But there is no hard evidence that the Communists have become more reasonable because the United Nations attacks have become more deadly. And although General Collins is right...

The Rtissians have nOw had a week in which to study the text of the latest Allied note on the subject of Germany This note suggested the conditions under which the Four Powers...

The present epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain has by no means yet spent itself; fresh outbreaks continue to be recorded, though not at such an alarming a rate as two...

The Chancellor of the Exchequer's week-end speech in which he pointed out that there is no strong case for wage increases should strengthen the hands of those employers who are...

The most sensible remark in the House of Lords' debate on the Dean of Canterbury was made by the Archbishop in the course of his wise, dignified and impressive speech. "If the...

The pronouncements of the Conservative Party during the General Election and the actions of the Conservative Govern- ment since the election have all accorded to housing a high...

When the Australian import cuts and restrictions were imposed in March, Mr. Menzies said that it might be possible in a reasonably short time to begin to modify them and restore...

Cancer is still a baffling disease. A fortnight ago the British Empire Cancer Campaign issued its annual report, which gave the impression of small advances in some fields, but...

justly and tolerantly in the best speech he has made in the House of Lords. And he propounded the same answer to the problem presented by the Dean as Mr. Churchill had done...

It is in many ways distasteful that the financial subvel tion to the sovereign and other members of the Royal Family should be made the subject of debate in the House of Commons...

T HERE is a sharp distinction to be drawn between what General Eisenhower (his desire to be known as plain Mr. will clearly not prevail against the compelling force of use and...

its commemoration of the birth of Edmund Spenser I don't quite know, for it is not certain even that the poet was born in 1552 at all, much less on what particular day in that...

told by a man of very considerable scientific attainments, who is engaged . on an important and interesting political study, that he never reads a daily (or so far as I know a...

of Atlantic Union, with Sir Hartley Shawcross and Professor Lionel Robbins among its more prominent sponsors, is certainly well-intentioned, but it is by no means so certain...

I CAN well understand the impulse which led the Methodist Conference to condemn the use of napalm bombs, as indeed many other people have done. But the question is anything but...

Lockhart to read to him. "Out of what book ? " Lockhart enquired. "Need you ask ? "was the reply; "there is but one." Lockhart read the fourteenth of St. John. In a new...

Now To say that this has been the most bitter fight within a party that America has seen for forty years is true but probably not conspicuously illuminating. How bitter can a...

The Balanced Life By ALFRED TORRIE* M r ENS sana in corpore sano. How do we achieve the sensible and healthy mental life ? Is it the result of heredity, or can we modify our...

By PHILIP NOEL-BAKER, M.P.* N OT long after I left Cambridge, I went back to debate a Union motion : "That in the opinion of this House, the Olympic Games are a faked antique."...

By R I EGINALD GIBBON The organ has six stops. Megalomaniacs claim that it has no less than seven. They arrive at this total by counting the Principal as being not one stop but...

Recuperation By AUEfREY G. INSCH (Aberdeen University.) B Y five o'clock on Friday it was all over. I had sat my first degree exams. Strangely stupid I drifted out of the...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HE day will come I suppose when people in this country will lose their titles and be monotonised into Mr.. Mrs. and Miss. I shall be sorry about this,...

The Way to Keep Him in 1760, before She Stoops to Conquer, The Rivals or The School for Scandal. But if he was a few years ahead of Goldsmith and Sheridan in the cleansing of...

Ann. (Rialto.) Penny Princess. (Leicester Square.) Nocr to the U.S.A., India produces more films a year than any other country in the world. This item of news, vovvhsafed by...

held its yearly show of agricultural live-stock and farming implements, at Lewes, the agricultural capital of Sussex. The concurrence of the climax of a general election and of...

THEATRE Volpone. By Ben Jonson. (Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon.) IT is hardly surprising that one scholarly critic has traced influences of Volpone in the works of...

FACED with white canvas and choice unlimited, the artist always requires enormous courage. The courage of this century, which has attempted so radically to enlarge the...

To have brought Verdi's Macbeth to England is one of Glyndebourne's greatest achievements ; and the original success of 1938 has been repeated in 1947 and now again in 1952. The...

Set by Arthur John Not everybody can run away and play on August bank-holiday. A prize of £5, which may be divided, is offered for a poem, in not more than 16 lines of English...

of £5 was offered for a history of the world in five sentences. Competitors were in a solemn mood. For so fantastic a task some cunning, evasive, witty or fanciful approach was...

SIR,—When Corneille, in his decline, wrote successively a bad and a much worse tragedy, Boileau coined an epigram: A pres Agesilas, Hilas ! Mais apres Attila. Hola ! You...

degree one must delve into history. Prior to the Reformation there was no faculty of divinity at any university, and the only person who could grant a degree in divinity was the...

" bogus " nor described the Bishops as " illiterate " (which may be the "two mares' nests" referred to), I should like to ask Canon Hodgson to enlighten my ignorance by...

SIR,—Most people seek to discuss the ethics of gambling on the assumption that they are sure to lose. This is clearly invalid, for if everyone lost no one would gamble. Mr....

Sta,—Messrs. Dyson, Bell and Co., in their letter to you commenting on my letter about the pollution of rivers, express surprise that pol- lution should be taking place without...

Doctors of Divinity Snt,—With the greatest diffidence one questions Professor Hodgson's reply to Mr. Hugh Ross Williamson's letter. In that reply there surely is implied that...

Sra,-1 have never read so queer an assessment of a book as the recent review by Goronwy Rees of Blanchard's Cotnmunism, Democracy and Catholic Power. A reader of the book would...

s111,—Miss Grylls' complaint is justified. There is as much justifica- tion for indexing Mary Wollstonecraft at Imlay as at Godwin; but to deplore the injustice as a librarian's...

the beetle has been emerging from the woodwork. It seems to do well here, for the climate is mild and timber keeps its sap for a long time. I was amused to overhear a...

LETTERS I have received in the past week or two convince me that the greater spotted woodpecker commonly deals with almonds by cracking them in a cleft or altole in a tree. One...

the rough heath. One perched in a little bush close to my feet, and was unaware of my presence. I reached out, and, without expecting to catch the bird, was able to pick it up....

the stream, and it is hard to see the course of the water, for the flow has almost ceased. Under the overhang of bushes and weeds a cloud of midges turns and dances. Along the...

Shallots will soon be ripe. The leaves die and the clusters begin to break and dry out. They should be lifted, shaken and laid to dry properly, for, if they are not, they often...

Memoirs. By Franz von Papen. (Andre Deutsch. 25s.) HERR VON PAPEN possesses at least one political gift which, in twentieth-century politics, is to be rated high : the capacity...

My Polly Did It! Marian Evans and George Eliot. By Lawrence and Elizabeth Hanson. (Oxford University Press. 25s.) NOTHING distressed Marian Evans so deeply, in a life rich in...

HERE at last is the 'novel, incomplete and also fragmentary in other respects, which has been the subject of so much noisy secrecy. It was unfinished by its author, but his...

Durham. By Sir Timothy Eden. (Robert Hale. The County Books Series. 2 vols. 18s. each.) THIS is the very best book of its kind—a kind in which it is not easy to excel : a...

THOSE who want to understand America and to get a glimpse of American achievement will do well to read Mr. Manchester's life of H. L. Mencken. Both for his virtues and his...

The Ape in Our House. By Cathy Hayes. (Gollancz. 12s. 6d.) How The Ape in Our House would strike an anthropologist I can't know, but for the lay reader it's sheer delight. Mr....

THE importance to Constable of his long friendship with the Rev. John Fisher, Archdeacon of Berkshire, has always been recognised, for Leslie drew largely upon their...

EUROPEANS who visit the tropics are notoriously subject to attacks of geographical calf-love. The great stars, the waving palms of spice- scented valley or island easily turn...

SPECTATOR readers are urged to place a firm order with their news- agent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold...

A History of Ireland Under the Union, 1801-1922. By P. S. 0 'Hegarty. (Methuen. 50s.) MR. O'HEGARTY has written a highly illuminating and a superbly extravagant period piece....

MR. ANGuS WILSON has written an important novel on a major theme. It is also an exceedingly witty novel, the wit being of the kind that spits its victims instantaneously and...

Books. 2s. 6d.) OF Walter de la Mare some is never enough, though a good deal better than none. So children with half-a-crown to spend and grown-ups who want to spend...

A Walker in the City. By Alfred Kazin. (Gollancz. 12s. 6d.) THOUGH the subject of this book is life in a poor Jewish suburb of New York between the wars, it is really a book...

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IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, July 29th, addressed Crossword, and bearing NUMBER of...

recovery in the Sock markets is making good progress. Australia's £111 million ash and conversion loan has left scarcely a ripple on the surface of gilt-edged prices and small...