T HE opening session of the 78th Congress of the United States T on Wednesday revealed at once how precarious is the position NEWS OF THE WEEK of the Administration in the...

The Planners of War The summary of official documents issued as a White Paper in Washington last Saturday constitutes a brief history of events between 193i and 1941,...

The Evolution of Peace In his speech at the Albert Hall last week Sir Stafford Cripps dwelt on the fact that the forn of the peace will grow out of the history of the war...

Foreign Policy Reform In devoting two leader-page articles to the question of the conduct of foreign policy The T imes has not exaggerated the importance of the subject. The...

War-Office and Beveridge Plan I Sir James Grigg, the Minister for War, has now stated that it was he himself, and not a subordinate, who imposed the ban on the use of the...

An Intolerable Threat I The resolution carried by the railway enginemen's trade union, the A.S.L.E. and F., which professes to pledge itself to do everything in its power to...

Warning to Looters The catalogue of Nazi crimes is long, and there are many classes of them for which it may be impossible to find means of exacting the penalty. But it is...

AFRICAN PERPLEXITIES UBLIC opinion is becoming increasingly uneasy about the situation in North Africa in both its military and its political aspects. With the former our...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK I IR ALLEN POWELL, Chairman of the Governors of the B.B.C., I said a great many interesting things about broadcasting in his speech at Dundee on...

ANOTHER PROPHECY SIR,-I notice in your issue of December 25th an appreciation of a statement made by a Member of Parliament quoting a prophecy, on the future of British...

NEWTON'S THEOLOGY SIR,-I lookedin vain last Friday to see whether anyone had caught Jupiter napping the previous week, but in spite of the letter from R. F. Rattray, Professor...

THE WARSAW GHETTO StR,-As a propagandist, Mr. Harold Nicolson in The Spectator of December 25th, 1942, stretches the bounds of human credulity in making the statement of...

COUNTRY LIFE As I look out from my inland windows over a wide stretch of wellfarmed land as well as of natural common, I see, for the first time, a large company of gulls-most...

ENGLISHMEN MARCHING SIR,-I have just been reading the excellent article by Colonel Walter Elliot, M.P., in The Spectator of December 25th, I942. During the course of his...

Life in Unoccupied France. The Enigma of France | By Nevillc Lytton. ^lacmniian. 5S.) MR. LYrroN has lived half his life in France, has stucied ana practised art there, is...

The Siocial Framework: An Introduction to Economics. Our Economic System - ByH . R S Hicks. (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. 7s. 61.) THIS book certainly satisfies a...

America. -The Story of a Free People. A Great Story By Allan Nevins and Henry Steele Commager. (Clarendon Press. 7s. 6d.) HERE we have a full, learned, readable and cheap...

LOOKING AHEAD SIR,-May I be permitted to pay tribute to the soundness of judgemcnt and views expressed in your article " Hitler's New Year," published in the issue of January...

RELIGION IN THE SCHOOLS SIR,-The Dean of Exeter says he does not think that a discussion of Dr. Schweitzer's theology is very relevant to a correspondence on Religion in...

BEVERIDGE AFTERTHOUGHTS SIR,-In The Spectator of December i8th appears one of the most outrageous statements I have seen for a long time, reading as follows: " It is rather...

"THE DUAL SYSTEM'S FATE " SIR,-There is not much space in a letter to answver fully Archdeacon Fosbrooke's able article of December 25th, but I should like briefly to state...

A WORLD AIR FORCE? By NIGEL TANGYE HE creation of an International Air Force to intimidate, and if necessary combat, potential aggressors in the future is much under...

Whereas I Was Blind. Shorter Notices By Ian Fraser. (Hodder and Stoughton. 8s. 6d.) SIR IAN FRASER, blinded in the last war, has a story to tell in this book which is really...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT I By CUSTOS I AFTER a year or more of uninterrupted rise in the stock marketd one feels strongly tempted to sound a note of warning for I943. In normal...

A French Officer's Diary (29th August, I939-zst October, 1940). Bv' D. Barlone. (Cambridge University Press. 7s. 6d.) THIS diary was well worth publishing, both for the light...

Retreat in the East. By 0. D. Gallacher. (Harrap. 8s. 6d.) ONE of the great weaknesses in the average book of first-hand war experiences is that nine times out of ten the...

"CONDITIONS OF PEACE" SIR,-In his " Marginal Comment " on Professor Carr's book, Conditions of Peace, Mr. Harold Nicolson quotes and questions the Professor's assertion that...

BRITAIN'S FOURTH WINTER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SIR,-I had occasion recently to visit some of the provincial centres of Britain-a tour I have not been able, through force of...

THE POST-WAR HOME By A. R. CARTER HE pundits press on with schemes for Post-War Reconstruction. Some advocate pre-fabrication and standardisation, others stress the...

CONQUEST OF DESPAIR Bv GEOFFREY IIOLDSWORTH ORE than a hundred years ago, mental patients were ducked or flogged. We do not know whether this treatment was just a punishment,...

THE SOLDIER AS CITIZEN By J. MACKAY-MURE E are being reminded constantly that the Army of today is a citizen army, and that any proposal which affects the well- being of...

The Van Pool, Some New Poets I by Keidrych Rhys; Wounded Thammuz, by John I fleath-Ntubbs; Soldiers, This Solitude, by Alan Rook; The Iron Laurel, by Sidney Keyes; A Wreath...

Sir J. J. Thomson. BOOKS OF THE DAY The Cavendish Professor By Lord Rayleigh. (Cambridge University Press. i8s.) LORD RAYLEIGH'S biography of Sir J. J. Thomson provides a...

THE MEDITERRANEAN FRONT By STRATEGICUS I was pointed out some time ago that, although the campaign in North Africa is not strictly a second front, it is creating Isme of the...

Napoleon's Invasion of Russia, 1812. Napoleon's Russian Failure By E. Tarle. (Aen andI Unwin. 125. 6d.) THIS is an exasperating book. Professor TarI6 knows his subject, and...

"The Marriage of Figaro." OPERA At the New Theatre THE Sadler's Wells Opera Company have returned to London with a new production of The Marriage of Figaro in their...

"Squadron Leader X." THE CINEMA At The Regal and the London Pavilion. Squadron Leader X sets you wondering how far we have allowed ourselves to go towards accepting the enemy...

I International Ballet." THE THEATRE At the Piccadillv. "-lThe Romance of David Garrick." At St. James's. " The Drunkard." At the Arts Theatre Club. THE return of the "...

ESCAPIST INTO LABOURER By R. N. WATSON T used to be a commonplace for working-men to "improve" themselves by education. Their cultural attainments occasionally won the...

MARGINAL COMMENT By HAROLD NICOLSON OR those of us who have not left these shores since I940 the war is visualised as a series of pictures and even landscapes, derived partly...