A particularly interesting contribution to the discussion' of the European Army and its prospects was given by Dr. Blank, the .German Chancellor's adyiser on defence questions,...

T HE Foreign Secretary, having obviously done good work in America, has already taken up the urgent tasks that await him here. Mr. Churchill remains to do What may prove the...

So far the effect of the increasingly fierce figliting around the British depot at Tel el Kebir and on the road between there and Ismailia has only been to show that there is...

Public bickering has never helped towards peace in Palestine; it is only on the spot that local adjustments have from time to time been made in the past three years which have,...

The British public, to say nothing of the American, must be getting a little weary of the fact that the materials which display the most persistent shortages in this country are...

Those who have the privilege of seeing and hearing M. Vyshinsky through the length of a United Nations Assembly are no doubt better qualified to assess at their right value the...

With the ratification of the Schuman Plan by the West German Bundestag the crucial test of practice has come sensibly nearer. Before many months have passed the plan for a...

E VEN when the feet of the Sphinx were littered with the bones of men she had. destroyed new candidates con- tinued to come forward to guess the riddle. Perhaps the most...

N --- 0 one, certainly, will grudge Sir Robert Watson- Watt and the other scientists. who helped in the discovery of radar the sums which the Royal Commission on Awards to...

the death of Cleland Scott, who has contributed so many articles to its columns on aspects of Central Africa. The Times spoke of him as " one of the most colourful residents in...

I am a little behindhand in saluting the new Whitaker. For that matter Whitaker itself is a little beforehand, in producing its: 1952 edition before Christmas, a prematurity...

give some food for thought. One was headed " Creeds as Barriers to Christianity," the other ",Six Candlesticks on Altar Allowed "—allowed by a Consistory Court, after con-...

defenders in this country be allowed to gloss over their blatant dishonesty. The Times correspohdent in Berlin has done well to focus attention- on the action of the Communist....

name is no stranger to these pages) has been making something of a stir with his insistence that boys shall eat what they are given to eat, refrain from losing their own, or...

a new Warden before the one last elected has even been formally installed, and great sympathy is due to Sir Hubert Henderson, whose breakdown in health has made his resignation...

By ROWLAND WINN ti T1 EPEND upon one thing " I was cautioned by the kindly War Correspondent. " Nobody over there," and he waved airily towards the fogbound coast of Britain, "...

By OWEN TWEEDY Kuwait S EVEN years ago an American commission reviewed the reserves of oil then proved in the productive oilfields of the world. The analysis revealed that of...

By ERNSTFRIEDLAENDER T HE ratification of the Schuman Plan by the Bundestag had- been a foregone conclusion. If there was a surprise, it consisted in the impressive size of the...

By JOHN BRAY T the beginning of December most British officials employed by the Egyptian Ministry of Education were asked by their superiors to take two weeks' holiday to avoid...

By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. ET it began so well ... When I fed the rabbits, the sun was as high as it can go in January, and the frost on the lawn was melting. The whole...

By COMDR. HILARY P. MEAD N O doubt it is a truism to assert that customs and usages attain permanence from insignificant origins, gradually gaining recognition and then being...

There was once an Old Woman who lived in a Shoe ; She had so many children, she didn't know what to do— They thronged her each morning in urgent resort With lists far too long...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HE death in Paris of General—now Marshal—de Lattre de Tassigny has aroused feelings of distress in every country forming part of the great Western...

in- the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday night, Kathleen Ferrier sang Chausson's Poi:me de l'Arnour et de la Mer. It was the first time that I had heard her sing French music ; and...

Outcast of the Islands. (Plaza.)—Phone Call from a Stranger. (Odeon.)—Les Miserables. (Marble Arch Pavilion.) MR. CAROL REED 's new production, Joseph Conrad's Outcast of the...

THEATRE Much Ado About Nothing. By William Shakespeare. (Phoenix.) THE interest of a performer is almost rPrtnin to be centred in himself," Mr. T. S. Eliot observed tartly some...

The year before last I neglected my gooseberry bushes and suffered an alarming fall in the crop. My first neglect was in not pruning, and the second in not taking precautions...

SCULPTURE is corning to mean something quite different from what our parents meant by the word. When painters lost interest in the illusionistic representation of depth and...

Three cottages where roof-repairs had been carried out took my attention. The work had been done with cement. Slates are plentiful here—so plentiful that large slate slabs stand...

WE were crossing the moor by car when we saw two horsemen coming down from the skyline. They were rounding up sheep, controlling their dogs and making a good job of the thing....

A friend, returning from a visit to relatives in Glamorgan, has brought me a broth spoon, a large spoon like a lard ladle, carved from a sycamore block. Forty or fifty years ago...

Blacksmith T. came to the forge after the war and brought ideas he had gathered in the army. The old bellows are no longer in use, having been replaced by a blower fan. The...

VOLUNTEER CAVALRY AND INFANTRY SIR, — In addition to an increase of the Army and Navy — a precautionary measure imperatively required owing to the present state of Europe—it...

of £5 was offered for a motto (in English) for four of the following groups : Rodent Operatives ; Tic-Tac Men ; Gossip Columnists ; Income-Tax Consultants ; Beauty Queens ;...

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscripion. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold...

Set by John Usborne The New York Times writes that the new synthetic chemical, Whim, " will mark the beginning of a revolutionary era in agriculture, in which man - made...

Snt,—Mr. Edward Hodgkin in his article-interests himself in the 1946 Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, and the Rent Tribunals set up by Mr. Aneurin Bevan with power to fix...

from what source Janus heard that both the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, were crucified in Rome. This must be news to many, and is-certainly not a tradition- commonly held...

Snt,—May I eater a plea that the measure of the wisdom of educational policy should not be, as it appears at present in danger of being, solely the financial one. It is...

to have committed himself to a triple error in his Marginal Comment of December 21st. As your correspondent, Mr. J. M. Sinclair, points out, only Burke was convicted and hanged;...

Federal or Confederal ? Snt—Your correspondent points out that the- British Commonwealth has always been characterised by flexibility. An even more striking example of this...

Sut,—Much of Mr. Ward's article in the Spectator of January 11th is sound sense. But he does not point out one very serious mistake in Forestry Commission policy. They buy up...

SIR,—May I correct your quotation of Calvin Coolidge's supposedly. equivocal declaration of his intentions regarding the Presidency. In the U.S.A. one does not strike a...

Sta,—In reply to Mr. Gardner-Smith, surely it is tile counsel of per- feCtion if not of purism to demand a respect for the French " eau " in the word bureaucracy ? It seems...

SIR,—If by Chambers' Sixty Logarithm Tables Professor Satterly means Chambers' Six-Figure Mathematical Tables, we emphatically endorse Sir Stanley Unwin's remarks. We were not...

SIR,—Of the seven hundred tunes in Cdngregational Praise Sir Norman Birkett mentions only Stracathro. I think no one who really examines the book can fail to be struck by the...

SIR,—I feel Mr. Hilton-Young has rather strengthened my assertion that (apart from war losses) there are more British men than women of marriageable age ; I am quite willing to...

SIR,—It sticks in my mind that Coleridge said of coffee that ;t ought to be As hot is Hell— As black as Night— As sweet as Dove— As strong as Death. If in Coleridge, where ?...

Sta,—I must express my appreciation of the first prize New Year Card by C. P. Driver. I should have given him the undivided prize. This card should appeal to a wide public: to...

Sut,—I am interested in the correspondence which is taking place on this subject, and it may be some help to Mr. W. Hilton-Young to tell him that the statistics published in the...

Letters of Richard Wagner (Burrell Collection). Edited by John N. Burk. (Gollancz. 42s.) THERE are characters that exercise so great a fascination on their fellow men that...

Achtung ! Panzer! Panzer Leader. By General Heinz Guderian. (Michael Joseph. THERE was surely no field commander in the Second World War who made such an impact on its course...

Henry James. By F. W. Dupee. (Methuen. American Men of Letters Series. 15s.) THERE is a decided difference between English and American literary criticism. The English critic...

FOR readers in this country the - second chapter in this new volume of German documents is the most directly interesting since it provides the official German analysis of...

THE greatest of the Habsburgs since Charles V rightly gives her name to the title of this book. Seen in her voluminous correspondence with and about her children, Joseph and...

aouGH is the first Victorian poet to become an Oxford English Text. This noble series is, of course, a repository of great scholarship as well as of great literature, and from...

Sylvester. By Edward Hyams. (Longman. 10s. 6d.) IN a year wherein much has been done to celebrate and refresh the reputation of the tragic Scott Fitzgerald, it is fitting and...

Panorama. By Phyllis Bentley. (Gollanc - z. 12s. 6d.) Cast a Cold Eye. By Mary McCarthy. (Heinemann. 9s. 6d.) MISS PHYLLIS BENTLEY'S most striking characteristic as a novelist...

My Life, My Stage. By Ernest Stern. (Gollancz. 21s.) " MELODY," writes Mr. Ernest Stem, " translates itself for me into line and form." In this book Mr. Stern successfully...

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IA Book Token for one guinea- will be awarded to - the sender of the first Carreet solution opened after noon. on- Tuesday- week, January 29th,. addressed Crossword.. 99 Gower...

Beethoven : Letters, Journals and Conversa- tions. Translated and edited by Michael Hamburger. (Thames & Hudson. 21s.) IT has sometimes been said that Beethoven's letters are...

held at Oxford, and the papers they read have now been classified under four headings and published in the hope that " they will give some idea of present trends in English...

18s.) Tins is a thorough survey of the contem- porary bookselling trade which should not only prove valuable to all members and potential members of that ,trade, but 'Which...

sole qualification for a review the President of Queens' would deserve little less than a whole issue of the Spectator. For he has set himself, and is methodically,,...

By CUSTOS MARKETS are slowly giving ground, as one feared they must, in face of superior enemy forces. Thanks to the strong technical position—there are no unwieldy over-...