incalculability of this 1. phase of the war that whereas it is still uncertain as these words are written whether the Battle for Britain has really aegun, all doubt on that...

new proposals announced by the Governor-General a week ago are very much what might have been expected. The reception has been good except on the Part of Congress, which has...

The intensity and the nearness of German air attacks on the English coast must not lead us to underestimate the Italian attack on our forces in Somaliland and the threatened...

A public inquiry is to be held in London on August 26th to consider proposals for increasing the charges of the railway companies and the London Passenger Transport Board. It...

The removal of the right to strike in war-time has .made it necessary in cases of dispute to have recourse to compulsory arbitration. On Tuesday the National Arbitration...

Sir Kingsley Wood has wisely yielded to the demand that newspapers, books and periodicals should be exempted from the scope of the Purchase Tax. In announcing the concession...

Next week more than a million craftsmen, mostly engage d in engineering trades, are required to register for war - v 70 under an Order issued by the Minister of Labour last...

While the negotiations between Rumania and Bulgaria still lag and no progress has been made in those between Rumania and Hungary, and violent cross-currents of nationalist...

In an interview published in the Christian Science Monitor Mr. de Valera is reported to have said that the geographical position of Eire presents considerable difficulties for...

Budget has come and gone, opposed on at least four occasions in the division-lobby by rebel members of the Labour Party, who could not agree on items of the Purchase Tax. The...

a scene which took place last week when Mr. Austin Hopkinson demanded further enlighten- ment on the activities of the Swinton Committee, protesting vigorously against the...

War Savings (Determination of Needs) Bill. In response to a pledge given by the late Chancellor that war savings would not be reckoned in assessing needs under Unemployment and...

alone commands universal respect in the Commons, to speak not only of the war, but of foreign and Imperial policy, when he makes his promised report.

of French soldiers who on general grounds would be disposed to support General de Gaulle have declared for repatriation (as they are quite free to do) largely on the ground that...

than the ques- tion of reconstruction, international and national, after the war, and nothing will make more for such clarity than the obser- vance of a right distinction...

I T is obvious that the threat of famine in Europe is going to be used as a weapon of war. So far as there may be famine its cause is undisputed. Germany, having precipitated a...

Knox, the United tales Secretary of the Navy, suggesting that we are ot getting the full truth about British air losses. Let say with all the emphasis I can that there is not a...

Now, is getting a plan for federal union between the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Ireland advertised at immense expense in the...

I NE of the questions that must. have most exercised the Prime Minister in his capacity as Minister of Defence is e desirability or otherwise of making changes in the highest...

always, a revelation of discreditable ignorance has produced a wealth of valuable information. Embussing happened in the last war ; so did debussing ; I have found a colleague...

controversy between Sir Adrian Boult, of the B.B.C., and Sir Henry Wood " over the broadcasting of the Promenade Concerts, but whoever is to be held ultimately responsible for...

can quite realise what the world of scholarship, and still more the world of human relationships, have lost by her sudden death. Her learning, her mental vigour, her personal...

pilots. They know all about flying, these Young men, and very little about broadcasting—fortunately. So me of them, I should judge, are far more nervous in front of a ....

By STRATEGICUS A LTHOUGH the events which we are now witnessing may be explained in different ways, it seems most probable that we are approaching the crisis of the war. The...

By C. E. M. JOAD CANNOT believe that what I am going to say will not I already be familiar to readers of The Spectator; that it is not, indeed, the last word in commonplace....

By A FREE FRENCHMAN A FTER a few weeks of confusion and uncertainty, the broad A outline of Germany's policy in France has become apparent. It considerably modifies the hasty...

By RANJEE G. SHAHANI 1r SOMETIMES ask myself, what do Westerners know of 1 India, that huge continent of 350,000,000 people, with its civilisation half as old as time, and its...

By MEDICO I T was the notice of his death in the daily paper one day last week that brought it all back to me. The notice was one of the usual brief, bald statements which give...

rai THE wounds which ache most deep Are not by flesh revealed: Nor soothed by sun and sleep ; Nor by the hands are healed: Hurts which are never signed By blood or breaking...

The Five Minute Films. At all Cinemas. FOR some weeks now we have been seeing a series of five-minute films issued by the Films Division of the Ministry of Information. These...

MUSIC The , 4 Proms." HITLER or no Hitler, with or without the backing of Broadcasting Nous:, Sir Henry Wood determined that this year London should not be deprived of the...

Spectator is Pit - pared to champion the cause of the " Friendly Aliens" may I he allowed to go so far as to say that not only should the policy of th e general internment of...

Iln 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 they are shorter they...

Sts,—Your Dramatic Critic's notice of Mr. Donat's performance i n The Devil's Disciple suggests that he is more familiar with the Screen than with the Stage. Mr. Donat is no...

SIR,—We must not lose sight of the fact that the chief blunders in the internment of aliens have been caused by a complete lack of policy. The first question which should have...

all friendly aliens should be interned without trial. It would be interesting to know whether he would include General de Gaulle and his staff— refugees from Fascism.—Yours...

Paul's for his article on " Pacificism as Vocation "? How just is his observation that this danger underlying the Archbishop's dictum is no trivial matter. It is fundamental,...

Dean d St. Paul's in last week's Spectator that ." the Archbishops have f allen into a confusion of thought," I respectfully-suggest that he in waY strengthens his argument by...

sra,—As the victim of the accident whose cost was referred to by " Janus," I might say that I was making no complaint, that I merely reported, at lunch, the severe financial...

Britain to foreign countries is an important part of the function of the M.O.I., but to suggest that the moulding of public opinion at home can safely be left to the public...

not command the agreement with which I, for one, habitually read the words of the Dean of St. Paul's. His argument, in brief, is this: The Archbishops believe that the...

" Pacificism as Vocation " published in your issue of August 9th, " a pacificist is one who holds that it is wrong in any circumstances to fight, and conse- quently that it is...

SIR, — " 1917 " in your issue of August 9th has mixed up Lord North- cliffe's- British War Mission to the United States with his Department for Propaganda in Enemy Countries....

Sts,—I have been taking The Spectator for the last twelve months, as I found it had discarded, for the time being, the sentimental nonsense of " idealisms " and faced facts....

The numbers of that exclusive British bird, the Red Grouse, are immense in many districts, as are those of partridges. Now grouse, more surely than any other species of bird,...

Merry England The old Mill is in Domesday. The stream is a favourite swimming pool for a swan, where it makes a still pond above the mill and a not uncommon haunt of both...

Srn,—Might a banker explain that what Mr. Deayton is proposing, in expecting his bank to do without both adequate bank balance and commission on his account is simply that the...

Sta,—I should be grateful if you would allow me to draw your atten- tion to a small factual inaccuracy in the paragraph entitled " Divide et Impera," in your issue of August...

favoured by butter- flies. Attempts to breed them in the Parks, as I witnessed many years ago, all failed owing to the activity of urban parasites. Yet visitors sometimes...

Stn,—The confession made by Sir Wyndham Deedes in your issue of last week, that " considerable perplexity seems to exist regarding the character and porpose of the Local...

to have altered its wonted habits since the war. Usually it is fond of gardens only when the green peas are ripening. Its passion for this vegetable is overmastering. This...

newly re - commended ways against the winter; and one of the more popular new devices is to bury green peas in a well-corked bottle. Now Peas are kink cattle, full of vitality...

Fathers and Heretics. By G. L. Prestige, D.D. (S.P.C.K. 125. 6d.) IN this volume, which contains the Bampton Lectures for the present year,-Dr. Prestige is as successful as, in...

Education and Administration The Year Book of Education, 1940. (Evans Bros., Li iss.) IT is a relief to find at the outset of this massive volume an unequivocal statement that...

Germany Tomorrow. By Otto Strasser. (Jonathan Cape. 8s. 6d.) Orro STRASSER has already been introduced to British readers through Douglas Reed's Nemesis? and through his own...

Boethius. By Helen M. Barrett. (Cambridge University Press. 7s. 6d.) Miss Baaitarr's book is not at all untimely. There have been other seasons in history, when the ordinary...

APART from the immense technical literature that the study of bacteriology has produced, there have been popular works on the subject; and, indeed, it is a subject packed with...

A Footman for the Peacock. By Rachel Ferguson. (Cape. 85. 6d Moment in Peking is a book to offer with both hands to an person of intelligence. Leaving its occasional defects and...

Frontier Doctor. By Urling C. Coe. (Macmillan. 8s. 6d.) THERE is a natural temptation to dismiss this as " just another doctor book." It is that, of course, but it is a good...

By CUSTOS THESE are not days when one looks for any great activity in Throgmorton Street. Apart from seasonal influences—which are still at work—there are innumerable other and...

therefore be only moderately surprised to discover that the French Colonial Empire is (or should it be was?) larger in population than the British and more than twice as large...

F. Reddaway. (Cape. as.) BY most people the rebuilding of London after 1666 is vaguely envisaged as an immense administrative muddle, in which great opportunities were thrown...

Book Token for one guinea will be given to the senaer of the first cot ect solution en this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be marked " Crossword Puzzle,"...

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