20 DECEMBER 1935

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The Naval Discussions The naval conference is taking very much

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the expected course. The Japanese have put forward their demand for " a common upper limit " for all navies, but no amount of discussion is likely to produce a formula that will...

Vlie coal situation appears to have taken a less satis-

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factory turn since the article on a later page of this issue was written. It is clearly too soon yet to be satisfied that a strike is out of the question, but the miners would...

NEWS OF THE WEEK

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S IR SAMUEL HOARE'S resignation has relieved the situation substantially. As these lines are being written only the fact of it, not the full circumstances, are known, but if it...

OmcEs : 99 Gower St., London, W .C. 1. Tel.

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: MUSEUM 1721. Entered as second-class Mail Matter at the New York, N.Y. Poet Office, see. 23rd, 1896. Postal subscription 308. per annum, to any part of the world. Postage on...

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Great Britain and Germany Following on a recent visit of

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the French Ambassador in Berlin to Herr Hitler, the British Ambassador, Sir Eric Phipps, was on Friday received by the Fahrer. The communiqué issued as a result of the meeting...

The Health of the Child ' The first annual report

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of the new Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education, Dr. A. S. MacNalty, sounds an almost lyrical note when its writer declares that, " in this land of fog and mist and,...

President Benes The election of Dr. Edouard Benes as Dr.

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Masaryk's successor in the Presidency of Czechoslovakia was as inevitable as any appointment dependent on the casting of votes can be. His fortunes and Dr. Masaryk's have , been...

Food Values and the Farmers The report of the League

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of Nations Health Organisation on Diet and Health has an economic as well as a hygienic value. It has its origin, indeed, in a proposal by Mr. S. M. Bruce, the Australian High...

A Parliament for .Egypt Events in Egypt have moved rapidly

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in the past week. The Prime Minister, Nessim Pasha, whose resignation had been predicted, remains on the contrary firmly estab- lished, with a united front of all parties...

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The Trials of Peers Lord Sankey has lost no time

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in giving notice of a resolution in the House of Lords submitting that " the present system of trial of peers by peers has outlived its usefulness." No one will dispute the...

Will Sir Samuel Hoare, realising the tornado of criticism that

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his action has caused in the Commons and the country, spontaneously offer his resignation ? That is the question that members have been asking one another each day, from the...

I have never known the threats to disobey a three-line

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whip on a Vote of Censure by abstention in the lobby or a vote with Opposition more widespread than they have been this week. Members have realised that their correspondence is...

The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary_ Correspondent writes : Inevitably

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this week all political interest has been concentrated, not in the Chamber, but in the lobbies and smoking rooms. Not since the General Strike has there been a political crisis...

The Increase in Drunkenness The Home Office licensing statistics show

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an increase of 3,463 convictions (or over 9 per cent.) for drunkenness in 1934 compared with 1933, which, in its turn, showed an increase of 20 per cent. over 1932, when the...

Organising Eggs

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'1'1►e report of the Eggs and Poultry Reorganisation Commission for Great Britain, published on Tuesday, is mainly concerned with the fiscal arrangements affecting the industry....

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THE RETREAT FROM THE BLUNDER

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B LUNDER may be considered too charitable a term to use. It is used here because this article has necessarily to be written before the debate in the House of Commons, and till...

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TOWARDS A COAL SETTLEMENT

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T HE tension in the coal trade is distinctly less than it was when the subject was last dealt with in these columns. • The negotiations of the last three weeks and the admirable...

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THE CHEERFUL GIVER

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F OUR years separate us from a Christmas of crisis when men and women knew not how they could emerge from the ordeal. In many households the Christmas festivities were a mark of...

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As to the whole business, my experience has, I suppose,

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been everyone's, that the dominant emotion provoked in the first instance by the Paris news was not indignation —that came later—but stupefaction. " Simply in- credible " was...

I cannot refrain from reproducing last Sunday's Observer headings :-

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IT IS PEACE THE PLAN HOLDS THE FIELD /TO PRACTICAL ALTERNATIVE THE LEAGUE ON TRIAL SANCTIONS ARE DEAD MINISTERS AND THEE CRITICS Ill' J. L. GARVIN

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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C OMMENT on the international situation written, as any commentary here must be, before the debates in the two Houses is necessarily restrained. And in any case it is only...

It will be hard on Mr. Eden, who has not

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made one false step, if he fails to get the Foreign Office now. But the ease for Sir Austen at this juncture is strong. * * * *

It is not often that after-dinner speaking reaches so high

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a level as it did at the Toynbee Hall Golden Jubilee dinner last Friday. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Sir John Simon, on their day and their subject, are unsurpassed, and...

I am indulgently, but very justly, castigated by a legal

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friend for referring to the " dock " in a note last week on an incident in a county court. Delete " dock " and substitute " witness-box." JANus,

President Masaryk and Dr. Benes have often been compared with

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Washington and Hamilton and with. Botha and Smuts. No such historical parallels are more than approximate, but Washington and Masaryk had much in common in relation to their...

Dr. Goebbels' deputy, in an endeavour to placate the Chinese

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Minister in Berlin, who protested against the tone of a reference to Chinese in Herr Hitler's Mein Kampf, is understood to have promised that Herr Hith r would withdraw or amend...

Perhaps; by the way, not everyone has heard of the

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American who was discussing with an Englishman rather vague on history the War of 1812. " That," he. observed incidentally, " was when your people burned Wash- ington." " Really...

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ABYSSINIAN SLAVES

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I WELL remember a scene late in the autumn of 1917. I had just been transferred to the Egyptian Army, and was sitting with a group of my fellow-officers outside the Omdurman...

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PSYCHIC FORCES ; III. EXTRA-SENSORY PERCEPTION

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By G. N. M. TYRRELL T HE idea that there may possibly exist other channels, besides those of the physical senses, through which the human mind can become acquainted with things...

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WHAT JAPAN WANTS IN CHINA

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By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN W HAT does Japan want in China? This question naturally arises when a new forward push of Japanese expansionism has been heralded by a barrage of...

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WINDMILLS AND RUINS

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By FRANCIS GOWER O N one side of the miniature palace of Sans-Souei are the sham ruins which Voltaire and Frederick the Great admired. On the other side is the windmill which...

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THE PUNNING GENERAL

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By E. L. V% OODWARD I F you walk past the lions of Trafalgar Square towards Cockspur Street, you will notice the statue of Charles James Napier. The sculptor has done his best...

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CHRISTMAS RAIN

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By SEAN O'FAOLAIN I HAVE always had a small grudge against Dickens. He was a creator of fantastic worlds that were also lovely worlds, and they impressed themselves on the ....

MARGINAL COMMENTS

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By MONICA REDLICH A FRIEND said to me the other clay as we walked through Kensington Gardens, " Have you ever noticed that every woman we hear talking as we go by is giving a...

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The Cinema

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"Riders to the Sea." Privately shown.—" Thanks a Million." At the Tivoli TuE cinema, as much as poetry in the eighteenth century, needs patrons. Little good work can come from...

STAGE AND SCREEN The Theatre

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Goosefeather Bed." By Charlton Hyde. At the Embassy Theatre, Swiss Cottage I AM not quite certain to whom this play should be ascribed. An advance announcement from the Embassy...

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DIRECT subscribers who are changing their addresses are asked to

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notify THE SPECTATOR Office BEFORE MIDDAY on MONDAY or EACH WEEK. The previous address to which the paper has been sent and receipt reference number should be quoted.

[D'un correspondant parisienj

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LES experiences officielles de radiovision realisees, ccs deux: derniers dimanches, par le Poste National des P.T.'r., et qui, pour la premiere fois en France, ont perrnis ii un...

Cocteau and Derain

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Witten - , one is led to wonder, of all those patients who have undergone the trial by pencil at the hands of M. Jean Cocteau, will be the first to sue him for libel, not so...

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Raspberry Researches The East Mailing Research Station has this year

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completed twenty-one years of existence—though existence is scarcely an adequate word to describe the activities of this highly specialised and admirable department. There used...

COUNTRY LIFE

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December Blessings December is a month of cheating and envy ; and in case that should sound like the statement of a misanthrope I must add that I mean only that one begins to...

The Modest Bird-Lover

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It has often seemed to me that there must be many thous- ands of bird-lovers, principally perhaps townspeople, who never see a rare bird from one year's end to another, and to...

* *

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A Derelict Field Sir William Beach Thomas' recent note on a derelict field must have aroused in many readers, as it did in me, melancholy memories of once rich fields grown...

Country Dishes Since the poets, like so many epicurean mice,

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have been among the cheeses, I have been recalling some country dishes which are still the portion of those who, for one reason and another--but generally the same reason—cannot...

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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...

THE TRAGEDY OF COAL

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] am much obliged to Mr. Coote for his instructive letter ; it is refreshing to find a few firm statements on ii subject which is normally...

[To the Editor of TEE SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Mr. Cedric Dover has

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raised a " demographic issue " which I cannot dispute. I gave only one general figure for the Anglo-India population in India, which was " about one hundred thousand." Mr. Dover...

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[To the Editor of Tun SPECTA•ton.]

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considering the question of millers' wages it is well to note the charges made to consumers for coal : Cardiff. Pea Nut Anthracite, 20s. to 23s. 6d. Portsmouth. 22 71 60s....

MEANS TO PREVENT WAR

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Something over live years ago the League of Nations adopted a convention for financial aid to Powers which were vic- tims of aggression....

THE COVENANT AND SANCTIONS

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• [To the Editor of Tim SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Surely the effort of Mr. Eden to hold that the resolution. of the League Assembly of 1921' has an equal claim with the terms of Article...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Mr. Bonham Carter is

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more successful in showing that farm workers in his area (and in other areas) are underpaid than in showing that coal miners ought to accept their present level of wages "...

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AMERICAN STATE DEBTS

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, —As some reference was recently made in The Spectator to the American State Debts, I should like to say that I was a landowner and...

ADVENT

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• [To the Editor of TILE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Mr, John Raynor's entertaining sketch provides some nice points of chronology and ecclesiastical custom, and I have tried in vain to...

ITALY AND ABYSSINIA

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• [To the Editor of Tim SPECTATOR.] SIR,—By his memorable speech in Geneva in September, Sir Samuel Hoare won for himself a world-wide reputation for statesmanship, great...

[To the Editor. of THE SPECTATOR.] • SIR, —As 'a constant

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reader of The Spectator over a period of very many years' I do most strongly protest, as much in sorrow as in anger, against the lending of itself to the pub- lication of such...

THE SPEED-LIMIT

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[To the Editor of Tut SPECTATOR.] Ste,—In The Spectator of December 6th, page 964, Mr. John Prioleau says : " As a matter of fact, it. (the 30 m.p.h. speed limit) is widely dish...

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THE WIVES OF UNEMPLOYED MEN

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[To the Editor of Ti n t SPEeTaTort.] SIR,—Will you be good enough to allow inc to make this appeal to your readers ? During the last sixteen months we have been trying to...

FASCISM OR

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[To the Editor of Tint SPECTATOR.] SIR,--In the Sanctions controversy one immensely important point appears to haVe been overlooked. If an oil embargo is so very properly...

MENTAL HOSPITALS

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sia,—Since the Mental Treatment Act came into force in • 1931, doctors are practically immune against law-suits by mental patients ; and the...

AN ETHIOPIAN GENTLEMAN

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[To the Editor of Tint SPECTATOR.} Sin,--For many years I have been a regular reader of The Spectator. If I remember rightly, about thirty-five years ago one of the numbers...

THE RED CROSS IN ABYSSINIA

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[To the Editor of Tim .SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Some weeks ago you published an appeal for help for the Red Cross Ambulance Fund in Abyssinia. My little parish subscribed over £5, but I...

CONDITIONS IN PRISONS

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[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR . ] SIR,—The conditions described in the letter headed " Condi- tions in Mental Hospitals," in a .recent issue, are also typical of the...

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Citizens in the Making

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By GUY KENDALL " Tun Association for Education in Citizenship," says Mr. Oliver Stanley, " believes that direct teaching for citizenship is a. subject which can and must be...

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The Foreign Policy of Japan

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The Problem of Japan. By Captain Malcolm D. Kennedy. (Nisbet. 15s.) CAPTAIN KENNEDY does not claim to have provided us with an impartial analysis of the Far Eastern situation....

Chinese Art

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Background to Chinese Art. By Hugh Gordon Porteous. (Faber and Faber. 2s.) The Chinese Eye. By Chiang Yea. (Methuen. 7s. 6d.) A Background to Chinese Painting. By Soame Jenyns:...

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Plato and Platonists

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THERE are two types of Platonist—those who try to present Plato as he was and those who try to exploit him for their own crusades and platforms. Professor Grube belongs to the...

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A Record of Youth

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Antony. A Record of Youth. By The Earl of Lytton. (Peter Davies. 9s.) Ix publishing, and supplying the connecting narrative to, the letters of his sore the unnecessary tragedy...

A Blake Facsimile

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The Notebook of William Blake (" The Rossetti MS."). Edited by Geoffrey Keynes. (Nonesuch Press, 35s.) Herm at last is a facsimile of the one book which everyone deeply...

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New Poetry

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Second Hymn to Lenin, and Other Poems. By Hugh Mac.- Diarmid. (Stanley Nett. 3s. 6c1.) The White Blackbird. By Andrew Young. (Cape. 5s.) First Poems By Rayner Ilepponstall....

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Agoraphobia

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Tins is an autobiography of extraordinary value and interest. It describes the experiences of an intelligent and sensitive man who had taken to excessive drinking as a refuge...

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Ships and Sailors

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Ships. By Hendrik van Loon. (lb:wrap. lOs. 6d.) Anoxia those who impart knowledge without tears Mr. Hendrik van Loon holds a popular place, and deserves it ; for he can...

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Fiction

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By WILLIAM PLOMER IN the masterpieces of fiction nothing is more striking than the sense of life which they convey. That is why they are masterpieces. At times, as in...

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Mrs. Norah Connolly O'Brien's book (Rich and Cowan, 7s. 6d.)

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about her father, James Connolly, the Irish Labour leader, is not a systematic biography but a series of pressionist sketches about the various stages of her father's private...

ANNALS OF THE POETS By Chard Powers Smith Mr. Chard

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Powers Smith justifies to his own satisfacticin this volume of desultory gOssip about the lives of the poets" (Scribner, 12s. (id.) by claiming that the intellectual superiority...

CHRISTMAS CARDS • We, have received from the Medici Society,

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7 Grafton Street, W. I, Messrs. C.,W. Faulkner, 81 Golden Lane, E.C. 1, Messrs. Raphael Tuck, Raphael House, Moorfields, E.C. 2, ,Messrs, F. J. Ward, 3 Baker Street, W. 1, The...

THE LOEB ,CLASSICAL LIBRARY Five new volumes have just been

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added to the invaluable Loeb Library. The most interesting is the first volume (there are to be two more) of Mr. J. C. Rolfe's translation of Arnmianus Marcellinus, the...

Current Literature

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HOKUSAI By Gustav Eckstein Little is known for certain of the life of the Japanese artist Hokusai. In his day in his native country he was considered inferior to many of his...

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AN article I wrote in The Spectator a short time

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ago on the " sports " ear, its nature and use, and the difference, if any, between it and the sort of ear which is not handicapped by that singularly fatuous nickname, has...

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NEW CAPITAL ACTIVITY.

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One result, of course, of this high level of Trustee Stocks has been to encourage the investor to turn to the more spzeu- (Continued on page 1052.) Financial Notes (Continued...

Finance

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Are Investment Stocks Too High ? THAT is a question to which I imagine few financial writers would be disposed to give a very definite reply. Never- theless, I am venturing to...

Financial Notes

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POLITICAL INFLUENCES. IT has been a dull week on the Stock Exchange, which is scarcely surprising having regard to political affairs. Prim- arily. of course, anxiety centres...

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UNITED DOMINIONS TRUST.

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I would congratulate the Management of the United Domin- ions Trust Limited upon the fact that the enterprise' of a movement of which they were pioneers is seen in increased...

CONDITIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA.

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I would draw the attention of those who may be interested. by reason of their investments in the South American coun- tries, to the report of the speech of Mr. Beaumont Pease...

A GOOD INDUSTRIAL COMPANY.

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Special interest attaches to the latest report of Timothy Whites and Taylors, Limited, for the year up to September 28th last because it is the first to show the effect of the...

BANKING IN THE DOMINIONS.

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I am entirely in agreement with Sir Harold Snagge when, in proposing a vote of thanks to the Staff of Barclays Bank (D. C. & 0.) at the recent annual meeting, he observed that...

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"The Spectator" Crossword No. 169

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Br ZENO [A prize of 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 " Crossword...

A

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A NI Al L Anis Y H AI P EI C LI A V I H RIID VI B H AI Q A A R N Ell A 0 DI U L CI I M ELRJU Nil R IIE S OIN 1' CTTITI AI INSI NIU T II0...