20 AUGUST 1937

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NEWS OF THE WEEK

The Spectator

T HE Sino-Japanese conflict—war in fact, though no war has been formally declared—is developing on an in- creasing scale both in the Peking region and at Shanghai. The...

The Fighting in Spain After a lull of five weeks

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the insurgents have taken the offensive on the northern front, and within three days captured 20 villages and taken 2,000 prisoners and huge quantities of arms. Their most...

The question whether the fighting will continue cannot remain long

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unanswered, for if it is not stopped before it has gone much further the opportunity of stopping it before one side or the other has been decisively beaten will have been lost....

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A Dangerous Highway The instructions issued to British warships in

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the Mediter- ranean by the Admiralty on Tuesday are significant. " If any British merchant ship is attacked by a submarine without warning, his Majesty's ships are authorised to...

Assimilation—or Elimination ?

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It is difficult to withhold admiration for the sentiments enunciated by Dr. Frick, the German Minister of the Interior, on Saturday regarding the treatment of racial minorities...

Mr. Aberhart and the Constitution Mr. Aberhart, the Premier of

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Alberta, this week refused the request of Mr. Mackenzie King, the Federal Prime Minister, that he should agree to refer his recent banking legislation to the Supreme Court. Its...

Education in India In their report on vocational education in

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India two distin- guished officials of the Board of Education, Mr. A. Abbott and Mr. S. H. Wood, have made a valuable contribution to the study of one of India's most serious...

Mr. Roosevelt's Nominee When, as is expected, Congress in Washington

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goes into recess at the end of this week, after an unusually prolonged session, it will have the satisfaction of knowing that it has defeated some of the administration's most...

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Iraq After the assassination of the Chief of General Staff,

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Baqir Sidki, last week, Iraq endured a short period of extreme uncertainty, during which a military coup took place in Mosul, which for three days was cut off from telephonic...

A Charter for Nurses This autumn the Trades Union Congress

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will discuss the conditions of the nursing profession, and the Daily Herald of last Monday gave interesting advance details of the proposed Nurses' Charter. It will recommend a...

Labour's Pensions Plan In its new pensions plan Labour has

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outlined an objective which any Government might be glad to find itself in a position to achieve ; and it seems certain that one day, it May be in no very distant future, it...

The Dockers' Pay The shilling a day increase in the

The Spectator

dockers' rates of pay in ports throughout the country may prove less important in the end than the attempts being made, once more, to solve the problem of decasualisation. Much...

The Creation of Social Sense A perplexing social problem of

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today is the mushroom growth of new communities, where the inhabitants have no tradition, and sometimes few interests in common. Important light is thrown on it in the annual...

* * * * Population Trends in Scotland So much

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has been heard of the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands in recent years that it comes as something of a surprise to learn from the new report of the Registrar-General for...

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THE COST FOR JAPAN

The Spectator

W AR has not been declared. between Japan and China. The Chinese Ambassador at Tokyo and the Japanese Ambassador at Nanking have not been withdrawn. Yet war on a formidable...

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UNIVERSITIES AND EMPLOYMENT

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O NE of the most important aspects of contemporary university life in this country is discussed in a report published this week by the National Union of Students on the problem...

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A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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O NE startling, perhaps I should say appalling, sentence in a despatch from Times correspondent at Shanghai one day this week has, so far as I have seen, provoked no comment...

Reaso'riably devoid though I hope I am of malice and

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uncharitableness—envy I am not prepared completely to condemn or abjure—I rejoice unfeignedly to see that thanks to the activity of the Sussex police a number of vandals in...

" She, her poodle, is the envy of Bath." With

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what inspiration is the assertion charged. The envy of Bath. Theme how admirable for a poem, or an essay, or a novel,' with the choice of eighteen centuries for epoch. Who was...

* * * * We had not really got accustomed

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yet to calling Ian Macpherson Lord Strathcarron, though he had held his peerage for over a year. Bad health had compelled him to drop out of the main stream of politics—he had...

So the dockers have got another bob. I describe the

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rise thus advisedly, to put it in right relation with the famous " dockers' tanner " won after the historic strike of 1889, when the men's cause was championed by Cardinal...

The Bishop of Gloucester is a noted scholar and theologian,

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but his utterances on public affairs are not as a rule con- spicuously progressive. I am not surprised, therefore, to see him strenuously opposing the idea of a World Council of...

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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN RUSSIA

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By H. S. MARCHANT T HE latest batch of political executions at Moscow raises one question of general interest, equally mystifying to the outside world and yet, I think, not...

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THE IMPLICATIONS OF SHANGHAI

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By E. M. GULL I T is with the local rather than the general implications of what is happening at Shanghai that I propose to deal mainly here, for with the latter most people...

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FLIGHT AT HIGH ALTITUDES

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By F. SHERWOOD TAYLOR M AN'S vertical range of expansion- is but small. He has not yet descended as far as two miles below the surface of the earth and the greatest height he...

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GERMANY'S NEW RELIGION

The Spectator

By DR. ERNEST BARKER T WAS reading lately a remarkable little book, entitled I Germany's New Religion.* In the space of about one hundred and fifty pages it contains lectures...

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THE BIOLOGY OF FRESHWATERS

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By PROFESSOR C. M. YONGE I N this country the study of freshwater has lagged far behind that of the sea. There are abundant reasons, both purely scientific and also economic,...

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THE TEMPLE OF LEICESTER FIELDS

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By RICHARD FREE T HE summer sun fell comfortingly to his old bones as an ancient clergyman alighted from a 'bus in the Strand and, looking to right and left of him, cautiously...

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DEATH AND BROTHER MOUSE

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By ALISON McMASTER W HILE Miss Halse plaited her thinning grey hair for the night, she was still worrying about the mouse-trap. Of course, she should have been firmer, and...

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MARGINAL COMMENTS

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By E. L. WOODWARD H OT, hard pavements. What man or woman, coming in from the country to the towns in these last ten days, has not noticed these smooth, baked slabs ? Town...

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Commonwealth and Foreign

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LABOUR WAR IN AMERICA By S. K. RATCLIFFE NOWHERE in the world do Capital and Labour provide a parallel to the present situation in America, for the plain reason that there is...

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THE CINEMA

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" Under the Red Robe." At the New Gallery—" His Affair." At the Gaumont—" Woman Chases Man." At the London Pavilion Tim name of Victor Seastrom has long been honoured in...

STAGE AND SCREEN

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THE SALZBURG FESTIVAL THE balancing in opera of the claims of musical perfection and of dramatic veracity is a notoriously difficult problem. The difficulty sometimes arises...

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ART

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The Elect v. The Rest AMONG all the angry disputes which the international exhibition in Paris has aroused one of the moat remarkable has been that over the show of paintings...

BERLIN 700 JAHRE

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[Von einem deutschen Kotrespondenten] BERLIN, das in diesen Tagen seinen siebenhtmdertsten Geburts- tag in voller geistiger und korperlicher Frische begeht, ist wie jede...

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An Aged Salmon A queer incident befell a salmon fisher

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the other day. He went down to look at a favourite pool the evening before starting to fish, and as soon as he reached the place saw a very large salmon lying within a yard or...

The Pigeon's Harvest

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Grain crops have a good many enemies, and this year in my experience the worst has been, not the sparrow, but the pigeon. They descended in hordes on some cornfields ; in spite...

Ringers and Writers All students of birds owe a very

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great debt to Mr. Witherby who, I understand, is giving over to the Ornithological Trust the management of the organisation for ringing birds. He was one of its authors and...

COUNTRY LIFE

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Urbanised Vegetables In a " harmless hamlet," with whose social and economic ways I am familiar, the many people who wish to buy vegetables go to the local greengrocer. The...

* * * *

The Spectator

Broken Drought When the official drought (of fifteen days) broke with a downpour of quite tropical violence, the country became like a forcing house, when the sunshine...

Unseen Departures It is the custom of some natural history

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publications, notably the Field, to publish week by week the news of the arrival of this bird and that from overseas in spring time. Does anyone publish the dates of departures...

A Beautiful Harvest

The Spectator

A very beautiful, though not abnormally bountiful, harvest is being carried through at a rare rate. Was ever the wheat a deeper colour ? It became sunburnt just at the right...

Peculiar Tastes Eccentricities of feeding habit are many among creatures

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of instinct as well as of reason ; but one of the oddest I ever heard of is reported from France by a reader of The Spectator. A tame white pigeon showed such a passion for...

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" OURSELVES AND ITALY "

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,-I was very interested to read the article in The Spectator of August 6th, " Ourselves and Italy." I feel that perhaps in stressing the...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week" paragraphs. Signed...

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WHERE LABOUR FAILS

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,-Mr. Hobhouse affects to misunderstand my argument. The Spectator readers will not wish to have it repeated. He emits various meaningless...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,-I have no wish

The Spectator

to enter into a controversy on the subject of Mr. Pakenham's conversion, but there is one point in the letter of Francis H. Yeatman to which I wish to take exception. Mr....

THE NURSE'S CAREER

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Strt,—I have read some of the articles and letters in The Spec- tator relating to the nursing profession. I cannot help thinking that many of...

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RHEUMATISM AND SCIENCE

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,— " Any person resident in and belonging to Great Britain or Ireland whose circumstances are such that they are not able to have the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sut,—In the matter of

The Spectator

Nursing Shortage we fiddle while Rome burns. We play tunes on this motif or that ; we write to the papers ; all the papers ; endless tunes. Soon the refrain will be "No birds...

SCIENCE AND THE SNAKE

The Spectator

-[To- the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I noted Dr. Sherwood Taylor's reply to Mr. Rodenhurst in your issue of July 9th, where he quotes as his authority the Director of the...

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THE STRUGGLE IN SPAIN [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

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Stit,—Your critic, Mr. G. L. Steer, in reviewing a handful of' books about Spain, professes to have noticed in contemporary England a certain " fashionable " boredom on the...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

The Spectator

Carpenter's letter on the responsibility of motorists says what many of us think and too few of us feel urged to express. Your comment on the letter is provocative. In face of...

ROMAN CATHOLIC AND CATHOLIC _ [To the Editor of THE

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SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I wish you would instruct your special correspondent to be more accurate in his description of the different churches. In a very interesting article on...

OFFENDING MOTORISTS [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

The Spectator

Sta,—The inference of your note to Mr. Carpenter's letter is shocking. Surely it is far more reprehensible to infringe a law safeguarding human life than to break a law merely...

TO HELP THE UNEMPLOYED [To the Editor of THE -SPECTATOR.]

The Spectator

SIR,--..NO • doubt the idea of " adopting " the family of an unemployed man is familiar to you and to your readers, but only people = who have actually put this idea into...

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—ASSAM PLANTERS

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, —Your issue of June nth contained a letter from the pen of Mr. Mulk Raj Anand under the title of " Two leaves and a bud." Your next...

BOOKS FOR SPAIN

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Any one of your readers who has been ill—by which I mean every one of your readers—knows the pleasure, not to say the necessity of...

JEWS AND ZIONISTS

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It is astonishing and disheartening to note that in all the discussions of the plan of partition for Palestine proposed by the Royal...

THE ALBERTA EXPERIMENT

The Spectator

- [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I am very much surprised that a journal of the standing of The Spectator should lower itself to criticise money policy in the manner...

RUSSIAN TIMBER AND RUSSIAN SHIPS

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Snt,—Several correspondents have questioned the accuracy of my statement in your issue of July 16th that " every ton of Russian timber...

TENNIEL'S DODO

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sm, —It seems astonishing that none of your correspondents mentions the reconstructed bird in the Natural History Museum, though some, as one...

THE SELBORNE BY-PASS

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sit,—More than a thousand people, including Heads of Colleges, Bankers, Professors, Barristers, Doctors, Architects and Peers of the Realm,...

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BOOKS OF THE DAY

The Spectator

Tom Moore (John Sparrow) .. . Christians Challenge the World (Roger Lloyd) William Tyndale (E. E. Kellett) . . Shakespeare's Descent into Hell (W. J. Lawrence) Bushido...

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CHRISTIANS CHALLENGE THE WORLD

The Spectator

Tim Christian Church must seem a very aggravating opponent. It never knows when it is dead, a fact recognised with exas- perated honesty by the Rationalist Press Association....

IT is strange that so little has hitherto been known

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of one of the very greatest and most influential of all the masters of the English language. What has been told of him has too often been mere fable ; and the result is that a...

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BUSHIDO PUBLICITY

The Spectator

"THE Japanese mind," declares the late Dr. Nitobe in one of the lectures printed in this volume, " is mediaeval in respect to publicity and loses much by reserve and reticence."...

SHAKESPEARE'S DESCENT INTO HELL

The Spectator

The Voyage to Illyria. A New Study of Shakespeare. By Kenneth Muir and Sean O'Loughlin. (Methuen. 7s. 6d.) MOST Shakespeare lovers who have spent a profitless hour or two in...

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A PEOPLE'S FRONT FOR BRITAIN

The Spectator

The People's Front, By G. D. H. Cole. (Gollatica, 7s. 6ci.) MR. COLE should be congratulated on this exposition of the argument for what is called " A People's Front for...

THE ART OF HUMANISM

The Spectator

Five Hundred Self-Portraits. Edited by L. Goldscheider ' (Allen and Unwin. los. 6d.) Titian. By H. Tietze. (Allen and Unwin. 7s. 6d.) Tux two new volumes in the Phaidon...

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TWO PSYCHOLOGISTS

The Spectator

In the Realm of Mind. By C. S. Myers. (Cambridge. 7s. 6d.) PROFESSOR AVELING'S book is an outline of the various , psycho- logical theories, with a discussion of how far they...

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SIR AUREL STEIN

The Spectator

IT would be impertinent to attempt, in this review, to adjudicate on the importance or ultimate merits of this book which, by a great expert, is addressed mainly to other...

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FICTION

The Spectator

By FORREST REID As a Man's Hand. By D. H. Southgate. (Methuen. 7s. 6d.) MR. BRETT YouNG must write with amazing facility. Like most of his later novels, They Seek a Country is...

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DEAD PUPPETS DANCE By Philip Thornton

The Spectator

Mr. Thornton is a good traveller. He is a linguist, a good mixer, an expert musician, folk-dancer and photographer, and he has humour and patience—most important of all. His...

I CAN'T ESCAPE ADVENTURE By Jack Bilbo

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Jack Bilbo will be remembered for his first book, in which he told his adventures with Al Capone's gang. In this book (Cresset Press, 7s. 6d.) he continues the story of his life...

CURRENT LITERATURE

The Spectator

A WAYFARER IN ESTONIA, LATVIA AND LITHUANIA By E. C. Davies Mr. Davies has made a fairly good job of the latest addition to the well-known Wayfarer Series (Methuen, 7s. 6d.)....

SAILING AND CRUISING By K. Adlard Coles

The Spectator

The growing popularity of sailing is the excuse for a spate of books on the subject. The appearance of Mr. Coles' Sailing and Cruising (Batsford, 7s. 6d.) is justified by its...

FARMING ENGLAND By A. G. Street

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Any book that helps us to get a clearer view of the problems of the English farmer is of great value at the present time, when most of the authorities are divided on the subject...

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WISE INVESTMENT

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SPECULATORS who rushed boldly into markets a fortnight ago have been badly shanghaied. Even before the Eastern cloud burst the Stock Exchange had displayed much blossom with...

OVER 5 PER CENT.

The Spectator

Returning to our search for a yield of 5 per cent. combined with reasonable security of capital, we may consider this week a group of preference shares in companies which cover...

RHODESIA RAILWAYS TRUST Whatever views one may hold about the

The Spectator

probable or the desirable price for copper, it seems safe to budget on a steady expansion in output. The Rhodesian producers can turn out copper at extremely low costs and so...

Venturers' Corner

The Spectator

Having recently recommended, in this corner, British Oil Shipping 12s. 6d. shares at 9s. and Kern River Oilfields 3s. 4d. shares at 5s. 6d., I cannot resist the temptation to...

NEW S PRINT AND NEWSPAPERS

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Rather belatedly, the rise in the cost of newsprint has hit newspaper shares. The immediate cause of the fall has been the announcement that the proprietors of the big...

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TRAVEL NOTES

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AUTUMN HOLIDAYS MANY experienced travellers prefer to take their 'holiday when the worst of the summer rush season is over, and for these the Travel Agencies and Shipping...

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FINANCE

The Spectator

A DULL WEEK IN THE CITY—THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS—RAILWAY WAGES AWARD SINCE my article of a week ago was written there have been at least two important events which have...

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OUR FOREIGN TRADE.

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Undoubtedly, active conditions continue to characterise the domestic trade of the country, and the Foreign Trade Returns for the month of July show the highest total of exports...

FINANCIAL NOTES,

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DISTURBED MARKETS. IT would seem that the Stock Markets are destined to be dominated by external influences. The Spanish War con- tinues, but for the moment even that...

CORPORATION LOANS.

The Spectator

British Funds and other gilt-edged securities have not escaped the dullness which has characterised all sections of the Stock Markets during the last few days and, among the...

FRAUDULENT SHARE-PUSHING.

The Spectator

In last week's Spectator, under the title of Share Sharks," the writer dealt briefly, but very fairly, with the Report of the Government Departmental Committee on Share-pushing....

" HOT " MONEY IN AMERICA.

The Spectator

The authorities at Washington are evidently still concerned at the extent to which credit resources in the United States are expanding by reason of the long-continued influx of...

CANADIAN CREDIT.

The Spectator

Apropos of what I wrote last week concerning the effect upon Canadian credit of the recent proposals by the Government of the Province of Alberta to control the banking...