The decision of John L. Lewis to send the American soft coal miners back to work until March 3rst, 1947, settles little but reveals much. The determination of the American...

The British Note to Albania is not a syllable stronger than the situation requires. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine a situation more grave. The narrow channel between Corfu,...

T HE furious activity which is usual at the tail-end of international conferences is now in full cry in New York, with the committees of the United Nations working day and night...

The discussion on the B.B.C. in the House of Commons on Wednesday produced few criticisms going beyond the expression of individual tastes, though Mr. Henry Strauss made a point...

How far the resignation of Sidky Pasha, the Egyptian Prime Minister, is due to purely physical causes can only be surmised. The probability is that the Prime Minister, who has...

The urgent question of increased university accommodation is raised again in a rather challenging form in the report presented last Friday by a sub-committee of the...

The mystery which has surrounded the negotiations for the merger of the Federation of British Industries and the British Employers' Confederation has not been dispelled by...

P ARLIAMENT is at its best when it debates what is uppermost in the minds of those whom it represents. No such claim can be made out for our proceedings this week until...

Statistics are not everybody's cup of sea, and to that extent it is understandable that the Statistics for Trade Bill, which appeared last week, went almost unnoticed. Yet it is...

It is becoming a commonplace of commerce that codified company law needs a periodic shake-up to ensure that it renders full service to the community. The law of 1929 has served...

print a debate on India, so ill- timed as to be definitely dangerous, will be in progress in the House of Commons. The statement made on Wednesday by the Prime Minister...

their " closed-shop-for-all-employees," claim, I see, that they are retreating in good order. There is no doubt about the retreat, and none about the wisdom of it. If obstinacy...

T HE fuss the French are making about Dr. Schumacher's visit to this country has very little justification, if any at all. On the other hand the rather excessive fuss made here...

of nations. Few American humourists with humour so esoteric have captured the public in the same way as Mr. Runyon. His molls and his citizens and his somewhats had their part...

the 6.4o p.m. from Liverpool Street to Waltham Cross (under 13 miles) 51 minutes late on December 2nd? Well, replied the Minister of Transport, it was 19 minutes late in...

to attend to me. Otherwise I should like to ask him to give me his opinion on mono- syllables. Here is an extract or two from his letter to his 400,000 strikers—some of whom,...

Member is on his feet down below at any moment, should be affixed to Big Ben did not commend itself to the Minister of Works. Nor, I am afraid, does it to me ; the news that...

themselves figures of fun. Bristol and its Public Relations Officer are likely to be heard of for some time. The Council clearly wants to be in the fashion, and hearing that...

Ministry of Transport between them decided to compensate railway stock- holders on the basis of alleged capital value, irrespective of yield, they realised the effect their...

By KENNETH LINDSAY, M.P. p OR three weeks some two hundred delegates with their advisers and officials at the first UNESCO Conference in Paris have been wrestling with a...

By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. w HEN the slightly discreditable member of a family comes home his relatives look sideways at him through their lorgnettes and watch the spoons. He,...

By ELIZABETH WISKEMANN T HE time has come now when some kind of Germany must be patched together and legally recognised, and induced to function once again as a living...

By GUNTHER STEIN New York B EHIND America's suspended coal-strike lies a steadily deepen- ing nation-wide conflict between labour and management. And behind the festering...

By H. J. FLOWERS T HE statement of the Minister of Health that he proposes to introduce a Bill for allowing a modified and abridged Birth Certificate will give satisfaction to...

By PETER FLEMING L ISTENING to a rebroadcast of Hiroshima on the Light Pro- gramme, I found myself wondering whether these extracts from Mr. Hersey's account of what happened...

By PATRIC DICKINSON " W HERE are the war-poets ? " In the first months of the 1939 war one was often asked this question, even by intelligent people, and saw it asked in the...

By HAROLD NICOLSON M R. JOHN SOFIANOPOULOS, who is now on a visit to London, is an interesting man. I first met him twenty-seven years ago when he was on the staff of Venizelos...

THE THEATRE "The Gleam." By Warren Chetham-Strode. At the Globe. IN this highly intelligent play Mr. Chetham-Strode examines the impact of State control on the British medical...

HERE are three films which show the French cinema at its best, its middling and its worst. On the whole, it emerges from the survey very successfully. Its worst is no worse, and...

Two pianoforte recitals among many seem to stand out in last week's music and to start some interesting hares. Norman Tucker played a full-dress classical programme at the...

Ceri Richards' starting point, as evidenced by his watercolours at the Redfern, is Picasso of the 'thirties. These drawings should probably be regarded primarily as exercises,...

Enemy of Cant, Louis MacNiece's programme about Aristophanes, and the latest manifestation of the B.B.C.'s Greek revival, hardly lived up to its title. It presented Aristophanes...

THE MAHDI AND THE SUDAN Sla,—No friend of Sudanese independence can feel very happy about Sir Nigel Davidson's letter on Abdulla Bey Khalil's recent article, published in your...

Sts,—Mr. Arnold Forster's contention, that Sweden's acceptance of mem- bership in the United Nations involves a deliberate abandonment of, neutrality, is no doubt literally...

SIR,—Apropos of your remarks on the Nelson pension in The Spectator of December 6th, perhaps the following may be of interest. It is an extract from the reminiscences of the...

maladministration against the Mandi on the ground that, as he died within six months of Gordon's death, he had no time to maladminister. But the Mandi was master of the Sudan...

Sta,—For more than a year we have been reading in your paper, and in almost every newspaper, magazine or journal published in this country, a series of very patient and...

SIR,—If the Librarian of the House of Commons had extended his researches a little further he would have found that, though a Mr. Anthony Henley was a Member of Parliament when...

Snt,—A Press report on November 29th gave this notice, which had appeared on the union board of a large works in London on the previous day: " The management have been informed...

SIR,—I am sorry to see Mr. Bacon anxiously hovering again around that little mare's-nest of four years ago. I wish he would apply his gifts to the solution of some genuine...

Sta,—Nobody suggests that General de Gaulle was in a position to give valid orders to launch the Free French troops against the Vichy. But as General Spears himself admits: " He...

SIR,—When reading the News of the Week—usually so interesting and accurate—in The Spectator of November 29th, I came across a sentence which appears to me to be rather...

mis-stating facts deliberately, in his anxiety to unearth every point which might sup- port his argument that the Nelson Annuity should be terminated, he has again laid himself...

SIR,—It was good to see Mr. Harold Nicolson's mild reproof in this week's Spectator. When will the authorities realise that the idea so beloved by the Victorians of a figure...

SIR, May I, as a Spaniard who, in fighting Franco, thought that I had fought for those freedoms which Britain defended against Hitler and Mussolini, express my amazement at your...

"Whatever happens," a nurseryman once said to me, " there is never a slump in the sale of flowers." Today there is a boom. Numbers of nurseries are completely sold out of...

One after-effect of flooding that may be not generally noticed is that it utterly destroys the whole population of worms, those potent agents in fertilising and " sub-soiling."...

Sus,—My attention has been called to the Rev. M. Davidson's letter in The Spectator of August 16th stating that, in reviewing his book, The Mid-Twentieth Century Atom, in the...

S1R,—The experts frequently assure the ignorant countryman that he is wrong in relating weather conditions to the changes of the moon. A friend of mine notes that the two last...

A PRETTY example of village pride deserves recording and deserves support. Not long since the ancient elm-trees on the village green of Preston in Hertfordshire were felled to...

In the virulent controversy aroused by the threat of satellite towns, one detail is worth picking out. A branch of the Farmers' Union has put in as an objection to the Hemel...

Revolution of Environment. By E A. Gutkind. (Kegan Paul. 30s.) As this book is published under distinguished academic auspices, the reader assumes that it is recommended as a...

Tibet and its Chief Priest Portrait of the Dalai Lama. By Sir Charles Bell. (Collins. 21s.) THE author, a member of the Indian Civil Service, was first employed on the Tibetan...

Norfolk Notebook. By Lilies Rider Haggard. (Faber. 8s. 6d.) WHATEVER H. Rider Haggard's reputation as a writer of novels and romances may be today, his reputation as a...

Lord's. By Sir Pelham Warner. (Harrap. 15s.) DURING the war amusement of any kind was so curtailed that it was not surprising that cricket at Lord's, organised largely by the...

Two Exiles. By H. C. A. Gaunt. (Sampson Low. Ss. 6d.) MR. GAUNT is surely mistaken in seeking to reach with his book a wider public than that provided by past and present...

George Colman the Younger. By Jeremy F. Bagster-Collins. (Geoffrey Cumberledge, for the King's Crown Press, New York. 20s.) George Colman the Younger. By Jeremy F....

Beowulf. In Modern Verse. By Gavin Bone. (Blackwell. 15s.) THE study of Anglo-Saxon, as indeed the study of Greek and Latin, has always been too much concerned with language...

Suzanne and Joseph Pasquier. By Georges Duhamet. Translated by Beatrice de Holthoir. (Dent. 10s. 6d.) THE French novel, beginning let us assume for order's sake with Madame de...

The House in the Hills. By Olivia FitzRoy. 8s. 6d.) Kemball Cook. (Allen and Unwin. 7s. 6d.) THREE of the story-books on this list were written by authors with a purpose...

MR. ATTLEE has announced the appointment of Mr. J. R. M. Butler, Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge, as chief military historian for the official war histories of...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, December 24th....

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Michael Verran. By the Rt. Hon. Isaac Foot, P.C. (Epworth Press. 5s.) WHEN Carlyle read in The Examiner a brief account of the heroism of a Cornish miner and his miraculous...

By CUSTOS EVEN before Mr. Dalton, adopting his familiar technique, hinted at an early withdrawal of the new tap loan markets had begun to gather fresh momentum. Mr. Shinwell's...

Francisco Rodrigues. (Hakluyt Society. Bernard Quaritch 0 15s. Od.) FOR geographers and others interested in early accounts of the East by European travellers this translation...

THE author of this revealing little book went to Poland in December a year ago, as the delegate of the Central Council of Anglo-Polish Societies, to get first-hand information...