21 MAY 1942

Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK

The Spectator

HE debate in the House of Commons on the war situation covered a wide ground, but the subject which dominated most the speeches was that of the composition of the Chiefs of...

rhe Retreat in Burma Prolonged rearguard actions in war are

The Spectator

notoriously the most ificult to -conduct with success. From the moment when the linnese gained control of the sea and the utt of the port of kgoon General Alexander's little...

A Singapore Inquiry

The Spectator

The Government is making a grave mistake in resisting the demand, expressed in a motion moved by Lord Davies in the Upper House last Tuesday, for an inquiry into the...

Page 2

Regional Controllers of Production

The Spectator

Ia Before Mr. Oliver Lyttelton became Minister of Production was strongly urged by industrialists that there should be mo decentralisation of the supply services and more use...

The Ethics of Bombing

The Spectator

The Archbishop of Canterbury, addressing the Convocation the Southern Province on Tuesday, referred in wise and consider language to the bombing of German cities like Lubeck and...

Lack of Dive-bombers

The Spectator

How long was it going to be, asked Sir J. Wardlaw Milne in last Tuesday's debate, before the Government learnt that dive-bombers were essential in modern war? Sir Archibald...

Laval and His Masters

The Spectator

M. Laval, like his peripatetic prototype, is doing a good deal of going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it, mainly between Paris and Vichy. At Paris he gets...

The Post-War War

The Spectator

Just as nothing is allowed to stand in our way in the drive to win the war, said Sir Stafford Cripps on Sunday, so nothing must be allowed to hinder us after the war in...

Page 3

FUEL AND THE MINES

The Spectator

HE fuel-rationing controversy has died down to a strange quiescence. No one quite knows how things stand. The eridge scheme has been withdrawn for reconditioning or cement—the...

Page 4

The sudden death of Professor Malinowski at Yale is a

The Spectator

great loss to anthropology in general and to the London School of Economics, where he held the Chair in that subject. His book on the Trobrian islanders is, I suppose, his...

The requisitioning of tyres from laid-up cars is a more

The Spectator

dra step than it sounds. Many people have .taken to small cars in interests of economy and laid up larger ones. They are ex hypol all of them people who legitimately need cars,...

The Union of Post Office Workers is disturbed at the

The Spectator

nature of conversations indulged in by users of the shilling (actually Is. 2d.) evening trunk telephone calls, of which various speak themselves telephone-operators, give...

One might suppose that a British citizen wanting to enter

The Spectator

a En Dominion could merely say, like Palmerston's Don Pacifico, " C Britannicus sum," produce evidence to that effect and be app priately welcomed. By no means, apparently ;...

Congress danced and Shanghai, I see, still races. My information

The Spectator

is derived from Horse and Hound, which quotes a Reuter message dated April 17th to the effect that "Race-meetings are still being held on the famous racecourse in the centre of...

Translation is a difficult art, and some foreign words, it

The Spectator

is as to recognise, refuse to stand an alien environment at all. I been reading Philip Barres' book on General de Gaulle, of u both French and English editions have been...

S.P.C. E.

The Spectator

I, "Janus," I am desolated to say, must—or at any rate ought t wear a double damn on my chest for a week for the phi ace ( 1 week) "one of few Englishmen who really knows and...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

T HE Prime Minister's stock goes up and down curiously. At the moment it is undoubtedly down. There are no striking military achievements to foster faith in his leadership, and...

Page 5

KERCH AND KHARKOV

The Spectator

By STRATEGICUS TH EN we attempt to discover the meaning of the two opera- :ions on the Russian front it is well to remember that lever their strength and purpose they cannot...

Page 6

THE ETHICS OF BOMBING

The Spectator

By FRANCIS GOWER W RITERS in the correspondence columns of The Spectator and elsewhere have recently expressed anxiety in regard to what might be called the ethics of our...

Page 7

GAULLISME

The Spectator

By A FORMER PARIS CORRESPONDENT IEUCH political discussion is at present being conducted as though NI the reasons for which the Anglo-French alliance was sought is an essential...

Page 8

BUILDING NEW BRIDGES

The Spectator

By MICHAEL HUXLEY T HERE are far more like-minded people than like-minded governments, and they are like-minded about a far greater variety of subjects. In his recent book, The...

Page 9

I agree with those who say that the Russian Government

The Spectator

and people will never accept defeat. Their resources are still overwhelm- ing; their courage remains superb ; the hatred which the Germans have aroused is as a furnace which...

MARGINAL COMMENT

The Spectator

By HAROLD NICOLSON HAVE been both touched and disconcerted of late by realising with what depth of emotion the men and women of this country tee their hopes upon the Russian...

Our debt to the Russian armies and people is one

The Spectator

which we Id keep for ever in our consciousness. It is not merely that they e destroyed a large portion of Hitler's troops and equipment, a also that they have dealt a heavy blow...

The clamour for a " second " front is inevitable

The Spectator

and (as the Prime Minister pointed out in his recent broadcast) in some ways salutary. But it does not proceed from any acute understanding of the strategic or transport...

Page 10

The Way of a Bee

The Spectator

A device of extreme nicety and ingenuity has just been perfect for detecting the way of a bee in the air and the flower. The weig of the bee on passing over the floor of the...

COUNTRY LIFE

The Spectator

A vouNG rook, very curiously marked, was brought to me t other day after a thinning of the rookery. Its head was black, b both wings were marked by a regular and very pretty...

Early Oaks

The Spectator

That extremely popular doggerel couplet (which extracts differe conclusions from the relative budding time of oak and ash) sho give the rural weather prophets a very definite...

THE CINEMA

The Spectator

"The Next of Kin." At the Carlton and the London Pavilion. WITHIN the narrow limits of weekly praise and blame it is easy to lose sight of the full measure of the film's...

Icemen

The Spectator

Queries have reached me on the exacter meaning of "The Festi of the Three Icemen." Three Catholic saints occupy on calendar the three successive days, May 12th to 14th; and are...

In the Garden

The Spectator

"Hardening off," one of the special duties at the time for gardeners who have any glass, is an especially needful practice growing out-of-door tomatoes. The tomato is not a...

Page 11

PEACE AND THE NAZIS

The Spectator

,—It seems to me that you have written a very important sentqice in week's leading - article, " P.eace and the Nazis ": "But the world may be a better place than it has ever...

VANSITTARTISM

The Spectator

Sta,—Following up Mr. Harold Nicolson's remarks on Vansittartism in The ,Spectator of May 8th, you published in your issue of May 15th a letter from Mr. N. S. Gower, in which he...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Spectator

THE BACKBONE OF GERMANY Sts,—If Mr. Westphal shares the opinion that it is essential to break power of German generals, Junkers and big business, it must be said that his...

Page 12

ALLIES

The Spectator

Snt—I suggest that this wotd should (and most commonly and co does) follow the general habit of verbal nouns derived from a dissylla compound verb, e.g.—to convict, a convict ;...

FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION

The Spectator

Sut,—You ask whether the action of a paper in reprinting portions of work produced by Major Gimlet for private circulation was legid journalism. May I suggest that if it was...

SIR,—Let us grant that all Mr. N. S. Gower says

The Spectator

is correct—viz., that other countries (e.g., France) have had their " Black Record," but have nevertheless "got over it "; and so on. Is it not obvious, all the same, that there...

THE INDIAN ISSUE

The Spectator

SIR, —I have read Dr. Edwyn Bevan's comment on my letter publi in your issue of May 8th. I am not Congressman, but if my view shared by the Congress it is because of our common...

THE WAGE-EARNER'S TEETH SIR, -With the recommendations which your medical correspondent

The Spectator

gives in his profession'al capacity, I am not here concerned. Much of what he says is true and useful. He has, however, been sadly misin- formed in what may be called the...

SNOBBERY AND TITLES SI11,—While sympathetically reading Mr. Lionel James's letter

The Spectator

in yo issue of May 1st, my mind suddenly switched on to the Preface Hawbuck Grange, one of Surtees's lesser-known works. It is not in to Mr. James's experience on the Berkshire...

FOOD WASTAGE

The Spectator

Snt,—Your correspondent, Sir Wm. Beach Thomas, has just got point. It never seems to have struck the authorities that rule us tit if you break up more land and grow more...

Page 13

Pure Poetry

The Spectator

Walter de la Mare : Collected Poems. (Faber. 12s. 6c1.) IT is becoming to pay a small tribute to a real poet in the days when he is still living among us. Amid the clamour of...

BOOKS OF THE DAY

The Spectator

he Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin sader in Crinoline. The Life of _Harriet Beecher Stowe. By Forrest Wilson. (Hutchinson. as.) MS is a fascinating book. It is, in a sense, too...

Page 14

Dramatic Comments

The Spectator

Here's Richness. An Anthology of and by James Agate, with a foreword by Osbert Sitwell. (Harrap. los. 6d.) Preludes and Studies. By Alan Dent, with a prefatory letter by Sir Max...

Prime Ministers at Home

The Spectator

Private and Official. By Nourah Waterhouse. (Cape. as.) LADY WATERHOUSE has attempted, with considerable success, experiment in what may be termed autobiography by proxy. M...

The Re-education of Germany

The Spectator

German with Tears. By Peter F. Wiener. (Cresset Press. 6s.) IT is not Mr. Wiener's fault — not much, anyway — that this is of the most distressing books to be published during...

Page 16

Foreign Students in England

The Spectator

IN the autumn of 1917 there was opened at 32 Russell Square, as a memorial to the men from the universities of Great Britain who were giving their lives in the war, a club which...

Fiction

The Spectator

Fenella. By Margery Nugent. (Faber. 7s. 6d.) The Sampler. By Richard Church. (Dent. 75. 6d.) Aunt Auda's Choir. By Humphrey Pakington. (Chatto and Win 9s-) The Tapestry Men....

Page 17

ALLIANCE ASSURANCE COMPANY, LIMITED

The Spectator

Review of the Report, Accounts and Balance Sheet for the year 1941 by the Chairman, Mr. Richard Durant Trotter THE board of directors have come to the conclusion that it would...

IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to

The Spectator

the sett& of the first correct loon of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week. tietopes should be Yet - eked not later than first post that day and must...

SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD No 165

The Spectator

i iFil iitillti 1 .1.1 al L . _. . ...11t.till.. .T N I III I:O R Pl Ii: 11.1.:0:01RiR:Eil.: R P u s_aL dir.,Nue .,-;.,... lEiTiF:i'!N'E Dieil.!‘; iRiT E 1F4 . I A lAkti...

Page 18

The fact that goc,ds made of raw materials in short

The Spectator

supply owing to war conditions are advertised in this tournal should not b. taken as an indication that they are necessarily available for export.

The Spectator

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

The Spectator

By CUSTOS WHILE there, are no signs just yet of any rush to buy in the st markets, the news from Russia has induced some of the bo investors, with surplus funds to abandon...

Page 19

WILLIAM BEARDMORE AND CO.

The Spectator

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING ordinary general meeting of William Beardmore and Co., Limited, held on Thursday, May 14th, at the offices of the company in sgow. Sir James Lithgow,...

OYAL INSURANCE COMPANY, LIMITED

The Spectator

a statement circulated with the 97th annual report of the Royal In- ance Company, Limited, the chairman, Mr. A. Kentish Barnes, icated that fire premiums totalled L5)754,087,...

INCORPORATED ACCOUNTANTS

The Spectator

AUDITORS AND E.P.T. CREDITS Ai the annual meeting of the Society of Incorporated Accountants held at Incorporated Accountants' Hall, London, yesterday, the president, Mr. Percy...

MPANY MEETINGS

The Spectator

THE LIVERPOOL AND LONDON AND LOBE INSURANCE COMPANY, LIMITED a statement circulated with the moth annual report of rhe Liverpool • London and Globe Insurance Company, Limited,...

COMPANY MEETINGS

The Spectator

NORWICH UNION LIFE INSURANCE SOCIETY NEW BUSINESS FIGURE “A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT" THE 134th annual general meeting of the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society was held on...