19 JUNE 1936

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NEWS OF THE WEEK

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T HE Government policy on sanctions will have been announced before these words appear. Everyone knows what the decision is, but not the grounds on which it is based, or how far...

Dr. Schacht on Tour The tour which Dr. Schacht, as

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President of the Reichsbank, has been taking through Austria and the Balkan States, has greatly advanced Germany's economic penetration of South-Eastern Europe. Germany has...

Strikes in Belgium It is interesting to compare the course

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of the strikes in France with their development in Belgium. M. Illum's Government did not conceal its sympathy with the strikers or interfere with their " stay-in " tactics ;...

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The 40-Hour Week Consistently and unanimously the delegates of the

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British Government and employers at the International Labour Conference have opposed, at every step, the drawing up of a draft convention for establishing a 40-hour week in the...

Landon v. Roosevelt Although when choosing Mr. Landon as their

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presidential candidate the Republicans had little more hope of victory in November than when they ran Mr. Hoover in 1932, they may expect to find that the Governor of Kansas...

The Danzig Disorders The disturbances of the past few days

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in Danzig are sinister. There appears to be no doubt that the aggressors were the Nazis, who are in a state of permanent anger at their failure, at the last elections, to secure...

Manoeuvring in China Although the forces of North and South

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have advanced to within 80 or 40 miles of each other, the " war " in China still remains diplomatic. Chiang Kai-shek's forces have now occupied strong positions in the South of...

President and Bonus Mr. Roosevelt will be renominated by the

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Democratic party convention opening in Baltimore on Tuesday. The assembly has been preceded by an astonishing event, which is certainly, as the earlier Roosevelt would have...

The Budget Leakage : The Epilogue The Budget Leakage debate

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in the House of Commons last Thursday was painful but dignified. It was impossible not to sympathise with Mr. Thomas, who felt his position acutely, or to deny the justice of...

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The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been rather stubborn and

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unyielding this week in his attitude to amendments to the Finance Bill. The amendment for instance which would extend the income-tax allowance for a child at school to a child...

There was general concern at the statement of the Prime

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Minister in answer to a question on Monday that 35 per cent. of the men desirous of joining the army in England, Scotland, and Wales were rejected on medical grounds. Lady Astor...

Back bench Labour members were in a very truculent and

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irresponsible mood on Wednesday afternoon at question time. Perhaps the most foolish point was that raised by Mr. Ellis Smith who fiercely criticised the recent meeting at a...

Relief of the Uninsured The report of the Unemployment Assistance

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Board on the first twelve months of its administration shows once again the necessity for the new regulations which the Government has delayed so long in promulgating. The...

The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : There

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is no reason to believe that the decision to abandon sanctions will create anything in the nature of a Par- liamentary crisis. All the sensational stories of Cabinet splits and...

Defaulting Incumbents The Church Assembly has succeeded in getting the

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Ecclesiastical Duties Measure, dealing with proceedings against incumbents charged with " misbehaviour," away to a committee. Since there were 180 amendments on the paper that...

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SANCTIONS AND AFTER A DECISION by the Cabinet to advocate at

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Geneva the abandonment of economic sanc- tions against Italy may be taken as certain, for other and better reasons than Mr. Chamberlain's indefen- sible indiscretions in his...

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PROPAGANDA AND DEMOCRACY

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P ROPAGANDA has served the dictators so well that the democracies also have begun to see its value. No one, indeed, would pretend that democratic governments do not already use...

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A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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W HEN Mr. Ramsay MacDonald tells a Peace Congress what the nature of the peace treaty after the next ar will be it is plain at least that he is anticipating a "next war." When...

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THE BATTLESHIP : TONNAGE AND GUNS

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By ADMIRAL SIR HERBERT RICHMOND I N the " Explanatory Memorandum " (Cmd. 5137) on the London Naval Conference it is stated that consultations will be initiated by the British...

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INDIA REVISITED: VIII. TRAVANCORE, THE ENCHANTED LAND

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By F. YEATS-BROWN [Mr. Yeats-Brown's ninth article, which will appear next week under the title of "Indian India," deals further with life in the territories ruled by the...

Page 9

G. K. C.

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By E. C. BENTLEY A GIANT of English letters, and a man in whose personal society admiration seldom failed to grow to a far deeper feeling, has been taken from us with the death...

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SUPERREALISM IN LONDON

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By ANTHONY BLUNT /FAKE Blake's anti-rationalism, add Lamartine's belief in the individual, stir in some of Coleridge's faith in inspiration, lard with Vigny's ivory-tower...

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AN EMPIRE OF IDEAS By SIR STANLEY REED This was

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a compact body of journalists from every part of the Commonwealth, not only from the Dominions and India, but from isolated colonies such as Trinidad and Fiji. • At first sight...

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QUERKES, FARMONGER, AND DUSP

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By SIEGFRIED SASSOON " y ES, I've known some fairly complete failures in my day," remarked Aunt Eudora, " but the three most ambitious men I ever knew never succeeded in...

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A Hundred Years Ago

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" THE SPECTATOR," JUNE 18m, 1838. METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS. Alderman Wood, on Thursday, moved for a Select Committee to consider the best plan of raising money to effect...

MARGINAL COMMENT'S

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By BARBARA WORSLEY-GOUGH I FIND it difficult not to have a certain sneaking sympathy with the crew of the Girl Pat ' in their outrageous adventure. Outrageous it certainly is ;...

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DANGERS AT DANZIG

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Commonwealth and Foreign By GEORGE SOLOVEYTCHIK T HE news of a fracas at a political meeting in Danzig on Saturday, resulting in the death of one Nazi and injuries to a number...

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The Ballet STAGE AND SCREEN

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Russian Ballet at Covent Garden THE opening performance of Colonel de Basil's Russian ballet season at Covent Garden gained from the audience an unbounded enthusiasm. The...

The Cinema

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MISS BETTE DAVIS won some kind of a gold medal for her acting in Dangerous : the cinema is a shady business and one would like to know more about that medal, who gave it. how...

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Opera

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" Figaro" at Glyndebourne THE performance of Le Nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne last week came as near to the ideal as anything I have seen or ant likely to see in a fallible...

Feuilles au vent

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[D'un correspondant parisien] DE quoi parler sinon des greves ? Mais autant vouloir peindre le flux et le reflux. Pour le moment toute synthese est impos- sible. Notons...

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COUNTRY LIFE Faithful Flycatchers

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A pretty and unusual episode has been watched in a cottage garden, which is a great favourite with birds. Two years ago flycatchers nested in a Forsythia that grows the full...

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A NATIONAL LABOUR RESERVE

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, --May I be allowed to add to Mr. Somerset de Chair's excellent scheme for the improvement of the status of the unemployed ? Would not the...

THE FUTURE OF THE LEAGUE

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, --Anything written by Sir Arthur Salter gives food for thought. He is rightly recognised as one of the leading public men in Europe, and a...

THE PALESTINE SITUATION

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR [Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reason ably possible.. The most suitable length is that of one of our "News of the...

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" RUSSIA'S MOMENTOUS WEEK " [To the Editor of THE

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SPECTATOR.) SIR,—M. Stalin's new draft constitution for the U.S.S.R. has received, as yet, so little attention from the Press in England that it seems doubtful whether this...

PACIFISM AND REARMAMENT [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

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Leyton Richards writes that "the true alternative to frenzied preparation for war is constructive effort for peace," and suggests that your correspondent and I favour the former...

RELIGION AND DICTATORSHIP [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sin,—In

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the article " The Consequences of Being Heathen," your contributor puts forward the remarkable argument that a Christian's position leads him to oppose dictatorships while a...

Sm„—I read with interest the article by Mr. Gray Temple

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in your issue of May 29th, 1936, and wonder if you will permit me to contribute the following comments. He says, regarding discharged prisoners, " Human wreckage is being...

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A CORRECTION [To the Editor of THE . SPECTATOR.]

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Sin,--May I point out that a confusion has arisen through an omission in my review of Dame Ethel Smyth's As Time Went On, as it stands printed in your issue of June 5th ? " The...

MR. THOMAS AND THE TRADE UNIONS [To the Editor of

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THE SPECTATOR.] S111,-- I read yesterday, at the Free Library, in your issue of June 12th, what appeared to be an attempt to discredit the Labour Party. Personally, I am not a...

SANCTIONS [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

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Sin,—Travelling recently on business in Eastern Europe I was asked frequently, " What is England going to do about sanctions ? " The orthodox reply, " the future of sanctions is...

RAILWAYS AND THE SUBURBS [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

The Spectator

SIR,—Janus has been guilty of one of his rare injustices in taking a service in an expanding area as typical of British rail suburban services. If he realised how much care and...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

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SIR,—The querulous remarks by the writer of " A Spectator's Notebook " seem to call for comment by a regular traveller on the Southern Railway. Surely there must be many who...

INTERNATIONALISATION OF DEFENCE

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Stn,—,Sir Arthur Salter, writing in your last issue on the Future, of the League, stated that Sir Norman Angell has conclusively argued that...

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The Scholarship of A. E. Housman BOOKS OF THE DAY

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By C. M. BOWRA THE death' of A. E. Housman has started a lively debate on the merits, or faults, of his poetry. But scholarship was his chief concern, and for it he has received...

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British Strategy in the Great War

The Spectator

IN this little book Mr. Cruttwell has introduced the substance of the Lees-Knowles lectures which he delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1936. It is a useful clearing of...

Mr. Huxley among the Philistines

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Eyeless in Gaza. By Aldous Huxley. (Chatto and Windus. 10s. 6d.) Two things are remarkable in Mr. Iluxley's new book : the method and the moral. The method is what first strikes...

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The Future of Marriage

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The Future of Marriage in Western Civilisation. By Edward Westermarck. (Macmillan. 12s. 6d. ) PROFESSOR WESTERMARCK, whose History of Human Marriage is a classic authority on...

A Labour Peer's Memories

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Tuouon Lord Parmoor achieved distinction mainly in the sphere of law, his chief interest appears to lie in the field of politics. Nearly half his autobiography is devoted to the...

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The Maid of Orleans

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JOAN OF Aite, as Miss Sackville-West truly says, " makes us think, makes us question ; she uncovers the dark places into which we may fear to look." It was so almost from the...

New Light on Brahms

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Int. KARL GEIRINGER is the custodian of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. To this eminent body, with whom he had long been in friendly relation, Brahms bequeathed his...

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Humanist Savages

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Old Peruvian Art. By H. V. Doering. (Zweinmer. 15s.) WiTu characteristic European arrogance we tend to class the arts of all non-European races as savage or primitive. This is a...

Mr. Smith and the Babington Plot

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THERE are too many books in the world already, and MO many come pouring out meth by month from all the presses of all the publishers. '1'lle disinterestedness of this statement...

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Three Irish Novels

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We in Captivity. By Kathleen Pawle. (Cassell. 7s. 6d.) -Fires of Beltane. By Geraldine Cummins. (Michael Joseph. . 7s. 6d.) Ugly Brew. By Jake Wynne. (Chatto and Windus. 7s....

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Fiction

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By WILLIAM PLOMER The General. By C. S. Forester. (Michael Joseph. 7s. 6d.) Education Before Verdun. By Arnold Zweig. Tr. by Eric Sutton. (Seeker and Warburg. 8s. 6d.) • The...

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AFFAIRS OF A PAINTER - By J. F. Joni This

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odd and enjoyable book (Faber, 10s. 6d.) is the auto- biography of a painter of bogus antiques—bogus, that is, only because of the claims made for them in the process of...

Cuirent Literature

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This is a sensible and objective study of Oscar Wilde (Constable, 10s.), which successfully avoids the extremes of rancour or panegyric which have coloured most of the books...

A MILLIONAIRE IN MEMORIES By Frank Gerald The author of

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these reminiscences (Routledge, 12s. 6d.) was , not born yesterday. He was born, in fact, eighty-one years ago, and, amongst many other things, has learnt that reminis- cences...

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Motoring The Risks of the Road NOBODY can envy the

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Minister of Transport his job. He has, since his elevation to office, displayed the most laudable industry in attempting to reduce the accident rate on the roads and, if one is...

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Menace to British Shipping

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Finance PROBABLY there is no modern development in industry which in ordinary circumstances calls for more restraint than Government subsidies. It is a movement which to...

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Financial Notes

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UNCERTAIN MARKETS. THE Stock Markets during the past week have moved somewhat uncertainly. All markets have bCen more or less dominated by anxiety with regard to the currency...

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SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD NO. 194

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SOLUTION NEXT WEEK The winner of Crossword No. 194 is Miss M. Lloyd, Furrows, St. Ives, Huntingdonshire.

"The Spectator" Crossword No. 195

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BY ZENO (.1 prize *Jane guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution o f this crossword puzzle to be opened. Envelopes should be narked Crossword Puzzle, -...