BANKS AND SAVING CERTIFICATES SIR,-The advertising columns and Press articles, also the hoardings are all proclaiming the necessity of all possible investments in War Loans,...

LORD HALIFAX'S SPEECH SIR, --His Lordship, the late Bishop of Fu-Kien, China, is probably righ In judging that " every Briton " felt a thrill of pleasure and pride at 1. -d...

BRITAIN, FRANCE AND CULTURE SIR,-Signalman's letter in your last number reminds me of what I often said to my class while I was a teacher, that English literature for many...

AMERICA'S ATTITUDE S l --I wish you would teil the English not to expect too much a: rom this enormous and divided country. Sentiment on this East C, doesn't represent a tithe...

THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION SIR,-Is not one of the principal causes of the troubles of the Ministry of Information the ignoring of the experience of the last war? There was a...

" CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM " SIR,-Is it not misleading for a nation which includes a very large proportion of the world's intelligentsia to make use of such war propaganda as...

Captain Ervine-Andrews, who received his V.C. from the King on Tuesday, heard of the award, I believe, for the first time in a B.B.C. news bulletin. For some reason the...

Lord Beaverbrook's appointment to the War Cabinet has been well received everywhere, as it should be. That body has need of drive and energ as well as of sage counsel, and the...

Canada, among its many services to the Commonwealth and mankind, has enriched the English language with a new word -unless, indeed, I am behind the times in not having...

I am not going to use conventional language and say that no play now running is so well worth seeing as Robert Ardrey's Thunder Rock (which has just come to the Globe from the...

Apropos of the relation of air-power to sea-power, Captain Bernard Acworth makes an instructive, though by no means conclusive, comparison in a paragraph of his new pamphlet,...

As substitute for an alleged remark by George II which I cannot trace, a number of well-intentioned correspondents have offerAd me another one with which, actually, I was quite...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK HERE is no doubt that the Prime Minister's warning about Tthe prospect of an attempt at invasion, and certain evidently inspired articles that have...

Here, for what they are worth, and I think them worth a good deal, are some comments by one of the shrewdest political observers in Europe-not an Englishman. If invasion does...

SIR,-Your leading article of August 2nd touches on a matter of supreme importance for the future of this country and of Europe. In discussions about the cause for which we...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR [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...

" POST-WAR EUROPE " SmR,-As I read the first paragraph of the leading article on "Post- War Europe " in The Spectator of August 2nd I found myself faced with a painful choice...

Actually that debate yielded nothing new, except a timely intervention by Mr. Ernest Bevin. Mr. Greenwood did not do himself justice. He described the existence of half a dozen...

The Budget debate was continued by Sir Kingsley Wood and Mr. Pethick-Lawrence, but neither speaker threw very much new light on the now familiar dilemma. For example, I quote...

The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary correspondent writes: Things had not been going well for the Ministry of Information, and unfortunately someone in the Press discovered...

PJislocation of Employment A rise of 60,ooo in the unemployment figures at a time like is is on the face of it disturbing. But there are, in fact, a 'od many mitigating...

V1 asted Brains But to ensure good conditions for interned persons is not nough. The liberal policy to which the Duke of Devonshire referred can only justify its name if it...

In tile Internment Camps If ie debates in the House of Commons have failed to vrsu; de the Government that the policy of general internment If m2L enemy aliens is wrong...

SIR,-In his review of Mrs. Woolf's book Mr. Herbert Read writes: His [Roger Fry's] sincerity has more than once been questioned, but usually by forthright reactionaries like...

ROGER FRY SIR,-Mr. Herbert Read has reviewed Mrs. Woolf's brilliant biography of Roger Fry with penetrating insight. He seems, however, to have been more aware of the...

THE THEATRE "Margin for Error." By Clare Boothe. At the Apollo. Miss BOOTHE'S Margin for Error is not a good play. The basic structure is a murder detective story, ingeniously...

DOGMA OR DOCTRINE? I SrR,-I am afraid this discussion has moved a long way from the point. My contention was and still is that dogma, i.e., opinion or belief enforced by...

FERTILISER FALLACIES SIR,-Viscount Samuel seems to have little comprehension of the distinction between what is "possible" in agriculture, and what is economic. In your issue...

THE CINEMA "The Ghost Breakers," and British Paramount News. At I the Plaza. 1 The Ghost Breakers, with unusual integrity, fulfils the requirements of the thrill-seeker. For,...

CANADA'S CONTRIBUTION SIR,-In your issue of July 5th there is an article by Mr. Grant Dexter on "Canada's Momentum." It contains sentences which are misleading and will fill...

SIR,-Mr. Arnold Jackson, in your issue of August 2nd, thinks it I widely recognised that the presence of refugees at large constitutes a potential menace. But the presence of...

SIR.-I have Ellowed with gratitude the part played by The Spectator in helping to expose and thence to remedy, the unhappy state of affairs that has existed in regard to the...

THE ALIENS QUESTION SIR,-Referring to the correspondence over the internment of friendly - -- -c i1. . ._.. - aliens, with it we may couple the imprisonment of Englishmen who...

HOSPITAL CHARGES SIR,-Seeing in " A Spectator's Notchook " a reference to the cost of hospital treatment in London, I think my experience shows the reverse side of the...

SIR.-The internment of refugee aliens seems to have been carried L out as stupidly as possible, but is it a quite unmentionable point that a number of them might panic under...

FREE PEOPLES IN BRITAIN SIR,-I was much interested in a letter signed by Leonard F. Behrens which appeared in your issue of July 26th, and more particularly in the last...

SiR.-With reference to " Janus's " paragraph in last week's Spectator to what happened to a friend of his when he went to a hospital suffering from the effects of a bad fall, I...

NEWS OF THE WEEK THE invasion of Britain has not, as these words are written, materialiscd, and thcrc is still room for two opinions as to whether it will. Almost all the...

Tension in Japan Recent incidents in Japan show that Great Britain's appeasement policy in yielding to the demand for the closing of the Burma Road to China has done nothing...

An Adventurous. Archbishop I No one, after reading the Archbishop of York's contributio to the current issue of the Christian News-Letter, is likeelt 10 l complain that the...

Hitler-Made Hunger There could be no greater testimony to the effectiveness of the British blockade than the efforts that are being made to enlist American support for...

Balkan Negotiations Preparations are now being made in Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary for the negotiations which they were virtually ordered to undertake when their...

A Great Nonconformist II Three Score Years and Ten. By J. D. Jones. (Hodder and | Stoughton. 8s. 6d.) THis is a peaceful and happy book. Dr. J. D. Jones, like the reSt of us,...

The Imperfect Island S Tristan da Cunha. By Erling Christophersen. (Cassell. U2S. 6d.| Tim perfect island is like the blue flower of Novalis, imagined and felt and not...

COUNTRY LIFE Close Seasons IN a verse known to almost all the race of sportsmen the v crv worst crime in the calendar is to shoot a pheasant in Septemr.er on Sunday in...

Avena Redux II In what is called locally the top country of some Welsh counties a considerable harvest of oats is being reaped for the first time for many years; and the fact...

A Reclaiming Grass I The marsh in question is a particularly good example of the beneficent influence of that accidentally discovered grass, the Spartina hybrid, of...

A Rare Family An event in breeding that will please naturalists more than the magnitude of game families has to be recorded from Essex, not so far from London. A pair of...

A Blue Cushion 11 The most satisfactory plant in my garden, at least among the decorative flowers it is so unpatriotic to grow, has been the duesart cornflower. The compact...

WHERE THE M.O.I. GOES WRONG W HEN the Ministry of Information came under critiW cism in the House of Commons last week a number of speakers revealed misapprehension of the true...

The Golden Reign. By Clare Sydney Smith. (Casser. i2S. 6d.) TImE Golden Reign was apparently T. E. Lawrence's own name for his friendship with Wing Commander and Mrs. Sydney...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By CUSTOS THESE are brave stock markets. Faced with rising taxation, contracting public spending, to say nothing of daily warnings of Hitler's...

Shorter Notices Wattch Below. By William McFee. (Faber. gs. 6d.) MR. McFEE subtitles his new book, A Narrative of the Golden Age of Steam, and the phrase is well chosen. He...

NEW HOPE IN INDIA THE statement issued by the Governor-General of India on Thursday is potentially, and will, it is to be hoped, prove actually, of capital importance. That it...

New Novels Beneath the Visiting Moon. By Roinilly Cavan. (Heinemann gs. 6d.) Night in Bombay. By Louis Bromfield. (Cassell. gs.) The Stone of Chastity. By Margery Sharp....

Caesar and God Christianity anld Civilisation. By Arnold J. Toynbee. (Student Christian Movement Press. Is.) DR. TOYNBEE'S Burge Memorial Lecture opens out the whole problem...

"P 1ACIFICISM AS VOCATION " By THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S R ECENTLY the two Archbishops received a deputation of clergy who belong to the Anglican Pacificist Fellowship, and the...

OSSEWA BRANDWAG By G. H. CALPIN (Editor, " The NNatal Witness ") S OUTH Africa wages a war within and a war without. S It is difficult to decide which is the greater war,...

Books of the Day The Tiger Clemenceau. By Lcon I)audct. (Hodge. 12S. 6d.) FRANCE has had no Clcmenceau in this war. It is the more natural that books in which his...

Heroes-and Others II Essays and Addresses. By Sir Herbert Grierson. (Chatto and I I Windus. ios. 6d.) SIR HERBERT GRIERSON complains that reviewers rarely inc. ilic the...

More Wlynne Diaries The Wynne Diaries. Volume III. Edited by Anne Fremantle. (Oxford University Press. 2IS.) IN the second volume of the Wynne Diaries, Miss Betsey Wynne, the...

THE WAR SURVEYED: INVASION PROSPECTS By STRATEGICUS THE events which are taking place in Somaliland draw their importance from their relevance to the preparations for the...

A FIGHTING FAITH By KENNETH LINDSAY, M.P. M R. DUFF COOPER in a recent debate pointed out that the H word " morale " did not mean the same thing as courage, but he failed to...

TOUCH WITH THE PEOPLE By SIR WYNDHAM DEEDES CONSIDERABLE perplexity seems to exist regarding the character and purpose of the Local Information Committees recently established...