T _ HE special economic committee of the Trades Union Congress, that watchdog of the policy of wage restraint, never barks, much less bites. Instead it emits a low con- tinuous...

Elections in North Rhine Westphalia are of far from negligible importance, for the Land, with its twelve million inhabitants, is the largest in Western Germany, or for that...

Seen from the east, the Iron Curtain must seem a somewhat imperfect barrier, with one end resting rather untidily on the northern frontiers of Greece and the other floating in...

The United Nations does not work very well, but there is a danger that if the present deadlock over the representation of China goes on for much longer it will cease to work at...

The Arab League has ended its seven-days sittings at Alexandria without the split that would undoubtedly have resulted if the motion for the expulsion of Jordan from the League...

The fact that the experts have found it difficult, and the general public impossible, to follow the negotiations for a European Pay- ments Union which have been going on for...

A conference in Nairobi of representatives of the Kenya Electors' Union and of the Tanganyika European Council has resolved to ask the British Government to issue a re-statement...

T HE last Parliament passed more legislation than any in history. Some said at the time that this was an outrage on Parliament as an institution, and nearly everybody but Mr....

Outside critics have had as much difficulty in keeping up with the massive and burgeoning projects of Unesco as has its own highly-paid secretariat, in which breakdown through...

The report on hospital employment made by the social science department of Liverpool University is on too small a scale to be conclusive, but is interesting as indicating some...

special Summer Number, and will include, in addition to the usual contributions from writers like Harold Nicolson, Peter Fleming and Virginia Graham, articles by James Bridie,...

HAT is the attitude of the Socialist Government of Great Britain towards the non-Socialist Governments of Europe—or for that matter the non-Socialist Governments of the British...

have heard it from two reliable authorities, that the Conservative Central Associa- tion has laid it down that no Conservative candidate for Parliament shall contribute anything...

B.'s Diary at a price Which I will not mention for fear of paining Mr. Blumenfeld's heirs and assigns, and among other things came on the note of an encounter (in 1887) with a...

the insidious propaganda which disseminators of Communism are endeavouring to plant on suitable recipients—in this particular case copies of a journal called the New Central...

L ORD DARNLEY'S very unusual motion in the House of Lords on Tuesday—calling on His Majesty's Government to " take initial steps towards the reorganisation of human society now...

very reasonably, asked the Minister of Food in the House of Commons on Monday why 1,400 tons of chocolate had been imported from Czechoslovakia in the first four months of this...

of Outstanding-Historic or Architectural Interest are almost worth the 3s. which the Stationery Office charges for the report. The whole is an essay on the tragedy of English...

motorists taking their cars abroad will ease matters substantially, and the concession must be counted to him for righteousness— though the owner of a medium-sized car who wants...

By ROBERT WAITHMAN Washington O N the morning of Tuesday, June 13th, in Washington, it was as plain as the nose on your face that we were in for an Anglo-American storm of-rare...

By MARK ARNOLD-FORSTER Berlin, June 19th F IVE years ago, when the Western Allies sent six distinguished Generals to govern Western Germany, many people thought that they were...

B L. P. KIRWAN T HIS month's Note from the Soviet Government to the Governments of the United States, Great- Britain, France, Norway, Australia, Argentina and New Zealand about...

By EMILE MARMORSTEIN M R. H. L. MENCKEN once said that if a number of big business men get round a table and talk about service, it does not need a Sherlock Holmes to deduce...

By T. A. LAYTON Sampling takes place a fortnight before the sale, a special day being allocated to the brokers, and another one to the public, who hardly count. The brokers...

by the dispute in the printing industry, Undergraduate Page has to be held over this week.

By HAROLD NICOLSON pot-pourri in the vast china bowls should no longer be renewed year by year, but should moulder silently as the tourists lag along. It is thus an agreeable...

FOUR naval ratings, having volunteered for " hazardous duties," find themselves cooped up in a disused naval fortress on a minute island somewhere near Scapa Flow. The two...

"Ruy Blas." (New Gallery.) —4 4 Treasure Island." (Leicester Square.)--“ Louisa." (London Pavilion.) M. JEAN MARAIS' dimpled countenance, a countenance so blatantly attractive...

THEATRE “ Golden City." A Musical Play by John Tore. (Adelphi.) READERS of the Spectator were told last week, by Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu, M.P., a good deal more about Golden...

MY notice of The Ring, in these columns last year, brought me a letter of protest, whose author first honoured me with the title of " London's Pocket Hanslick," and then refined...

LAST week I saw with no little pleasure, in the neighbourhood of Salis- bury, a high wall of rubble newly and expertly thatched in the old manner. It was good craftsman's work,...

The advertisement of the really excellent little pamphlet called National Parks and Access to the Countryside ends: " It (the Act) pro- vides also for the conservation of our...

another. Earlier this year I was much struck by the perfection of the art of hedge-laying which flourishes in new vigour in Leicestershire and parts of East Anglia. Not long...

numerous, certainly in the Lakes where once Wordsworth, listening to them, could "beget that golden time again." Thereabout I saw daily a company of three disagreeing together....

gift—are now in blossom some of the odder examples of the new crosses between the carnation and the sweet william. Unskilled gardeners ask what flowers they are, and are struck,...

Report by Mervyn Horder A prize of f5, which may be divided, is offered for the best con- tumelious epigram—English. Latin or Greek—in dispraise of either or both the two...

Set by Marghanita Laski You are asked to produce a " Woman's Hour" for the Third Programme. Submit a scheme of six items, taking as your model the " Woman's Hour" now appearing...

As the old roads, rubbed clean by wheel or hoof, Chafed by the blue and scarlet waggons, and ringing With bell or the echoing shout of coachman's horn, Sink now under the...

SIR,—May I be permitted brief comment on Mr. Hobson's article of June 9th, which I found distressing and disappointing. I. Distressing, because the human element is entirely...

SIR,—In your issue of June 16th you make the rather astonishing assump- tion that the " policy of violent expulsion [i.e., of Arabs seeking to return to Israel from neighbouring...

Mr. Dalton and Mecklenburgh Square SIR,—Mr. Dalton's decision to allow the destruction of the north side of Mecklenburgh Square to make way for the hostels to be provided by...

SUBSCRIPTION RATES All subscriptions pro rata for 26 weeks. Send instructions with remittance to the SPECTATOR, 99 Cower Street. Lowden, W.C.1. Subscribers in Canada and...

SIR.—In reviewing Dr. Daniel's Hundred Years of Archaeology tw weeks ago I referred to "Piggott's" Progress of Archaeology when I meant Casson's (published by Bell, 1914); I...

SIR,—It may interest your correspondent "S" to know that when I was in Russia last year a miner could leave the industry while the British miner was tied to the industry unless...

SOME remarkable military rocket practice having been lately exhibited at Shoebury-Ness with rockets made by Mr. Hale on a new plan, Prince Albert resolved to test the...

SIR. —You quote with approval the observation of the Petroleum Times that petrol derationing could not have been accomplished earlier, since the scheme put before the Minister...

SIR,—Three millions is a very low estimate of the number of Roman Catholics in England and Wales at the present time. In an encyclo- paedia dated 1945 the number of Roman...

SIR,—Does Janus quite do justice to Stephen Gwynn, one who, by the way, was working for the Spectator more than fifty years ago, in the days of " old Mr. Hutton," as he...

SIR,—As a Derbyshire County Councillor of some sixteen years' standing I was interested to read Mr. J. L. Longland's defence of the Derbyshire project, primarily devoted to...

only one of my works I've really enjoyed," Walpole wrote to Madame du Deffand, " t unique oft je me soil plu," though we wonder whether he may not have got a similar pleasure...

F. W. Bateson. (Longman. os. 6d.) NOT for nothing has Mr. Bateson edited The Cambridge Biblio- graphy of English Literature. Who else could tell us how many poets there were in...

Cricket Classic AMONG the illustrations of Sir Donald Bradman's new book there is one that seems to epitomise in remarkable degree the charac- teristics of his extraordinary...

MR. GERARD HOPKINS apologises for the title he has given to M. Maurois's study of Proust. In the French version it is, appro- priately, A la recherche de Marcel Proust. but "in...

BOOKS about books should always be suspect. If they are not merely rehashing the contents of other more living texts they are as likely as not chasing a red herring or grinding...

Happy Family. By Cornelia Otis Skinner. (Constable. iss.) Give Me Back My Heart. By Jack Jones. (Hamish Hamilton. i 2s. 6d.) ONE opens a theatrical autobiography, not in search...

i he English Mystics. By Gerald Bullett. (Michael Joseph. r 2s. 6d.) I His modest, thoughtful, amateurish work is not, and is in fact iunlikely, to be confused with Dr....

. *here No Wounds Were. By Gorenwy Rees. (Chatto and Win 9s. 6d.) A Source of Embarrassment. By Mary McCarthy. (Heineman,:. 7s. 6d.) The Plum Tree. By Mary Ellen Chase:...

By CUSTOS ONCE again gilt-edged stocks are setting the pace in markets. In gilt-edged it is outstandingly true that nothing succeeds like success, and there is no doubting that...

A Naturalist in the Gran Chaco. By Sir John Graham Kerr. (Cam- bridge University Press. 2 is.) The Complete Work of Paolo Uccello. By John Pope - Hennessy. (Phaidon. 3os.)...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first COTTCCII 70111604 of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, lyuly 4th. Envelopes...

CROSSWORD No. 585 SOLUTION ON JULY 7 The winner of Crossword No. 585 is JOHN BRUCE, Brackenhill, Helensburgb, Dumbartonshire.