SIR,-Your contributor suggests the " Neighbourhood Restaurant " as a partial solution to the problem of the over-worked mother. Such an institution, helpful to many, would be...

TOLSTOY AND THE GERMANS SIR,-According to the libraries there has been a phenomenal demand for Tolstoy's War and Peace during the last two years. It is interesting to note that...

SIR,-I have read with considerable interest the correspondence on this matter and the varying rates for electric current. Why is not electricity put on the same basis as gas...

THE SEWING MACHINE SIR,-G. M. Trevelyan's English Social History, recently so admirably reviewed in your columns by Prof. Woodward, makes no mention of the invention of the...

COTTAGERS' LIGHT SIR,-Apropos of my letter (A Mere Consumer) in your issue of August 25th, I am informed that the Labour Research LDepartment, 6 High Holborn, W.C. i, has...

THE ROBOT MAN SIR,-I venture to trespass on your space, being possibly one of your oldest subscribers and admirers (over forty years) and one to whom the arrival of The...

THE RE-EDUCATION OF GERMANY SIR,-Except for the comparatively small number of courageous citizens who have risked imprisonment or death by "listening in" to foreign broadcasts,...

PUBLISHING AND LABOUR SIR,-Mr. Fairweather is correct in his surmise that relief in one direction alone will not solve the difficulty. No final solution can be reached until...

SIR,-Actual cost of one village-distribution to twenty-three consumers in I937, the same year that Dr. Lys received his supply-company's quotation of £710 for distribution to...

THE THEATRE I I . peer Gynt." At the New Theatre. IBSEN wrote Peer Gynt in i867 when he was thirty-nine years old; thus it is one of his earlier plays, following a year after...

THE CINEMA "Newsreels from Paris." Generally Released.-" The Seventh Cross" and "British Imperialism." At the Empire." Mr. FEmmanuel." At the Gaumont and Marble Arch...

THE SOLDIER'S WIFE Now is the time for the narrow bed, And the lonely pillow for the lonely head. Stifle the fears, the midnight sighs, And close the lids on tearless eyes....

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK NOW that London's long ordeal seems to be reaching its endthough the authorities are perfectly right in refusing to take that for granted prematurely-it...

I have not recently had the opportunity of visiting any public- 1* houses in Sheffield, nor am I sure that I should have seized it if I had. But that does not prevent me from...

I am very glad that Mr. S. C. Roberts, who so ably directs the fortunes of the Cambridge University Press, has reprinted his British Academy lecture on Samuel Johnson (though...

I have been a great deal interested in a near and attractivt II quarterly called Persuasion, which, though it is not completely nel", has not come my way. before. It describes...

The extent to which at present the demand for almost every kind of book exceeds the supply is notorious. None the less evidence of the volume of the demand for the best books...

Through Epernav, Chilons and Bar-le-Duc we went to Nancy, and from there, via Metz, to Thionville. As we approached the front we noticed that there were fewer. and fewer...

We are able today to record these memories. There is no secret of the Maginot Line which is any longer hidden from our enemiCs The confidence which Paul Reynaud expressed...

The lift hummed again and we were borne upwards towards the I higher batteries. We entered a casement bright with electric light and recalling a gun turret on a battleship. "...

Onlv a few weeks later, on Octobzr 25th, some of us were invited by our colleagues of the Chamber of Deputies to visit Paris and the Maginot Line. In pouring rain we landed at...

MARGINAL COMMENT By HAROLD NICOLSON S UNDAY, September 3-the giant hand of history stretches five taut fingers. and atain there comes that solemn chord: Sunday, Sepiember 3....

SIR,-The wisdom of your contributor's suggestion (August i8th), that the Indian deadlock can be broken only by immediate British initiaUv6 through bringing into being a...

BIRTHRATE AND HOUSEWORK SIR,-As the mother of a toddler, I read with interest your correspondents' letters on " Birthrate and Housework." I agree with most of their...

INDIAN DEADLOCK SIR,-Perhaps I can help Mr. Ed,3vard Thompson to recover from his various astonishments (" it is extraordinary that people here think" soand-so ; "no one here...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS SIR,-It is, I fear, not generally appreciated in this country how gravely future Anglo-American relations are likely to be...

SIR,-D. S. Macoll's residential club and Mrs. Wilson's village centre or non-residential club are interesting suggestions, but they do not meet the busy housewife's greatest...

COUNTRY LIFE I WITHIN the week I have seen and heard more than one clash betweea I farmer and food-seeker. Mushrooms have been plentiful and blackberries are a bumper crop....

THE E.A.M. SIR,-May I respectfully call your attention to your comments in The Spectator dated August 25th, 1944, under the heading " Yugoslav Agreement "? The translation of...

THE FORGOTTEN ALLY SIR,-I have been waiting for some more authoritative correspondent than myself to comment on Major Jarvis's letter in your issue of August 25th, but as no...

In My Garden I I One advantage of that quaint, very fragrant bush, buddleia meyerCnfv a cross between the yellow and purple sorts, is that it is later and at th date proves the...

WHAT ABOUT ALBERTA? SIR,-I was most interested in Mr. Westlake's letter, for though I am not a Social Crediter-at least, I don't think so!-I dug out some surprising facts...

Electric Insects || One of the strange tales from the seat of war concerns that queer hid beetle called the glow-worm. An electric mine-detector gave the usu sign of a buried...

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ENTERPRISE SIR,-During the " blitz " (horrid word) I admired the unfailing regularity with which the newspapers of London and the country contrived to...

Rustic Memories III The Head of a scientific farm gave instructions to one of his labouren to sow flax in one section of a field, and told him that the variety, which he named,...

SIR,-The Alberta Government borrowed a large sum from investors in this country about twenty years ago. For some years they paid 4f per cent. interest as promised; but for the...

Squirrel's Greed III A rather wild and very pleasant garden at the edge of a little town his been inhabited by a pair of grey squirrels, which have produced i creditable...

NEWS OF TACFWIU9~K IAL-' v -V I" T ONDON has been in the front line," said Mr. Herbert l j Morrison last Wednesday, and has been shot at continuously in the summer of. i944 as...

IThe Channel Ports .XrnMong the more amazing features of the battle that has swept across northern France and Belgium is the organisation of supplies Il' e'cr-lehgthening lines...

The Tragedy of Warsaw Utterly defeated in the west, defeated also in the Balkans and abandoned by their satellites, and on the defensive again in the main fighting-fronts...

Shorter Notice We Have Been Friends Together. By Raissa Maretain. (Longmans. I 15S.) THE dominant feeling of this book is the passion for knowledge-a passion as strong as...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT || By CUSTOS If IF markets are much less exciting than the war news the explanation is that the news itself is, in essence, just what the Stock Exchange...

The Low Countries One item of news this week, liable to pass almost unnoticed in the spate of sensational and dramatic events, was the signing of a customs agreement between...

Penal Reform II The Home Secretary has now set up the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders whose twofold function, as he told the House of Commons, will be " to...

Bulgaria and the Alles The Bulgarian Govcrnment's futile and treacherous pretence of strict neutrality," when her policy has consistently helped Germany and German troops are...

Mr. Butler at Work II " Having passed the Act, we must see that it is put into effect." When he said this at Halstead last week-end, the Minister of Education reminded the...

ACCORDING TO PLAN [ AY by day during the last few weeks we have watched the crescendo of military movement in France which in scale nd in speed has established a record in the...

ITALIAN IMPRESSIONS By AN ENGLISH OBSERVER THIS claims to be no more than an "interim" report on my impressions of the present social and political situation here in Italr. In...

DE-NAZIFICATION By GILBERT MURRAY, O.M%. IHAVE not been in Germany since the start of the Nazi regime, and chiefly know of Nazi education as the declared enemy of the kind of...

Economic Pessimism The Future of Economic Society. By Roy Glenday. (Macmillan, l 6s.) MR. GLENDAY'S study of the " Future of Economic Society " is on an ambitious scale, and...

Fiction II The Stuff to Give the Troops. By J. Maclaren-Ross. (Jonathafll Cane. 7s. 6d.) _.. II Absent in the Spring. By Mary Westnacott. (Collins. 7S. 6c1.) 11 Live...

EDUCATION THAT EDUCATES By CONSTANCE REAVELEY " ND now we must educate our masters." This was said in IAi868 when an extension of the franchise made it seem possible that...

Thugs for Another Hitler Branch Street. By Marie Paneth. (George Allen and Unwin. 6s.) I MANY good Britons have wondered where Hitler found the young thugs he put in charge...

The Corporative State Racket || The Italian Corporative System. By James Meenan, M.A. (,I I University Press. i2s. 6d.) THIS book claims to be the first attempt to trace the...

PARLIAMENT AND YOUTH By SIR ALEXANDER MACKINTOSH THE composition and character of the personnel of Parliament Twill be of far-reaching importance in the reconstruction postwar...

BOOKS OF THE DAY The Americans The American Problem. By D. W. Brogan. (Hamish Hamilton. Ios. 6d.) "My object," writes Mr. Brogan " has been to make what I think is the most...

The Forthcoming Peace 11 Problems of the Peace. By Wilson Harris. (Cambridge Universil I l ress. 3s. (a.) THIS little volume appears as No. 2I in Sir Ernest Barker's wet,...

TOWARDS THE GERMAN FRONTIERS By STRATEGICUS HOW swiftly the situation is changing in the west can be gathered from a comparison with the picture it presented last week. The...