T HERE is only one question worth asking about the break-up of the Conference of Foreign Ministers. That is how far it was due to the habits and methods of M. Molotov, and how...

Progress towards American aid for Europe has recently been so outstanding that a check was bound to come. So far it is not very serious. The Emergency Aid Bill has been passed,...

The causes of change in the size and distribution of the British labour force are too complex to permit of any definite attribution of praise for the improvement all along the...

A letter cabled from Moscow and published on a later page of this issue throws an interesting light gn both the diligence and the naïveté of Russian propagandists. Every B.B.C....

Signor de Gasperi, like M. Schuman, has surmounted his imme- diate crisis. The General Strike in Italy never became general and was called off on the second day, the one side...

The Government has at least the satisfaction of knowing that its determination to relinquish responsibility for Palestine has the sup- port of all parties in the House of...

The publication of the reports of the various Boundary Commissions enables the ground-plan of the next General Election to be drawn. Redistribution has not been drastic, but a...

The House of Commons had little to congratulate itself on in the discussion which Mr. Morrison insisted on forcing on a loosely- phrased motion laying it doWn that, if ever a...

I T was no doubt inevitable, for the purposes of the Parliamentary' time-table, that the second day of the Palestine debate should fall on a Friday. But it was unfortunate...

HE world has waited too long for Mi. Molotov to define T Russian policy. Now that the other members of the Council of Foreign Ministers have given up in disgust the attempt to...

history, and even in his audience of Pilgrims there were pretty cer- tainly some' whom Mr. Marshall's catalogue of Anglo-American dis- putes carried out of their depths. The War...

last week Mr. Bevin called attention, with much justice, to the fact that officials of the Government, particularly the higher officials, were being worked to death. If he had...

are a good many other people. But what the term implies can be serious enough. Take railway wagons. How far the recovery of the world is due to shortage in this indispensable...

slaved to tradition and sentiment—admirable qualities in themselves —as at Christmas. There is a tradition that people should give each other presents at Christmas. Even at...

T HE legend of Lord Baldwin's pipe and pigs was carried much too far. Of course he was a countryman and a country-lover among other things, but apart from that, and in addition...

By THE RT. HON. L. S. AMERY, C.H. I T is no easy task, at the moment of a friend's passing away, to write of him as a public figure. So many trifling incidents, with their...

By JEAN PIERRE GIRAUDOUX Paris. T HE first campaign of the war of nerves which the Stalinist party launched against France over a month ago has just ended—by a defeat in the...

By GLYN E. DANIEL (Steward of St. John's College, Cambridge) T HE feeding of undergraduates in universities and university colleges has again become news. A meeting of the...

By H. G. DANIELS Geneva [On Tuesday, since this article was written, a " Bill of Human Rights" was adopted by the United Nations Commission at Geneva by to votes to 4 (Russia...

T O my mind lions and leopards are the most fascinating beasts to have as pets, but, to watch and study, elephant are even more captivating, and are the most interesting to...

By HAROLD• NICOLSON O NE of the many advantages which we, who were born under the sign of Mercury, possess over those miserable creatures whose birth-night was clouded by...

BEtsLIoz's Requiem was given its second performance of the year on December loth at the Albert Hall, whose rotundity is the only thing against it for a performance of this work....

THE CINEMA " Shoe Shine." (Rialto.)--" Monsieur (Academy.) ITALY has given us another despairing appendix to Open City. Once again we stand accused, and this time before a...

of the Tate, along the Embankment and round into Bulinga Street—a sight I never thought to see. Thus has the legend- grown. The man's life has been publicised, dramatised,...

a very great deal. I wrote something the other day about that lovely and useful blue-flowered rock-plant, plumbago larpSitae, which incidentally is to be found wild (so I am...

with a view to the further discovery of their migrations, whether wide or local. One school has lately been very active in affixing marks to the fins of salmon and sea-trout. A...

less intense than usual in the surroundings of London because of the lack of motor transport ; and some landowners are a little disappointed. Holly-picking has become a branch...

AND, if Winter comes, a semi-detached Valhalla with Chrysanthemums : if the Spring, a concrete Cranny with the Name in French or Gaelic. Sing Gilt on Glass nor blench at the...

How many people are disappointed to find that their hollies are male and therefore bear no berries ; and there seem to be districts where the males most unwarrantably...

RUSSIA AND GERMANY (By CABLE FROM MOSCOW) Ssa,—A few evenings ago I heard a broadcast in the B.B.C.'s Pacific service in which Mr. Wilson Harris expressed astonishment at the...

last two issues have been most impressive and far ahead of some of the horror-hunting and politically inspired articles that seem unfortunately to be far too prevalent in this...

Sut,—In your issue of December 5th you gave an article, The Teacher's Hire. I did not receive my copy until December 10th, and thus could not write to correct an error in the...

SIR,—Janus's remarks on " allergic " are interesting and true as -.far as they go. Allergic may indicate dislike or hostility, but also indicates conflict in the subject, i.e.,...

Sut,—The need for welfare work amongst the children of this country as well as for those all over Europe is so widespread' oday that it is difficult for individuals to find a...

Sta,—In your leading article of December 12th you mention the "five million Liberal votes cast in 1945." According to Whitaker's Almanack, the Liberals polled just over two and...

SIR,—As I only get The Times and The Spectator nowadays, I cannot say what sort of a press in general the Thunderer's third volume has had. But, if what Dr. Johnson would have...

Reflections on Contemporary History. By A. L. Rowse. (Macmillan 15s.) Ma. ROWSE has selected essays and reviews from his periodical writing in the last sixteen years, essays and...

East and West Peace or Power. By Sir Harold Butler. (Faber and Faber. 15s.) THE appearance of Sir Harold Butler's book at this time is par- ticularly opportune. Although it was...

THIS is a terrible book, terrible with the meaning Canon Dixon gave the word when he applied it to Hopkins's poetry, which 11° first read in 1878. With Bridges and Coventry...

The Hundred of Boo. By Ralph Arnold. (Constable. 12s. 6d.) THERE are odd little bits of England, even quite near London, known only to the inhabitants and to those who have...

VIRGINIA WOOLF'S high prestige is one of the curiosities of recent literature. Compared with the writinghof such of her contemporaries among women novelists as Romer Wilson or...

Vincent van Gogh. Drawings : Pastels : Studies. Introduction by W. Muensterberger. (Falcon Press. 21s.) Vincent van Gogh. " The Potato Eaters." Introduction by J. G. Van Gelder....

The Cold War. By Walter Lippmann. (Hamish Hamilton. 2s. 6c1.) EXCEPT to British readers of the New York Herald Tribune, who are necessarily a small minority, pretty well all...

IT is a pity that some promising young writers have adopted from Kafka a ready-made style and outlook instead of developing their own. The advantage of the Kafka manner is that...

9s. 6d.) Few of those who went to India or Burma to spend their war service have returned and written a book which is as good as The Purple Plain. I should class it without...

O A E R _ sc . Pi F i si i c 6( S Oar 1 Irj1 P E L. V ?all P A A .. m ar.- '-!..ii , 3 uls. i ' - ' A . FIriElol - r . -r R R P 0 il- t-I or4111.0 v.I'N N v IMAM 0 E Ely E NI...

NM= III• • II 11•11••• ACROSS 1. Misprints about Otago. (11.) 9. Something wrong at Burlington House ? It must be a crooner. (7.) 10. One of these birds is woefully asso-...

SEVERAL short books on Parliament have been published lately, one at least of them so good as to make any successor superfluous. None the less there is an obvious case for...

By CUSTOS WHEN buyers out-number sellers on the Stock Exchange jobbers raise prices. Sometimes the more thoughtful and cautious market dealers are also inclined to raise their...