T HERE has been little change in the Spanish situation in the past week either internally or externally. Cata- lonia has been cleared ; active hostilities, except for an...

The White Paper on Defence issued on Wednesday em- bodies staggering figures. In the House on that day the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave notice that he would move for power...

Pope Pius XI The death of the Pope took place too late for mention in last week's Spectator. With his funeral on Tuesday one chapter closes and another opens ; on a later page...

Jewish than in the Arab statement of claim. The Arabs demand the complete independence of Palestine, abandonment of the attempt to establish a Jewish National Home, abrogation...

Hainan, in the Gulf of Tongking, has caused natural alarm to the British and, especially, the French Governments. Hainan occupies a vital strategic position, lying close to...

the first week of the Palestine Conference, which has been taken up with the statement of the Jewish and the Arab cases. But two encouraging signs may be noted. The leader of...

Hungary, resigned on Tuesday night, and his Minister of Education, Count Teleki was summoned to a long interview with Admiral ror:hy, the Regent. The fall of Dr. Imredy was not...

has made sincere efforts to come to agreement with Germany, despite the disagreeable sacrifices this involves ; the attempt has been unsuccessful. On Sunday, Herr Kundt, who...

in the throes of a )litical crisis which, centring in the first instance on a ngle personality, has involved principles which raise the hole Fleming-Walloon issue, and has...

the police at the January demonstrations, and Mr. Bellenger, who raised the question of Sir Reginald Ford's appointment as London's Food Controller, on the adjourn- ment on...

the interna- tional situation the House is toughly divided into two schools of thought. Both appreciate that, in the next two or three months, the controversy which has raged...

serves him so well, was his undoing in the debate on the Czecho-Slovakian Money Bill. The House was shocked to hear that the right of option from the transferred terri- tories...

Sir Samuel Hoare must be held to have done everything that could reasonably be asked of him in regard to the amendment of the Official Secrets Act. The measure, as recent...

international body to deal with refugees from Germany, the Inter-Governmental Com- mittee of the Evian Conference has made another step towards tackling the problem on the only...

O N two occasions in the last week Herr Hitler has demonstrated his admiration for Count Bismarck ; on Monday at Bismarck's tomb in Friedrichsruhe, on Tuesday at Hamburg, at the...

S IR JOHN ANDERSON took up what is in effect the post of Minister of Civilian Defence at the beginning of November, and next week, in reply to a motion by the Labour Opposition...

on Wednesday concerned with the needs of Chinese universities): " You know that, when two boxers fight, one tries to get at the other's chin to strike a knock-out blow. China's...

in support of Lord Baldwin's Fund by Herr Gottfried Treviranus, who was Minister of Communications in Dr. Bruning's last Cabinet, carries me back to a brilliant spring day some...

publishes too much depressing matter in its news bulletins. That the balance of the bulletins should be distorted in any way would be a serious matter, but I have seen no...

V ARIOUS scraps of information--or allegation—regarding the state of the German railways, e g., as to the with- drawal of a number of express trains, has crept into the...

mélange gives pungency to the sentiment expressed. So that I am inclined to approve both the form and the content of the observation made to me by a well-informed friend this...

leaving the responsibilities attaching to the post of Chief Divisional Food Officer for London to a man of 70 living in Brussels " (Major-General Sir Reginald Ford) has elicited...

to reach me contains a long and interesting account of a recent meeting between Mr. Gandhi and the well-known Japanese Christian leader, Dr. Kagawa. If it is rightly reported,...

By LORD CLONN1ORE A NY attempt to prophesy the result of a conclave can only be futile ; as has wisely been pointed out during the last few days, " he who enters the Vatican a...

By SIR DANIEL HALL [This is the first of a series of three articles on the prospects of British agriculture.] T HE English farmers have achieved an exceptional success in...

By THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S T HE 37th Article of Religion asserts that " it is lawful for Christian men, at the command of the magistrate, to wear weapons and to serve in the...

By C. E. M. JOAD A UNIVERSITY post is an observation tower from which the teacher, making contact September after Septem- ber with fresh relays of young men and women, may note...

By PETER NEUMANN c c A MAJOR cause of the present distressed condition of the railroads," the President's Committee on Transportation has reported, " is the low level to which...

By NIGEL TANGYE T HE alleged might of the German Air Force lies as much in subtly emitted words and insinuations as in actual strength of material and personnel. There is no...

By DAVID CLEGHORN THOMSON I N the Chronicle of St. Gall, written in Charlemagne's time, we read in the opening chapter of how two Irish scholars crossed the Channel on an...

By MARY PAKINGTON M ILLY HODGE stood in front of the notice posted up on a farm gate some three miles from her home, and slowly absorbed the description of herself : " Height,...

MUSCULAR virtuoso! Once again you take the centre of the stage, The flat Midlands. The signals are all down, the curtain is raised And with unerring power you drive Straight...

THE Queen of Sheba is in rags. I kneel to her in jewels and Rags. From Solomon the Wise come I To tell her all is vanity. DOROTHY WELLESI.E Y.

Eden pleaded so courteously last Sunday, were to be sacrificed to any refusal to admit past errors of judgement. Let the anti-Munich party confess that they underestimated the...

By HAROLD NICOLSON A LTHOUGH not by all means a Conservative (since I am also a Socialist and a Liberal), yet I have a pro- found admiration for the Conservative party. It...

always right. Had the Central Office existed in 153o (and I expect it did) it would have affirmed that the sun went round the earth, and that Copernicus and Galileo were...

boyish- ness, with which the Conservative party makes virtues out of its necessities. When fleeing, with exemplary courage, from an enemy, the legs of the Conservative twinkle...

spread from Czecho-Slovakia to Spain, whether the cracks and fissures which appeared in the structure of the National Government will be repaired. Those of us who asserted that...

So solvent are the juices of their charm and generosity that even the staunchest Liberal National, even the most ardent believer in National Labour, undergoes a chemical...

contrasts in film-making could hardly he imagined—the one unpretentious and entertaining, the other flashy and boring. Boy Trouble, which must have cost a quarter as little as...

From Berg to Mozart ,1 is always a pleasure to turn from the symphony to the quieter music of the string-consort, and after a long dearth the past fortnight has afforded a...

[Von einem deutschen Korrespondenten] HERR JOSEPH GOEBBELS, einer von den Big Five des Dritten Reiches, hat dem Witz den Krieg angesagt. Was aber ist ein Witz? Friiher verstand...

The Third International PAST the sellers of coloured favours and newspapers and phoney programmes, past the perennially vocal Welsh miners, along the prim suburban streets of...

The problem of the empty school is also one which hundreds of small villages are now facing. Many children have been taken to schools in larger towns. How soon before an inter-...

on country life which still persists ; it has been responsible for something like a racket in the business of country cottages. Throughout the autumn friends one had not seen...

bloom for six months should remember Phlox Drummondi. Where the nemesia, for example, flowers almost as soon as pricked out and is over within a month in dry weather, Drummondi...

The village in which these notes are being written has a population of 230 adults and children ; it is really three ham- lets in one. It has a church, one pub. and one shop, a...

November, has not shown a finger since; the lemon of aconites has revived after weeks of rain. But already there are other compensa- tions : splashes of primula wanda, grey-pink...

Four strong influences have been felt in village life since the War : the decline of the big house, the decline of the church, the influx of townspeople seeking something in the...

States should be unselfish —the affirmative answer to your question—has little import- ance if unaccompanied by an indication of the degree of unselfishness which States may...

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—I venture to ask for the inclusion of this letter in your columns because your readers are educated men and women, able to understand an...

— One cannot but admire the unwearied zeal with which Lady Simon conducts her campaign for democracy as she sees it. We are assured that the pure doctrine is to be found in...

space to refer to the Spens Report ? Lady Simon in her letter of February xoth would close the discussion with a Parthian shaft pointed with the words " equal educational...

SIR,—Now that with many unedifying contortions the greater part of the British Press is hastening to make up for lost time by shifting its ground and looking on the bright...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The trouble with the refugees is that they have not yet been disciplined to decay peacefully as have our own un- employed. Most of them...

Kittermaster will answer the most important practical question arising out of his very valuable article. This question is : If he were appointed headmaster of an orthodox public...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Stu,—The analogy and facts given by Mr. Woosnam-Jones in support of his claim that high battleship speeds are desirable in our Navy do...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sut,—Mr. Castle says that corporal punishment " reduces problems of misdemeanour to too simple terms." I am a prefect at a well-known public...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Sir Arnold Wilson, in his article on " Who Are the Defeatists? " in your number of February 3rd, has branded pacifists as being the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Mr. C. E. Vulliamy's letter stirs me deeply. It was long since I had read anything more sane and pertinent. With his cry of Abolish the...

hope, an average and normal public-school boy of ten years' standing, and I think it is time that people of the age and morbid mentality of Mr. Kittermaster stopped pouring out...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—A paragraph in " A Spectator's Notebook " in your issue of February roth refers to an advertisement of a book published by my firm. In...

To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Last week you published an extract from Das Wahre Deutschland which gives perhaps a better impression of conditions inside Germany than...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—As an old reader of The Spectator, I am amazed that your correspondent signing himself C. A. Cameron should insinuate that your valued...

SIR,—I have just read in your issue of February loth the letter entitled " Cynomania," signed C. E. Vulliamy. I am shocked at its contents, though I suppose at this time of...

see that my species is the origin or centre of a lamentable psychosis in your correspondent, Mr. C. E. Vulliamy. We dogs are accustomed to conceal some of our feelings about...

The Times " Under Delane (R. C. K. Ensor) 269 Fallen Bastions (Elizabeth Wiskemann) 270 I Think Aloud in America (D. W. Brogan) ... 270 Loyal Enemy (Christopher Sykes)... 27z...

title for a very interesting book. Thinking aloud usually interests and informs the thinker rather more than the audience, but, in this case, almost all the thinking is centred...

Gedye. (Gollancz. t6s.) MR. GEDYE has written a book of first-rate importance with regard to the Central European catastrophe which culminated in the Munich Agreement of...

Picasso. By Gertrude Stein. (Batsford. 75. 6d.) IN many important respects Miss Gertrude Stein is the perfect biographer for Picasso. A personal friendship of many years'...

IN spite of the greatness of his talent, and the oddness of his name, Marmaduke Pickthall's reputation has fallen into obscurity. It is safe, however, to prophesy that he will...

Money to Burn : What the Great American Philanthropic Foundations Do with Their Money. By Horace Coon. (Longmans. 15s.) THE problem of mortmain in a capitalist society is always...

(Collins. 21s.) " IN time of war or emergency the existence and defence of the nation would largely depend upon the possession of sufficient tramp tonnage under the British...

Christmas Holiday. By W. Somerset Maugham. (Heinemann. 7s. 6d.) IT is often amusing when reading the book of an established writer to pretend to oneself that his name is...

By KATE O'BRIEN A Handful of Silver. By Doreen Wallace. (Collins. 8s. 6d.) THE work of Ignazio Silone was unknown to me until I opened The School for Dictators, but I look...

This unusual and extremely interesting book (Faber, 8s. 6d.) is the patient's history of an illness and its cure. Mr. Karinthy is apparently one of Hungary's most prominent...

By C. Fox Smith This is an unusual sort of travel book. Miss Fox Smith, long famous as a writer on ships, had always, since reading Rider Haggard as a small girl, had a...

Sir David Hunter Blair, the Abbot of Dunfermline, has a remarkable memory, an enquiring and receptive mind, and a mellow style. These miscellaneous and tantalisingly brief...

In the course of their valuable surveys of Light Industries in Scotland (Scottish Economic Committee, 19 Blvthswood Square, Glasgow, is. 6d.) the seven experts appointed by the...

T. E. LAWRENCE TO HIS BIOGRAPHERS By Robert Graves and Liddell Hart These two very finely produced volumes (Faber, to5s.) contain a great mass of information about T. E....

This short and charming book (Chatto and Windus, 5s.) is an account of a visit which Mr. Warner paid some fifteen years ago to an uncle who lived on a small island in Lake Erie,...

ONCE again it is stalemate in the stock markets. Thanks to " bear covering " and a modest volume of investment sup- port, prices have recovered pretty sharply from the January...

If one is to believe certain whisperings, one or two of the investment trusts have lately seen fit to sell a portion of their fixed-interest holdings and put the money into...

Alas! Paddington has not kept up the running set by Waterloo and Euston. Frankly, I did not expect that it would, for it was surely optimistic to suppose that any- thing but a...

GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY A REMARKABLE OUTPUT RECORD INCREASED COST OF COAL SIR DAVID MILNE-WATSON'S REVIEW THE two hundred and thirty-second Ordinary General Meeting of the...

In fact, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Southern Preferred, which has fallen from 66 to 601 since the accounts were published and which still includes £4 gross of...

over- whelming last year, but the London, Midland and Scottish put up a remarkable fight. The extent of the savings effected by the management is brought out even more strik-...

FIRST STORES RESULTS A FIRST batch of profit figures from the big department stores shows a moderate recession during the year ended January 31st, which will occasion neither...

The International Rubber Regulation Committee ha' cheered a large number of rubber shareholders, and a smalls; number of Mincing Lane traders, by making no change in th_...

on semi- speculative preference shares are common enough, indicated return of over ii per cent. requires a little ex- amination. At 12s. 6d. the 5 per cent. cumulative...

WANDSWORTH AND DISTRICT GAS LARGER NUMBER OF CONSUMERS THE annual ordinary general meeting of the Wandsworth and District Gas Company was held on February 14th at Wands-...

A number of leading gas companies have this year advanced the price of gas, although their financial results for 1938 in many instances make a better showing than those of 1937....

Mr. Frank H. Jones the chairman of the Wandsworth and District Gas Company, also expressed his regret at the neces- sity of raising the price of gas in his company's area. The...

of Crossword No. 333 is Mr. Peter Rees, Rish- worth School, Halifax.

BY ZENO [A prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be...