T HE reception of the Anglo-Italian Agreement on the Continent seems generally to reflect prepossessions rather than any new judgement on merits. The Government- tied Presses of...

with trade " recession " is now fully launched. Its three features, each on a very large scale, are de-sterilisation of gold, public works, and public relief—the last given to...

to her military successes the capture of two strategic cities north of the Yellow River in Honan and of a village north of the Grand Canal in Shantung. But the Japanese are...

last week at three points, Alcanar, Vinaroz, and Benicarlo, and now control some 35 miles of coast extending south from the mouth of the Ebro ; the fall of Tortosa appears to be...

congratulated on the ability with which, up to this moment, he has routed th, dangerous and powerful Fascist movement in his country . In the last few months he has completely...

all political prisoners in Czechoslovakia except those charged with " military treason " freed 2,867 persons, of whom much the largest contingent (over 1,300) were Germans. The...

restitution of the expropriated oil wells, has had the reply which was expected. President Cardenas has explained that he means to indemnify the companies in full but cannot...

has had all the success that could be legitimately expected. Its troubles are not yet over, but at least the most urgent difficulties have been overcome. After the triumphant...

it can and as soon as it can, very many hundreds of aeroplanes across the Atlantic invites two comments. First.it throws an appalling light on the Ministry's failure during the...

there would have been no prospect of an immediate electoral alliance between the parties opposed to the present Administration. Hatchets are not so easily buried. In British...

and Fulham may be taken as indicative of the trend of opinion over a wide area, their meaning is clear. For the first time since 1931 the Liberal vote, in the absence of a...

the known Achilles heel which lowers her authority in peace and might entail her destruction if war came, is her vulner- ability to air attacks and her backwardness, indeed her...

Party executive should have thought it necessary to pronounce still another veto on collaboration with outside organisations is significant. It is clear that this ukase is...

introduced during the next fortnight or three weeks, has already aroused some opposition, though its details are not yet known. The Daily Express promises that 16,000 dairymen...

Agreement, both at home and abroad, has corre- sponded entirely to expectation. At home, the dithyrambs in the Daily Mail and the Daily Express (which the Paris Temps tickets...

by renewed and vigorous discussion of a " Popular Front " in Great Britain' And the Labour Party appears to have committed yet another of its atrocious political blunders by...

"THE country," said the retiring President of the League of Young Liberals on Monday (Easter having perhaps got into his blood), " is ripe for a complete political landslide...

Colonial Secretary of the Bahamas to this country is to popularise those attractive islands he will do well to make it clear how the Union Jack stands there in relation to the...

various problems of aviation proper (if it is more proper to be pro- pelled by a motor than by wind-currents cum gravity) and to that extent its growing popularity is no doubt...

topics as forecasts of the Anglo-Italian Agreement and General Franco's break-through to the coast, an impressive contents-bill caught my eye : DEVON WOMAN PREDICTS WAR IN TWO...

devious route indicates that the famous Dahlem preacher, who was discharged from prison by a verdict of the People's Court, but rearrested by the Secret Police and consigned to...

" There must be no short girls, no spectacled girls, anal above all, no blondes," in the march past Herr Hitler when he gets to Rome. So orders the secretary of the Fasc,st...

By THOMAS BALOGH B UDGET Day has once more become an ominous occasion. Sir Thomas %skip's warning that we shall not sleep in our beds after seeing the Budget follows logically...

By E. L. WOODWARD IN the light of events the League of Nations appears as an attempt to reverse a historical process which had lasted for several centuries. This attempt was...

By E. M. FORSTER P OET, hero, and cad, D'Annunzio presents a test problem to the Englishman. Byron, to whom he has been compared, was difficult enough, and was sent by us on a...

By DAME EDITH LYTTELTON T HE Society for Psychical Research, or the S.P.R. as it is familiarly called, has been collecting evidence of all kinds of psychical occurrences and...

By DEREK VERSCHOYLE [This is the last of a short series of articles on Ireland in its domestic and external aspects] T HE Constitution of Eire marks in fact almost as exactly...

By RONALD OGDEN T HE lake was as still as a cup of tea and the moon was so bright it might almost have been daylight. It was early summer. You could see the trees reflected in...

CAN I BE A CHRISTIAN ?—VI [The writer, whose age is 26, is an Oxford graduate, and a schoolmaster] y BELIEVE in Christianity because I accept its claim to I answer rightly the...

"Le Roi s'Amuse." At the Academy—" La Tendre Emtemie." At Studio One UNIQUE and . special qualities have always attached to films from France, partly perhaps because a strict...

MUSIC Feodor Chaliapin " CHARLIE ARPIN ! Charlie Arpin ! " The gallery-boys of thirty years ago at once anglicised his name, surest sign of a genuine popularity, and...

ID'un correspondent parisien IL s'agit du president de la Republique. Autrefois cela n'aurait pas fait l'ombre d'un doute. Mais la mode s'est etablie de nos jours d'appeler "...

The National Gallery THE National Gallery has celebrated the centenary of moving into its present premises by opening one new gallery and ,redecorating another. The new room,...

under the Ministry of Agriculture, has recently changed its name—for the worse, as it seems to me. Its newer name is the Britis; , Growers Publicity Council, its older Flowers...

the ups and downs of bird population finds a casual allusion in the latest issue of the quarterly Bird Notes and News, issued by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds....

Since this Easter Sunday fell on April t7th, and the weather has at any rate done nothing to hinder the movement, holiday- makers should have much to record, and perhaps some of...

Country Fires Visitors to some of our eastern counties have been impressed by the great amount of dead bracken, which looks and is singu- larly inflammable. A good deal of...

It has been said—in a book—that the nightingale is usually heard in the Home Counties on April t7th. Such a syn- chronism is doubtless over-precise ; but the punctuality of the...

Stock and Birds In Brazil I came across an echo of the theory that foot-and- mouth disease may be carried by birds. Much the most obvious and one of the commonest of all the...

It is not too early in the year for the discovery of odd nests ; for example, in the garden of a Lincolnshire rectory a wren has built within the ample folds of a cabbage which...

you write to the effect that - robably millions of Austrians are against the Anschluss. I had to be in Vienna for a fortnight, including the plebiscite day itself. I spoke to...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] StR,—It might well be inferred from the figures given by Mr. Cahir Healy that there is a very grave discrimination in the matter of grants...

[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...

week's issue a letter from Mr. Cahir Healy, M.P., Enniskillen, in which he states that Roman Catholic schools have only got 8 per cent. of the L1,500,000 allocated towards the...

your issue of April 1st; Sir Alfred Zimniern in his article " Europe from Prague " stated among other thingS that 25 years ago the children in Slovakia " were brought up as...

SIR,—Will you allow another resident in Ulster to express a standpoint somewhat different from that of S. C. R. in your issue of April 1st? In the present prolonged negotiations...

Snt,—Your correspondent, Mr. N. F. L. Roberts, is a protagonis of the " Germany must never again rise " school—the same school that has dominated French policy (with disastrous...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Snt,—In your issue of April 15th, Mr. John Eglinton asks for the best definition of Christianity. He says we know what a Buddhist believes, but...

PEACE Sul,—In his new book, The Whispering Gallery of Europe, General Temperley affirms that the failure of the League " has been due to the ingrained rehictance of any Govern-...

SIR,—May I comment shortly on Mr. Meyrick Booth's plea for an understanding, based upon similarity of positions and interests, between this country and Greater Germany ? Few...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The lady Cambridge graduate, now working in an advertising agency, who writes on " Can I be a Christian ? " can certainly be a Christian if...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—In an article entitled " Holidays Nearer Home," pub- lished in The Spectator of April 8th, Mr. Anthony Blunt writes : " And after all if we...

you published under the above heading on April 2nd, I did not say—not even " in effect " —as Mr. Lindsay S. Garrett in your issue of April 8th in- sinuates, that " one does not...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sza,—I agree with Dame Edith Lyttelton that if the experiments in which Dr. Pratt and Mr. Pearce were isolated in different buildings of Duke...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—I am shocked by Canon Lloyd's facile conception of Democracy and Dictatorship as embodying respectively the forces of good and evil. The...

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sza,—The article on " Police and Press " in your last issue should draw attention to the vagueness and uncertainty of purpose of parts of our...

a few lines of your' space to reply to a remark of Mr. Garrett's ? The " utterly loose and mischievous statement " is not mine : it is our Lord's : " I thank thee, 0 Father, . ....

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—A paragraph under the above heading in last week's Spectator contains the remark that " If the exterminators are serious in their policy,...

PAGE PAGE The Cost of Dying (W, T. Wells) .. 713 The Childhood of Edward Thomas (Henry W. Nevinson) 720 A Dictionary of Slang (Prof. H. C. Wyld) 7 5 4 The Obscurest...

these two books. In both the authors have collected a series of essays descriptive, explanatory and sometimes admonitory of modern England ; both authors are moved by an...

THIS iS an age of English Dictionaries; and it wbuld appear that saturation point is not yet reached. The last few years have seen the completion of the great Oxford Dictionary,...

of the most valuable books that have yet appeared on the League of Nations— and books on the League have by no means become superfluous. The present League may have to undergo...

The Growth of Collective Economy. By T. E. Lawley. Two vols. (P. S. King. 35s.) HERE is a promising title. We have had the theory of the thing in vacuo, we have had visions and...

The Childhood of Edward Thomas : A Fragment of Auto- biography. (Faber and Faber. 6s.) THIS fragment, now edited by Edward Thomas's younger brother Julian, was probably written...

Kafirs and Glaciers. Travels in Chitral. By R. C. F. Schomberg. (Hopkinson. r5s.) IN the mountains of North-West Afghanistan and Chitral dwell tribes who until recently clung...

England's Years of Danger. A New History of the World War 1792-1815 Dramat_sed in Documents. By P. Frischauer. (Cassell. 12s. 6d.) THIS book is an attempt to present history in...

The Walpole Society Publications. Vols. 24 and 25. (Issued to Subscribers.) OF all the learned Societies which devote their energies to the study of the Fine Arts few are more...

By KATE O'BRIEN Serenade. By James M. Cain. (Cape. 7s. 6d.) Courthouse Square. By Hamilton Basso. (Methuen. 8s. 6d.) Miss Bendix is a small, slight book, oddly and • agreeably...

The Roadside Driving School Some 800 of the new mounted police have now begun their duties on the highways and byways of Essex, Cheshire and Lancashire, and yet another hopeful...

Few groups of securities have suffered more severely in recent months than Argentine rails. Quite apart from general market conditions, which have depressed good and bad stocks...

IN a square mile which has been badly ravaged by war scare one must be prepared to forgive a little buoyancy at the conclusion of the Anglo-Italian agreement. Fortunately, the...

Whichever of our national improvement plans may have to be held back in the interests of more rapid rearmament, I do not think it will be the road programme. It is surely right...

If, as I anticipate, we are about to witness a gradual broaden- ing of investment interest in the stock markets, there should be a quick revival of inquiry for reasonably...

Here are details of the yields now obtainable on the senior debentures of the "Big Four " Argentine railways, together with the range of quotations over the past ten years :...

ANGLO-PORTUGUESE TELEPHONE COMPANY DIVIDEND OF 8 PER CENT. THE fifty-first ordinary general meeting of the Anglo-Portuguese Telephone Company, Limited, was held on April 13th,...

EAGLE STAR, LIMITED RECORD YEAR'S OPERATIONS DIVIDEND 30 PER CENT STRONG FINANCIAL POSITION PRESIDING at the annual general meeting of the Eagle Star Insurance Company,...

THREE MONTHS' TRADE THE conclusions to be drawn from the Overseas Trade returns for the first quarter of 1938 must at best be mixed. The figures are certainly less good than in...

The reports of the Cunard Steamship Company and of Cunard White Star, Limited, show a very material improvement over 1936, but not so great as would enable the Cunard company to...

ARMY AND NAVY STORES, LIMITED IMPROVEMENT IN SALES TOTAL THE annual general meeting of the Army and Navy Stores, Ltd., was held on April 13th, on the Company's premises,...

AI PIIIGI El oi NI EINJ GW.1 RIOWUI SI V1 IrCiltil - SI SI PI Al RI XI Prrl Ul GUT/ U10 El I INfi'l I NI AI TrIl Orin P NI NIDI EIMI 01 I I SI LI LI E AI J I Al r l e 141U1 SI...

Notwithstanding clear indications of a recession in several industries which consume the products of the British iron and steel industry-for example tin plate and several...

Sir Edward Mountain, the chairman of the Eagle Star Insurance Company, had only one black spot to deal with in the excellent results which he reviewed at last week's meeting....

You will hardly expect me to tell you that we have started the new year in a promising way. Nor can I do so. We have not." In those words Brig.-Gen. Sir Frederick Gascoigne,...

(Continued from page 73o.) ANGLO-PORTUGUESE TELEPHONE Sir Alexander Roger, the chairman of the Anglo-Portuguese Telephone Company, spoke with great hopefulness of the...

BY ZENO [A prize of a Book Token for 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...