False impressions in this country concerning the plight of France and the nature of current French policies are rapidly melting away. The surprise with which the success of M....

T HE brief exchange of question and answer on Palestine in the House of Commons on Tuesday served to put a damper on some of the wilder nonsense which had been talked on this...

Though discussions of the Indonesian situation are in progress at both Lake Success and Delhi, the conversations between the Dutch Prime Minister, Dr Drees, and Dr Sharir at...

In a broadcast last week Mao Tse-Tung announced the terms on which the Communists were prepared to make peace. The eight conditions he laid down are—with the exception of one...

The execution of the programme of the Western occupying Powers for the permanent settlement of Germany is noticeably speeding up. A meeting which is now taking place in London...

The riots in Durban last week-end seem to have taken everyone by surprise. The authorities on the spot were obviously unprepared for rioting on a large scale, and once they had...

The ancient truth that, when pain is occasioned by an ugly facade, certain people do not mind it because they are behind it, has for some years had a most striking demonstration...

p ARLIAMENT returned full of vigour after the Christmas recess, and unluckily for Mr. Arthur Henderson, the Secretary of State for Air, most of it was concentrated on the...

Basic facts and figures concerning the steel industry are now laid on the table with such regularity, and with such frankness, that the critics will have the greatest difficulty...

TN the House of Commons on Wednesday the Colonial Secretary gave preliminary particulars of a Colonial Exhibition to be held in London this summer. Further details will be...

taking place in connection with the tercentenary of the execution of King Charles I on January 3oth. One celebration that has not been announced, but that I hope will happen...

both confirmation of the fact that many Americans are anxious to trace their pedigrees in this country, and that various agencies to help them do exist. Public Libraries, it...

Wells should have wanted to borrow a copy of Otto Strasser's book, L'Aigle Prussien sur l'Allemagne, has elicited explanations from more than one quarter, including a copy of an...

be published almost as soon as this paragraph is. Mean- while it may be well to dispose of one misunderstanding which seems rather prevalent. The Tribunal was constituted for...

daily papers, which is time for most people to make up their minds what they think of them. Certainly not everyone welcomes the enlargement. The four-page paper had got well...

story of Mr. A. W. Blake, who was murdered just before Christmas at the orphanage he superintended in Malaya, and said I would transmit any contributions any readers might care...

T HE installation of Mr. Truman as President of the United States is so much a formality after the dramatic vote of last November, and in view of the fact that it is a case of...

By THE RT. HON. OLIVER STANLEY,.M.P. In this, the first of a series of articles on British Colonies and their problems, Col. Oliver Stanley, who was Colonial Secretary from...

By ANTHONY GREENWOOD, M.P. Considerable public interest is being aroused by the fact that a number of Labour M.P.s are hoping to introduce a Private Member's Bill prohibiting...

By DAVID KESSLER A LTHOUGH Israel lies further from the Iron Curtain than Greece or Italy, the General Election which is to be held there next Tuesday will be followed abroad...

By R. BASSETT T HE professor who recently appealed, with some misgiving, to his own memory, and to the memories of "millions living," against a misleading version of an event...

By MARC T. GREENE [The Bible from which John Adams taught the first generation of children on Pitcairn is about to be sent back to the island from the United States through the...

By R. H. CECIL • MANY London magistrates, scores of justices' clerks, and thousands of policemen must have rubbed their eyes if they read Janus's query last week, " Who is Mr....

By LIONEL HALE T HE English love their institutions ; and lima, after more than three hundred Thursday nights, had become as much an institution as, say, Queen Victoria in the...

Particulars have already appeared regarding the Undergraduates' Page which The Spectator is to initiate in the issue of February itth and for which a number of contributions...

By HAROLD NICOLSON U NDER the express condition that I return it to him within a very few days, a friend of mine has lent me a volume which he discovered recently in a...

THE CINEMA " Marriage in the Shadow." (Curzon.)---" Whispering City." (New Gallery and Tivoli.)—" My Own True Love." (Carlton.) IT is natural that Germany should be obsessed...

LISTENING to the progrimme of seventeenth-century madrigals and instrumental pieces, given by the. Boyd Neel Orchestra and some Morley College singers on January 17th, I...

has been the opposition between country and town ; but we have had a good deal of evidence that the two were beginning to understand one another. Unhappily some of the present...

FROM the base of Dale Fort, that most gracious field-studies centre, the company went forth to see how many species of plant they could find in flower as the New Year opened....

been very much in evidence. There is the much discussed holly hedge along Piccadilly, which is to rival the famous hedge of John Evelyn. It should do well. Holly, though a...

A MIXED week. At Wildenstein's a memorial exhibition of Thomas Lowinsky's curious talent. Too late for one movement, Lowinsky yet contrived to forestall another and, embedded as...

what a difference a slight mis- pronunciation may make ! The other day on the B.B.C. a highly senti- mentalised voice ended a poetic description of a scene with an ecstatic...

true to its adjective. It seems sometimes to accentuate frost and proves a useless protection, partly for the reason that ventilation is a necessity. A very slight warming may...

RECOGNISING FRANCO Su,—It is difficult to know what Mr. Jones means, in The Spectator of January 14th, with his accusations of " powerful underground forces of reaction working...

jack Grahl which was published in The Spectator of January 14th. He puts forward an interest- ing theory that wage rates per hour for bus crews should perhaps depend to a...

Stn,—All the evidence, I think, is against Mr. C. A. Murray's view that citizenship is best taught to children by parents who may or may not have learned it themselves. The...

present attitude of mind of London busmen. Surely it is somewhat staggering when he states that "no thinking trade unionist will be taken in by that hoary and discredited dictum...

than hearsay, your correspondent Mr. Cyril O. Jones bases his suggestion that we " well know " the facilities afforded in Spanish ports to " the raiding German submarines." This...

Sm,—Your correspondent is correct in saying that the Kaiser rode abreast with King Edward VII and the Duke of Connaught behind the coffin at Queen Victoria's funeral in London....

Stx,—The mentality revealed and the implications of Mr. Bacon's letter on the above subject are really astonishing. In these days a 5 per cent. overall return on safe...

SIR,—At a time when there are so many other issues to distract public opinion, it is good that the Spectator continues to direct attention to the question of Germany's future....

Snt,—My attention has been drawn to a paragraph in the issue of the Spectator of January 14th relating to visiting Americans who may be in search of information relating to...

Sm,—Your article, Hamstrung Hotels, draws attention to the disastrous effect of the above on hotels. They are equally disastrous for the hotel employees, who, on their account,...

SIR,—Sir W. Beach Thomas notes that the " trussing " of hay and straw is on the increase, and goes on to mention uses for these trusses. Trussing (a hand process) is almost...

SIR,—After months of pleasurable endeavour, I was lucky enough last week to win a prize in the Spectator crossword, and duly received a handsome book-token entitling me to buy a...

Sta,—Statistics just released by the University of London for the Mid- summer, 1948, General School Examination show that the average age of all candidates taking the...

SIR,—With reference to the enquiry (The Spectator, January 14th) re the location of the town which -is the setting of my novel, Some Trust In Chariots, I am glad to inform your...

member of a detachment of the 12th Middlesex (Civil Services) Rifles, which was lining a small portion of the route in Hyde Park, near to the site of what is now the Dorchester...

Sra,—It was cruel and, I suspect, slightly malicious of your Correspondence Editor to inflict on us last week the above headline—just like that and without the help of...

Sta,—Though the United Nations have now shown their awareness of the terrible plight of the Palestine Arab refugees, and have voted a considerable sum for their- succour, owing...

SIR,—Mr. Paxman Tiptaft refers to St. Luke II. 17 ; but surely the pronoun in that verse refers not to the Child, but to " this thing " men- tioned in verse 15. Verse 18, where...

school examination, it appears that many people have the strange idea that at present a child takes School Certificate when he is considered ready for it. In most schools,...

Snt,—During 1948 wages in this country have risen by over a hundred million pounds. Could not, therefore, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when framing his forthcoming Budget,...

A History of Europe, 1610-1715. By W. F. Reddaway. (Methuen 25s.) AT the Glorious Revolution, observed Lord Acton in a passage which Mr. Reddaway quotes, " the history of...

The Greece of Thucydides Thucydides and the History of His Age. By G. B. Grundy. (Black- well. 2 vols., 25s. each.) THE recent death of G. B. Grundy a few months after the...

Life of Lord Lloyd. By Colin Forbes Adam. (Macmillan. 21s.) WHO was Lord Lloyd ? We can already hear this question asked by the very young persori. The not so young person will...

The Opening of an Era: 1848. An Historical Symposium, Edited by Francois Fetjts. (Allan Wingate. 21s.) LAST year saw a spate of publications, especially in French, designed to...

(Browne and Nolan. 8s. 6d.) SOPHIA SOYMONOV, who was married at nineteen to the gentle, elderly and courtly general Swetchine, was born in Moscow in 1782. Her father was rich,...

in conversation or goaded by folly, Johnson was capable of anything. That possibly accounts for the highly unusual views expressed by Johnson on what a judge might properly do...

IF a traveller from, say, Portugal, who had never visited the British Isles were to be given these two books, it is reasonably certain that, however imperfect his knowledge of...

Textiles by Britain. By Grace Lovat Fraser. (Allen and Unwin. 25s.) MRS. LOVAT FRASER'S new book will strengthen the opinion of those who hold that one excellent way to sample...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, Febritary 1st....

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British Authors. A grwentkth-Century Gallery. By Richard Church. (Longmans. 8s. 6d.) OF the fifty-two British authors whom Mr. Church explains in this book, the earliest is...

MR. CALDWELL'S new novel about the degenerate poor whites of Georgia proves again that there is a limit to the number of times an author can repeat a success. Tobacco Road had...

A soon on Isaac Watts, synchronising with the bicentenary of the great hymn-writer's death, arouses hopeful expectations, which unfortunately do• not long survive a study of the...

of course to a medical regimen, no matter how good his physique. In the case of Franklin Roosevelt this had to be rigorous in the extreme. He went to Washington twelve years...

By CUSTOS WITH the new year only three weeks old, it is already becoming clear that the view expressed here that markets in 1949 would be even more selective than in 1948 will...