W HAT needs to be said about the immensely significant naval battle off Montevideo, and the Graf Spee's ' inglorious end, has been said on later pages of this issue, in articles...

The best news to come from Finland in the last few days is that snow is falling heavily in the north. As things stand, nothing, not even their own amazing gallantry, can save...

The Nazi reply to the destruction of the Graf Spee ' appears to be the initiation of a new warfare on fishing- smacks. At any rate the synchronisation is suggestive, for it was...

The daring reconnaissance flight by R.A.F. bombers over the Heligoland Bight on Monday led to the biggest air battle that has yet been fought. The casualties on both sides were...

Last Saturday Sir Walter Monckton, Director-General of the Censorship Bureau, informed a representative gathering of journalists that he hoped to give them greater assistance...

There is something profoundly impressive in the statistics quoted by Mr. Mackenzie King in the broadcast speech in which on Monday he outlined the plans whose fulfilment will...

Admiral Nomura, the Japanese Foreign Minister, has in- formed the American Ambassador, Mr. Grew, that his Government intend to reopen the Yangtse River between Shanghai and...

Much too little attention has been paid to the approval by the Assembly of the League of Nations at its meeting last week of what is known as the Bruce Report, on the...

Lord De La Warr, as President of the Board of Education, is still confronted with perplexing and as yet unsolved problems. Owing to the reluctance of parents to part with their...

The drifting back of children to the danger zones might never have occurred if more adequate provision had been made after their first hurried transference to billets. The...

The announcement that the first order under the Price of Goods Act (more popularly, the Anti-Profiteering Act) has been issued is welcome, for both practical and psycho- logical...

The findings of the Weir Committee on war damage to fixed property, could not be left as the last word in a matter which so vitally affects confidence in a vast and essential...

It is to be hoped that Lord Beaverbrook's papers are right in predicting an extension of rationing in the New Year, and to be regretted that they hope they are wrong. Rationing...

N EVER, certainly, in this war, and never, it is just to say, even in the last, has the Royal Navy added greater lustre to its fame than in the seven days which saw the felo de...

C OUNT CIANO'S speech in the Italian Chamber COUNT Saturday was a balanced record and analysis of the historic events which have recently shaped Italian policy. It was a cool,...

N O one man, I suppose, since the world began has been guilty of causing misery half so gigantic by means half so foul as Adolf Hitler. That, of course, is a truism, which some...

another. More specific than that I cannot be. " I see," said someone to A.B., " that you have a balloon on Horse Guards Parade to keep Ministers safe." " Yes," said A.B. " We...

the last three months, and the statement that two-thirds of them are due to the black-out, make deplorable reading. It seems to be accepted too readily that black-out deaths are...

I am sure Dr. Alberto Guani, the dour-looking but pro- foundly genial Foreign Minister of Uruguay, who has been accredited as Minister to four countries in Europe (including...

What an astonishingly accomplished actress is Sybil Thorndike, and bow completely satisfying in her combina- tion of expression and restraint. Never have I felt that more than...

valid, but it is so easy for a policeman to go beyond his province that he should be firmly checked when he does. In a case heard at Basingstoke on Tuesday a defendant charged...

and other German radio-stations) is matter for satisfaction or mortification is a question I find it rather hard to decide. What raises the question now is the fact that The...

" Daily Telegraph" headline. So that's how they get their liquor. JANus.

By STRATEGICUS T HE events of the last week have read to the enemy as well as to the Allies a lesson of supreme importance. on der Goltz put the matter in this way : " It is...

By EILEEN POWER T O arrive in Geneva by night from dark London and half- dark Paris (for they order these things less inkily in France) is to find oneself in a vile de lumiere....

from 1932 to 1936 Lecturer at the Naval War Academy at Kiel] T HE German Navy lost the last war because its directors saw in naval warfare a purely military duel between the two...

By DOROTHY L. SAYERS [These extracts from the war-time letters and papers of the Wimsey family appear weekly in THE SPECTATOR] 9. Honoria Lucasta, Dowager Duchess of Denver, to...

T HE greatest issue of the session of Congress which begins next month will, barring unexpected develop- ments in the war, be the Hull trade agreement pro- gramme. In June the...

By H. E. BATES H E wanted to put his feet up on his own fire-place, but he was painfully aware that twenty-eight weeks of idleness had lost him that privilege. " And don't...

By MARGHAN1TA LASKI \A T HEN we first heard that we were to take two land- girls for training, speculation was rife. Miss Brown, the farm manager, who had had grievous...

RouNn about Athens in the strangest fashions Strolls the harridan of whom I speak ; Of American origin, she has long been foraging In Attic byways and has gone all Greek In a...

Haw-Haw or his substitute addressed us upon the subject of concentration camps. He admitted the existence of concentration camps in Germany, and confessed that the discipline...

theory of " broadened strategy " and his system of the Trojan Horse. " Our real wars," he informed Dr. Rauschning in 1932, " will in fact be fought before mili- tary operations...

the British people is impervious to the falsifications in which Lord Haw Haw indulges. I fear that this is a dangerous illusion. What we regard as good sense is all too often a...

B.B.C. are well aware of the danger of allowing Lord Haw-Haw's half-truths to pass without contradiction. The time factor is of great importance. If the insinuations of Hamburg...

I should wish to recall a significant passage which occurs in Dr. Rauschning's Hitler Speaks. Dr. Rauschning had ex- pressed some doubt whether the Trojan Horse method would...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I N my article last week I drew a distinction between the aims of British and German propaganda, and suggested that, in maintaining their pre-war values, the...

" First Love " and " Ducks and Drakes." At the Leicester Square.—" Our Neighbours—the Carters." At the Plaza. " Espionage Agent." At Warners. First Love is an honest fairy...

THE THEATRE " Ladies in Retirement." By Edward Percy and Reginald Denham. At the St. James's Theatre. IN a large and architecturally improbable house situated on the marshes...

" The Spectator " and The Academy HALF a century ago, in December, 1889, I was summoned to the little old office of The Spectator in Wellington Street, by Waterloo Bridge. On...

relaxes ; No longer it levies its taxes upon the soul. The joys of common living, exempt from toll, no longer pay Their heavy duty but enter whole, Entire in their own beauty....

Popular Hollies THE celebration of Christmas cast its shadow before it in many country places in the shape of lorries that were sent in numbers round the lanes to gather holly....

In the most persistent and destructive attacks made by the immigrant starlings on the late-sown wheats it is interesting to note both the birds' technique and the fortune of a...

Our village has been summoned to discuss allotments. They have been dwindling. One group has just been given up by the Parish Council, which is the lord of that form of...

We shall be able on Christmas Day to adorn our houses with flowers as well as berries. Not even roses and out-of- door chrysanthemums will be extinct on Christmas eve. The...

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must...

SIR, —In commenting on British war aims you say " They involve no break-up of Germany, no dictation of her form of government." Perhaps, because I am a mere novice in political...

Sta,—Mr. Scott-James accuses me of " romanticism " for pointing out that a decline in middle-class incomes need not mean a pro rata decline in culture or happiness, and quotes...

StR,—Can there ever have been a more pitiable travesty of the meaning of the word " sympathy " than when Nazi propa- ganda, alone of all published opinion, gave out that it felt...

Letter recently issued by the Archbishops expressed the hope " that you will do your utmost to see that the work of the Church in your own parish does not suffer." In view of...

Sm,—During the past few weeks there have appeared in the Press several letters in which the writers express more or less forcibly the view that there are no grounds for...

Sitt,—The reference Mr. J. C. Hardwick asks for is St. John viii, 58. The crowning offence was, of course, the use, with- out ambiguity or periphrasis, of the Ineffable Name....

SIR,—On reading Mr. Harold Nicolson's brilliant little book Why England is at War, which every Englishman should study, I was challenged by a casual reference in one chapter....

SIR,—When the time comes for resettling Europe one of the main difficulties will arise from the fact that solemn treaty obligations have always been regarded by German rulers as...

SIR,.—May we, the China Medical Aid Committee, on behalf of the Chinese people who have suffered two and a half years of a terrible war, appeal to your readers to help us in the...

Snt,—In an interesting review of my book Down River in your issue of last week, Mr. Anthony Powell sums up my argument in what I feel is a rather misleading fashion. Ac- cording...

Sta,—There is surely some weight in Professor Joad's con- tention that, if statements about electrons are only statements about correlations of experience, then statements about...

Snt,—I have today received my copy of The Spectator of November 3rd, and have just read Sir Arnold Wilson's interesting review of Mr. W. Ivor Jennings' book Parliament. May I be...

Janus," but I was somewhat saddened by his remarks about the reception given by British sailors to submarine prisoners. The sailors doubtless felt a sense of comradeship with...

Hitler's Route to Bagdad. By Barbara Ward, the Hon. Barbara Buckmaster, Clare Hollingworth, Vandeleur Robinson, Lilo Linke. (George Allen and Unwin. tos. 6d.) THIS book provides...

A Gospel of Creation CONSISTING of the Master of Christ's Merrick Lectures in America, this book is a brilliant example of the literature of theological controversy. As an...

IN the mining and industrial districts of Scotland the years immediately following the last War were a time of almost revolutionary ferment. Many of those who returned, de-...

THIS is a lovely book. Whatever else one may have to say about it, its charm is undeniable and irresistible. Brightly coloured and dean of outline, the little pictorial symbols...

"THE first star had appeared, and the scent of the huge night-smelling datura blossoms drifted towards us. . . . Two young workmen came by. Salud! ' they called, the Popular...

Peaks and Lamas. By Marco Pallis. (Cassell. as.) " kr the outset I tried to climb peaks in a bodily sense ; but in the end I discovered the Lama, who led me upwards to the peaks...

O UR readers are invited to take out a subscription to THE SPECTATOR as a New Year Gift to their friends on particularly favourable terms. Such a gift would, no doubt, be...

Orion Marches. By Michael Roberts. (Faber. 6s.) MR. MICHAEL ROBERTS is what cricketers call a " good all- rounder." He writes poetry, edits it, criticises it and theorises...

AN eminent writer recently pointed out the extreme rarity in English literature of passages devoted to the description of a happy day. Prizes of book tokens for £2 zs. and LI...

THE customary prizes were offered for nicknames coined from an abstract quality (on the model of " Capability " Brown) to fit any five of the twelve gentlemen whose names recur...

By CUSTOS IF the stock markets lack anything worthy of the name of general trend they at least contrive to tick over on highly selective lines. In war conditions, which make...

The market's sudden enthusiasm for copper, lead and zinc shares I find more difficult to understand. In raising the maximum prices of these non-ferrous metals to virtually the...

For tangible proof of the cotton trade recovery one need not look further than the results of the Lancashire Cotton Corporation. Profits, at £582,807, have risen by £278,382, so...

SOUTH WEST AFRICA COMPANY RESULT OF RECENT DEVELOPMENT ORE PROVED AT DEPTH THE annual general meeting of The South West Africa Company, Limited, was held on December 19th at...

Carreras, the cigarette and tobacco manufacturers, achieved their record profit last year through an increased demand for their established brands and in spite of a lower profit...

The possibility of a return of capital must often have been in the minds of the shareholders when they looked at the South West Africa Company's important investment portfolio....

It is apparent from Sir John Caulcutt's remarks at the Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas) meeting that the sharp rise in the cash holding disclosed in the...

BANK OF LONDON AND SOUTH AMERICA RECORD BALANCE SHEET TOTAL : STRONG LIQUID POSITION BRITAIN'S TRADE OPPORTUNITY THE seventy-seventh ordinary meeting of th. Bank of London...

BARCLAYS BANK (DOMINION, COLONIAL AND OVERSEAS) DIVIDEND 64 PER CENT. THE fourteenth ordinary general meeting of Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas) was held, on...

WOOLWICH EQUITABLE BUILDING SOCIETY IN the absence of the chairman, Mr. Fred Hoar, through indisposi- tion, his speech was read by the general manager, Mr. T. R. Chandler,...

CARRERAS, LIMITED RECORD RESULTS THE thirty-sixth annual general meeting of Carreras, Limited, was held on December 19th at Arcadia Works, London, N.W. Mr. Edward S. Baron...

INCREASED DIVIDEND THE ordinary general meeting of Mitchell Cons and Company, Limited, was held on December 20th in London. Mr. Alexander Hamilton (chairman and managing...

and Co., lays much store by the fact that the company keeps its eggs in many baskets: they are coal merchants, ship-owners and forwarding agents in many parts of the world, and...

show a remarkably good recovery in overseas trade but they do not diminish the need for an expansion of exports. It is good to find Lord Wardington emphasising the urgency of an...

in war conditions? Many investors must be seeking the answer to this question, but it is not easy to find. Here is Apex (Trinidad) showing a net profit of £256,049, against...

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK The winner of Crossword No. 41 is P. Nichols, 48, Church Way, Whetstone, N.20.

(?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 marked...