G. P. Gooch. (Longman. 21s.) DR. Goocit's new work is weighty. It is a presentation of the results of German scholarship on the career of Frederick the...

Forty Years of Journalism Incidents and Reflections. By J. B. Atkins. (Christophers. 12s. 6d.) MR. ATKINS' preface is modest—not falsely modest, but truly and Urbanely modest,...

Welfare and Planning in the West Indies. By T. S. Simey. (Oxford University Press. 15s.) PROFESSOR SIMEY was the welfare member of what was irreverently known in the West Indies...

Man and the Atom. By C. E. Vulliamy. (Michael Joseph. 8s. 6d.) THE atom bomb might be said to have reached the stage of legend without having yet attained the dignity of a...

The Madness of Merlin. By Laurence Binyon. (Macmillan. 6s.) ON his retirement from the Keepership of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Binyon proposed to devote...

Operation Viespry. By Majoy-General Sir Francis de Guingand. (Hodder and Stoughton. 25t.) GENERAL DE GUINGAND had the good fortune to fill a ringside- seat at more of the war...

THE tirtle ' for once, is a trde description, Of this book's 450 pages more than half are given to the history of Germany before the death of Frederick II in 525o ; and less...

How enviously the beleaguered garrison of Harley Street must look towards the Temple! For the second time in less than 4o years the ways of the medical profession and the...

The Adventure of Building. By Clough Williams Ellis. (Architectural Press. lOs. 6d.) IT is refreshing in these cheese - caring days to encounter a sweeping idealist — an...

The Angelic Avengers. By Pierre Andrezel. (Putnam. lOs. 6d.) THE world which Miss Compton-Burnett reveals to her readers in her studies of middle-class family existence is a...

THIS is the second volume in the series of The Dropmore Essays, the first of which, Mr. Harold Nicolson's The English Sense of Humour, was noticed in these columns some weeks...

10s.) THIS is the third and last volume of the edition of Sir Walter Scott's journal as revised from photostats of the original MS. The editor, who did nor live to see the work...

was glowing on the brick walls of the kitchen garden and on the wild daffodils under the chestnut trees, as we made the final preparations for our journey that night. I sat in a...

guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct olution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, March 18th. Envelopes must be received not...

The winner of Crossword No. 413 is : Miss M. BEDDALL, I, Graf ton Flats, Bognor Regis.

By CUSTOS THESE are eventful days in Thsogmorton Street, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to form a view. So far, the inflation school, who argue that too much money...