T HE heiress to the throne is now a wife. For her that means an expansion and completion of life that she will only under- stand as experience of it grows and deepens year by...

For a man who has repeatedly stated his faith in voluntary methods Mr. Truman went a very long way towards advocating a controlled economy in his Message to both Houses of...

The 4,249,000 tons of coal produced in the week ending Novem- ber t5th reached the highest weekly total since December, 1942. There may be some justification, therefore, for...

At the end of a process which entered on its intensive phase with the first meeting of the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment over a...

On - 1 - ...s.sday M. Ramadier resigned from the office of Prime Minister ; and it is expected that M. Blum will present himself to the Assembly as a successor. This is the...

The withdrawal of British forces from Palestine began this week. It will be a slow process, complicated by the need to give citrus exports priority in the inadequate rail, port...

Mr. Bevan's lucid summary of the Local Government Bill at its second reading on Tuesday hardly gave a true impression of the Bill's immense complexity. He made four chief...

The impression that the sudden resignation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, following his fatal indiscretion in revealing part of the contents of the Budget to a lobby...

T HE House met on Monday in the not infrequent condition of a state of suspended expectation, heightened by the—in the Parliamentary sense only—lost week-end. This week, the...

F ROM time to time during the present Session of the United Nations General Assembly a note of desperation has crept into the American replies to the continuous stream of insult...

It is very difficult to see what fresh light an enquiry into the Dalton affair will cast, and it is rather hard on the ex-Chancellor that, having made the fullest confession of...

of the Govern- ment depends on two men, Mr. Bevin and Sir Stafford Cripps, neither of whom enjoys particularly robust health, is rather alarming. The Foreign Secretary remains...

S INCE Ministers are finding it worth while to scout any idea of a coming Coalition Government I suppose such a possibility has been talked of, though personally I have heard...

a charge of seditious libel is on broad grounds extremely satisfactory. A verdict of guilty would have constituted a grave encroachment on the freedom of the Press. The measured...

Secretary, must take is as to how much importance to attach to Sir Oswald Mosley and his activities. It will not do to disregard him altogether or to assume, tempting though the...

of the spring were followed by the drought, and now, while water shortages still persist in some parts, they have been overlapped by the first floods of the season elsewhere....

By JEAN-PIERRE GIRAUDOUX Paris. O N the French political stage the Communist Party has, during the past fortnight, been playing star. No longer content to act the part it so...

By D. W. BROGAN Judge James, the able, speculative soldier-lawyer, made the run and chose his farm-site well. But in less than a generation the farm-site chosen, the trees...

By Dr. ,C. K. ALLEN, K.C. B READ-WINNING has never, since Adam, been easy or popular, but if some unkind fate should cause you to study the Food Rationing (General Provisions)...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I LIKE autumn. This congenial season, " the - Sabbath of the year," arouses within me every one of the conventional senti- ments. It is with wholly...

THE B.B.C. celebrated its Silver Jubilee at the Albert Hall on November 12th with a perhaps inevitably conventional programme played by a giant orchestra formed by the Northern...

it An Ideal Husband." (Carlton.)--" They Won't Believe Me." (Plaza.) IN common with those of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, Mr. Oscar Wilde's characters give utterance to words as rare...

THE THEATRE " Outrageous Fortune." By Ben Travers. (Winter Garden.)— "Richard II." By William Shakespeare. (New). THIS is a farce not to end farces, but to continue them. Mr....

Here when the villa stood, Here in the court, in the glowing autumn weather, Young Lucius knelt and viewed his latest gifts from Rome— Some apple-trees, a grateful rose, a...

WHILE the fractures in European society persist our first-hand know- ledge of foreign painting remains virtually dependent upon the activity of Governments. Admirable as such...

THE most attractive of a not very interesting collection is the Busch Quartet's new recording of Brahms' A minor string quartet, beauti- fully played and satisfactorily...

Sm,—The Spectator is so insistent On the ending of food subsidies that I wonder if my experience, which must be typical of thousands of others, will be of interest to you. My...

SALARIES OF GRADUATE TEACHERS SIR, —In your issue of November 14th, Janus has a note on the recom- mendations of the Burnham Committee, just published, on salary scales for...

SIRS While I agree with Mr. Taplin's praise of Mr. Harrod's book Are These Hardships Necessary? I think that Mr. Harrod's discussion of interest rates is unconvincing, and you...

Sm,—Reviewing Professor McGovern's book, From Luther to Hitler, Miss Wiskemann notes that Mussolini is not provided " with much Italian ancestry." Professor McGovern, it seems,...

visits to the flicks—and for a very good reason. I can no longer sit through standardised Holly- wood concoctions. Up to about a year ago I went to the movies two or three times...

Slit,—I am surprised that The Spectator—usually so well-informed— should, in the issue of November 14th, under the heading of Potato Rationing, suggest that ".the attacks on the...

Sig,—It has been rightly pointed out on many sides that the establish- ment of a sound German currency is essential to German, and indeed fo European,, recovery. But leaving...

Sat,—I don't write this letter as one of your usual readers. But I have read in your paper, of which I sometimes get a copy, that many of your usual readers send letters with...

Sm,—Attention has been called to a paragraph under the heading, A Spectator's Notebook, in your issue of October 17th, in regard to the clearance of wagons at week-ends. May I...

SEVERAL of our garrison in Germany have expressed an admiring wonder for the respect shown by an underfed community for the crops of apples grown along public highways, which...

Gardeners have enjoyed the ideal of a wind that piled the fallen leaves in convenient drifts. There is no ingredient in manure better than the leaf ; and though the oak and the...

Sta,—What can there be about the apparently simple word " hiss " that makes it such a pitfall to writers—even, it seems, to writers of the calibre of Mr. Harold Nicolson ? The...

On the subject of barren ground, there are in my neighbourhood two sorts of property left to weeds and thorns and briars. One is a field bought for allotments ; the other some...

A feature of the autumnal season which the Londoner may enjoy in greater force than most countrymen is the arrival of the duck from the North and West. They are particularly...

Snt,—There is a growing concern at the barrenness of the United Nations conferences, and it looks as though the purely political approach to the world's vital problems is...

Sta,—Can anyone explain why most of the film critics are women and why they all dislike filrns?—Yours, etc., E. E. REYNOLDS. Salperton, Glos.

It seems to be a common experience that the number of queen wasps is abnormal is spite of the fewness of nests. Those who have scientifically studied the ways of this insect are...

Sta,—Your correspondent, the Rev. E. Koch, states in his letter that Sir Norman Birkett is wrong in associating " Diadem " with "All Hail the Power of Jesu's Name." Whilst it is...

Gide :- The SelfPortrait IN this country as elsewhere there must be many to whom the read- ing of one or other of M. Gide's books has been so decisive an experience that ever...

THESE four lectures on the " ideology of. romanticism " were con- ceived and largely written during the years of war • the author was nineteen when war was declared. Their theme...

ErasmisEpistolaa. Edited by P. S. Allen. Vol. XI. 1534-1536. Edited by H. M. Men and H. W. Garrod. (Oxford University Press. 28s.) THIS volume brings to completion an...

Modern Painters. By Lionello Venturi. (Scribners. 21s.) THE upheaval which European painting underwent in consequence of the French Revolution awaits its comprehensive...

The Journeys of Celia Flennes. Edited by Christopher Morris. (Cresset Press. 8s. 6d.) The Journeys of Celia Flennes. Edited by Christopher Morris. (Cresset Press. 8s. 6d.) "...

IF we speak of a century of Christian Socialism, it is in the sense which J. M. Ludlow had in mind when, at the Pan-Anglican Congress of 1908, he rose, an old man of...

Living Albert Schweitzer : The Man and (Black. 18s.) His Mind. By George Seaver. IT is not surprising to learn that Mr. Seaver's biography is the first full-length study of...

The Country of the Pointed Firs, first published in 1896, has been described as a classic; in her preface to the present edition Miss Willa Cather speaks of it as " almost...

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 December 2nd. Envelopes must be...

E Si1 3 1 7.. 7 R.N t AiT'E 13111rk T.L CA N G_ EE GI I 'O'Lf o L E i e sa n b m s r3 E 12 GlE1:3610211ii 1131 1:1 EI N E t OIR S A L SOLUTION ON DECEMBER 5th The winner...

By CUSTOS THESE are bewildering days for investors—and their advisers. To assess the implications of the Supplementary Budget was difficult enough. Now it becomes necessary to...

who already know something about Lincoln and especially for readers who know the two volumes so far published of Professor Randall's Life. Professor Randall is the greatest...