.5I R. HERBERT MORRISON was applauded in the House of Commons last week when he announced his intention of taking powers to override local authorities, if necessary, when they...

W ITH no news, as these words are written, of the British Minister having left Bucharest, relations with Rumania may be considered not to have reached an actual rupture. But it...

The Bill to provide a national scheme of compulsory insur ance against war damage to property has not yet been pubhsh , but in answering a question on Tuesday Sir Kingsley W...

The combined naval and aerial attack on Cherbourg last Thursday night shows that the Navy is capable of dealing for- midable blows even at heavily fortified positions on an...

The right line regarding a statement of war-aims seems lie about half-way between Mr. Churchill's refusal to say any thing more and the desire of his questioners in the House o...

General de Gaulle, cabling from Duala in French Africa to Mr. Churchill, is in the position of one Allied leader speaking to another from his own territory. His status in the...

President Roosevelt's broadcast last Sunday was a splendid reply on behalf of the democracies of the western hemisphere to the threats of the dictators as expressed, in their...

taken place. Mr. Ramsbotham, the President of the Board of Education, outlined his proposals to a small house. In brief he has formed a small Directorate, composed of Civil...

The problem of billeting in reception areas throughout the country is becoming more difficult every day. In the first place, accommodation for children and expectant mothers had...

Cabinet Committee considering the whole question of war aims. Nobody wants a blue-print of post-war Europe, but many Members regard a more definite and a more positive statement...

the new problems which beset him. It would appear that he intends to distribute duties among his Under- Secretaries; Mr. Peake will continue to deal with the problems of aliens,...

Londoners have been impressed during the last week by the gathering speed with which debris in central London areas has been cleared, and damaged streets made more presentable....

From our Parliamentary Correspondent: The House con- tinues to meet under obvious difficulties and Central Govern- ment is in complete control of the nation, but Parliament is...

T HIS week sees the occupation of Rumania by German troops and the opening of the Burma Road by Britain. It has seen the fiercest of the German air- raids on London, and it may...

I s London, I wonder, taking its air-raids too lightly? That may seem a strange and rather heartless question in the circum- stances, but it arises out of a conversation with an...

professional critic, I see, speaks of the Princess as " the most outstanding child radio personality I've yet heard." I should not have put it quite that high myself, but it was...

to the —on the face of it—shocking case of Mr. F. G. Friedlander, wbo has just been elected Fellow of Trinity (Cambridge), I have acquired some further facts about Mr....

is only one of many. I have before me a list of scholar after scholar—this particular list contains only scientists—for whose release the Society for the Protection of Science...

to the community at this time are in danger of being too little recognised is the road haulier. Driving night after night with no headlights on roads carrying much more traffic...

to me the other day, " to find out who was responsible for deciding to adopt the Spitfire as the approved type of fighter, because the man who did that—chose that machine rather...

By STRATEGICUS T HE enemy will never be beaten by a defensive, however complete it may be ; and it is sheer illusion to think he will. It is only by a victorious offensive that...

By CLOUGH WILLIANIS-ELLIS I T is not yet clear what powers are to be given to Sir John Reith as our National Master Builder, but they will need to be quite unprecedented if...

By ERWIN D. CANHAM By Air Mail V IEWED from the United States, the Pact of Berlin which brought Japan formally into the Axis was a gigantic blunder. It is assumed that the...

By A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT nESPITE rumours of large-scale military operations and JJ flamboyant claims of victories by both sides, the actual military position in the...

By R. A. EDWARDS O NE of the least observed, and yet one of the most serious, features of the present European situation is the way in which people in England are inclined to...

By H. E. BATES A LL summer, in the south, the trains were crowded. It was only in August that I began to travel on them every day. Already, by that time, the battalions of...

We have enjoyed a succession of excellent harvests : hay (is it still called haysel anywhere?), plums, vegetables of all sorts, especially potatoes, and now sugar beet. It will...

Autumn Standards What is the loveliest specimen of autumnal coloration? On the banks of the Danube everyone would say the sumach ; in Newfoundland the maple, though the...

It is a frequent custom in the yearly programme of the Women's Institutes, those cheerful and helpful assemblages of village women, to engage in a potato competition. Four...

Meets Debutante." At the Empire.—" Front Line." ..c t all cinemas. IN Rebecca Alfred Hitchcock showed that Hollywood had sup- plied for him two essentials which had been...

by the Norfolk Naturalists' Trust, is to be the stonechat, than which no other small bird is more salient. In parts of Wales he is generally known as the " fuzz-chat " from his...

A habit common to many, perhaps most, gardeners is to promote a second or even third flowering of certain classes of plant by cutting off the first blooms as soon as they cease...

Stu:,—May I point out it was not I, but Sir Stanley Reed who opened the controversy over Munich, with an attack on my manners and I think on my good faith? In replying to this...

Sta,—I should like to contest the remarks of your correspondent, Mr. Jones Davies, in The Spectator of October 4th, relative to France's food position in January last. Being a...

pays to Town Clerks in a recent Spectator will be confirmed by those who are watching Local Government under war conditions. But I don't think it is generally realised that, at...

SIR, —Having served 25 years in an Imperial Department, over the length and breadth of India, I find it disheartening that the Dean of Worcester writes of " parties " in India,...

[in 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...

London is now admittedly in the front line, it would appear to be highly desirable to keep all the London hospitals as casualty clearing stations for air raid casualties and for...

SIR,—I expect you will have many letters showing a different picture of the reception of London and Kent evacuees in the quieter parts of the Home Counties from that given by "...

SIR,—Perhaps, in this hour of destiny, some of your readers may welcome a heartening voice from the past. What did Tennyson sae nearly ninety years ago? Here is a verse from "...

Sne,—So urbane a writer as Mr. E. M. Forster cannot easily fall into the slough of pessimism, but one may conclude that under present stresses he is, like most of us, the victim...

Sin,—The splendid reply which the newspapers and periodicals hat e offered to the challenge of the bombing of London has, in one case. elicited congratulations from the Prime...

SIR,—Postal difficulties have delayed my reply to Mr. Alan Lambert. It is useless to try and ensure that the German nation will not again wish to make war—from fear. Certainly...

SIR,—In browsing among the books of some writers who at one time interested me, I have been reading again the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe and Oscar Wilde, as a war-time...

Britain's Blunders ,ANYONE who picks up this modest volume out of curiosity re- aarding the views of the 24-year-old son of the American Ambassador in London on the British...

Stalin's Kampf. Edited by M. R. Werner. (Jarrolds. 16s.) THIS rather absurdly titled volume consists of extracts from writings and utterances of Stalin, ranging from the time of...

This little book, attractively printed for a limited edition of 45 0 copies, contains two essays, the one, If I Were Four - and - twenty , written in 1919, when Yeats was...

Men in Print. By T. E. Lawrence. (Golden ,Cockerel Press. 2 gns.) Men in Print is, for several reasons, a book which all Lawrence- lovers will require to read and many to...

Too many books have been written about propaganda in general; too few about political propaganda in particular. It may be that Eve, persuading Adam to bite the apple, was the...

Biological Aspects of Infectious Disease. By F. M. Burnet. (Cambridge University Press. i51.) THERE have been many books, both technical and popular, upon the history, causes,...

I do not mean merely that the intangible terrors of haunting are a welcome change after the all- too-tangible terrors of bombing, or even that the craziest poltergeist comes to...

MR. WELLS'S new fable opens with the sad Mr. Noah Lammock, seated at his desk writing nothing. " The cold realisation of final defeat " has " closed about his heart." As God in...

is between the old-fashioned nineteenth-century view of Mary Tudor and that which has become current in our own day. No doubt the former was very ignorant, and based upon...

Mr. Bunting. By Robert Greenwood. (Dent. 7s. 6d.) Murata. SHOLOKHOV has the kind of talent that, in these days at least, rouses the censor in some readers. Fanaticism and the...

MR. BIATC.HFORD will be ninety next year, but the introduction to this anthology of his own writings displays all the optimism and the literary skill that two generations of...

CHARLES WATERTON'S century-old book of South American travel is probably little read today. But the eccentric author is not forgotten, and Mr. Gosse's painstaking memoir of him...

and un- dramatic, except for a rather mysterious period as a slave in Tunis. Mr. Maynard, apart from a few personal eccentricities, tells the story of this simple and practical...

(Faber. 8s. 6d.) THIS very personal anthology was compiled by the " author" in an attempt to find some consolation after the death of an only son. Mr. T. S. Eliot writes in a...

Tins is a welcome addition to the Oxford Editions of Standard Authors. It is illustrated with a charming drawing by Adria n Stokes of Alice Meynell in 1879: not the rather...

By CUSTOS STOCK markets are better. That is the outstanding fact in th e City. This time the rise has embraced not merely gilt - edged and kindred stocks but a wide selection...

" FOR the last eight years," Mr. Birchall writes, " I have had a front seat at the greatest show in history." Those front seats must have been uncomfortably packed. We have had...

Nicolas Bentley. (Methuen. 5s.) HUGE girls with hockey sticks, retired generals with voices, elderly ladies with astonishing hats and bits of fur—perhaps South Kensington...

for duration, offered by Firm established in West End, to companies, societies and individuals having to restrict, close down or move from London : particularly company...

may be forgiven, for this autobiography is nothing if not familiar): he took her photograph for ten cents in a studio in Kansas. It was the right opening to a career of many...

[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 marked...