24 FEBRUARY 1933

Page 1

An Arms Embargo?

The Spectator

The demands in the House of Commons on Tuesday for the declaration of an arms embargo against Japan were premature. No such action could be taken till after the League Assembly...

OSFICES : 99 (lower St., London, W .C. 1. :

The Spectator

MUSEUM 1721. Entered we second-class Mail illattcr at the New York, N.Y. Post Office Dec. 23rd, 1896. Postal aubacription 30e. per annum, to any part of the world. Postage on...

News of the Week

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T HERE is little reason to doubt that by the end of this week the Assembly of the League of Nations will have adopted without a dissentient vote, apart from that of Japan, the...

As for immediate developments, it is still uncertain what Japan's

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intentions either at Geneva or in Jehol are. ThoSe—they are only a minority—who have believed that Japan has been threatening more than she intended to perform must expect her...

Page 2

An Irrational Attack

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The attack on the Government in connexion with the Austrian ,,roan Bill was entirely misconceived, largely owing to combined 'ignorance and prejudice regarding the part played...

The New Autocrats An extraordinary position has been taken up

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by the Minister of Labour in refusing, through the'Parliamentary Secretary, to answer questions in the House as to the administration of the Commissioners appointed to...

Prohibition in America

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The first steps towards the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and the ending of Prohibition in the United States have now been taken by Congress, the House of Representatives...

The Commons and India The division on Sir Henry Page

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Croft's Indian resolu- tion in the House of Commons on Wednesday was extreinely satisfactory, only 42 members voting for and 297 against. It is significant however that the...

Renovated Houses

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Lord Salisbury's detailed and instructive letter in The Times on the subject of reconditioning slum property should concentrate attention on an aspect of the housing problem in...

Conflict in Germany ..

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It . is now , clear that if the present German Government secures its majority at the coming elections, as in all likelihood it will, its success will be due primarily to the...

Page 3

Mr. George Robey and Equity Nobody who knows anything about

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Mr. George Robey will suppose that his refusal to join the British Actors' Equity Association is due to lack of public spirit or sympathy with his fellow artists. The position...

British Industries Fair

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The continued growth, year by year, of the British Industries Fair till it now fills two vast buildings in London and another at Birmingham, is fairly conclusive proof that our...

Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : The event of the

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week in Parliament has been Mr. Chamberlain's speech upon unemployment in the Vote of Censure debate, which, whatever its not inconsiderable oratorical merits, was quite out of...

Trafficking in Honours

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The first prosecution under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act of 1925 has led to the conviction of Mr. Maundy Gregory for attempting to obtain" money from a retired naval...

Cheap Smokeless Fuel The recent decision of the Admiralty to

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contract for a supply of fuel oil distilled from British coal encouraged the hope that low-temperature carbonization was at long last to justify the hopes which it had aroused....

Mr. Churchill pounced upon the Chancellor with effect, though Mr.

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Churchill's interventions arc very much discounted by the knowledge that he considers this Government a Government to be destroyed. It was pleasant to find the Prime Minister in...

Pictures of Christ .A letter which we have received signed

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by the Bishop of Liverpool and many other distinguished churchmen and educationists calls attention to the harm that is done to the-impressionable minds of children by pictures...

Page 4

Shall Air War Be Ended ?

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WHILE the guns begin to echo in Manchuria the Disarmament Conference is entering on the decisive phase of its labours. Great Britain has proposed the total abolition of military...

Page 5

Missions Un

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der Scrutiny W HATEVER view be taken of the place of foreign missions in the life of the Christian Church to-day —and it would be astonishing if in an age of religious...

Page 6

A Spectator's Notebook

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T HERE being an open road through the air for wireless transmitters, advertisements can get free access to our homes (if we let them) through our receiving-sets, despite the...

So the Cambridge Union, like the Oxford; has gone Left,

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though not so spectacularly. Indeed, its declaration of its preference for, Socialism against Fascism, by 335 to 218 (a heavy vote), may be no more than the regis- tering of a....

* * * *

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thing of him when I was last in America, but an English friend, who knows American politics through and through, had never heard his name when I mentioned it to him a few weeks...

* * * *

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Michelangelo has been temporarily excluded from the United States (the Customs authorities, who were shocked at the nudity of the figures in photographs of the roof of the...

The space which has been given in the papers this

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week to Lady Oxford's enforced sale of " The Wharf " and its contents provokes one reflection that seems to e pertinent. At the end of the War substantial money grants were...

* * * *

The Spectator

Miss E. M. Delafield's play The Glass Wall, produced at the Embassy last Monday, has, through some simi- larities of theme, been compared with Children in Uniform. There are...

* * * * -Mr. Oliver Stanley's appointment as Minister

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of Trans- port in place of Mr. Pybus (the House of Lords, by the way, has just voted in favour of the abolition of the Ministry) will definitely strengthen the Government. Mr....

Page 7

Abolish The King's Proctor

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BY E. S. P. HAYNES. NV7 N the King's Proctor to-day incurs public isapproval from Mr. Justice McCardie and Sir Ernest Wild I am reminded that my own attempts to express the...

Page 8

Those United States

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BY F. YEATS-BROWN. T MUST confess that during my recent travels from 1 New York to Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and back by the Santa Fe railway to...

Page 9

New Light on the Atom

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BY J. D. COCKCROFT. T HE most recent advance in experimental physics, the discovery by Blackett and Occhialini in the Cavendish Laboratory of definite evidence for the exis-...

Page 10

In Defence of Betting

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By L. C. ALPE. [An article on The Ethical Case Against Gambling, by Raymond C. Rowse, will appear in next week's SPECTATOR.] A S a bookmaker, the advice I offer to my friends...

Page 11

Death in the Cotswolds

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BY GRAHAM GREENE. A MAZING the amount of useless experience which can be gathered in a lifetime. To have been born in the blaze and glare of Bombay two years before the Mutiny,...

Page 12

The Theatre

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" The Holmeses of Baker Street." By Basil Mitchell. At the Lyric Theatre IT will no longer be possible to contemplate with equanimity the union between the dashing young...

Correspondence

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A Letter from Septlaud [To the Editor of THE SPECrATOR.] Sm,—The Prime Minister is an expert at giving enigmatic answers to direct questions, and he was never more puzzling (at...

Page 13

Theatrical Loan Exhibition Toe attractive Theatrical Exhibition that is being

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held for the next five weeks in the gilded saloons of Dudley Ithuse, Park Lane, to augment the building fund of the Paddington Dispensary for Tuberculosis, has more than a touch...

"King John." By William Shakespeare. Produced by the O.U.D.S. at

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Oxford - witEN we see King John we are reminded of what is known in pyrotechnical circles as a Set Piece. There it stands, in the dusk before the display, a sprawling and...

Art

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The Three Louis " THREE French Reigns " is the title of the Exhibition which has just been opened at Sir Philip Sassoon's house in Park Lane, in aid of the Royal Northern...

Page 14

AN ENGINEER'S CREDO.

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The best engineer's Credo that I know of is contained in a little pamphlet—now rather ancient history—containing the report of a speech delivered last autumn before the British...

The success of this endeavour—of which once again Oxford perhaps

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gives the best example—may in the sequel add a very considerable sum to the wealth of the country, as did the allotments in the War. It will help much to the end of the re-...

THE BEST SINGER.

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It is an old controversy : which bird's song is the sweetest. So beautiful a denial of my claim for the blackbird reaches me, from a London observer, that I must quote it ; and...

Formed on behalf of birds, a little society called the

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B.B.B. is at the beginning of a successful career. It was started, under the encouragement of the Society for the Protection of Birds by the present secretary, Miss Richenda...

Country Life

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WOMEN FARMERS. From time to time it has been charged against Women's Institutes that they have not concentrated enough on the garden, that the home has not included the...

MORE WINTER IMMIGRANTS.

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The other day, calling attention to the quite abnormal number of blackbirds in field and garden, I ventured the suggestion that a much larger number were immigrants than is...

A PLANNED COUNTRY.

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Everyone who loves the England that was should do his best to urge his local council to put into force the Town and Country Planning Act that comes into force on April. 1st. It...

FARMERS' NEW MACHINES.

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I spent an hour or two this week in talking with an expert and enthusiastic believer in the Deus as machine. He sees- the reconstruction of farming, not least of grain-farm-...

Page 15

CAN MAN ABOLISH WAR?

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Si n ,—In his excellent article last week, Sir Norman Angell said that there existed a " strange misunderstanding of the reasons which prompt...

Letters to the Editor

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[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.—Ed. THE...

Page 16

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR.—At the close of

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your admirable article last week on the situation in the Far East, you make two points ; that economic factors may force a solution, and that there is a latent liber- alism in...

FOR BEAST AND BIRD

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[Ta the Editor of THE SrEavAroul] - Snt,—May I send you a word of grateful thanks for your most encouraging reference to the Slaughter of Animals Bill, in last week's Specialar...

JAPAN AND THE LEAGUE

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sin,—It seems to be necessary now to point out that the rights and the wrongs of the case in the dispute between Japan and China are becoming...

SENTENCE LN INDIA

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sut,—Will you allow me to draw the attention of your readers to a case of need in which they cannot fail to. be interested ? A young English...

Page 17

"LIVING ON THE DOLE"

The Spectator

{To the Editor of THE Seecravon.] Ssa,—As an unemployed clerk, aged 28, workless for the past fifteen months, and of no political party, I drafted these notes out in a public...

SCHOOLS AS A NUISANCE

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE Seecrafroa..] Sur,—In the large correspondence in various papers relating to the noise of children at school, much has been written in the name of...

WORLD PATRIOTISM

The Spectator

[To the Editor of TILE Seeerwroa.] have read the article by Sir Evelyn Wrench with great interest, but I think he makes a mistake in giving such a long list of the " few...

Page 18

OUR MAGISTRACY

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sra,—That there is no defence against ignorance is shown by the appended extract from Cuthbert W. Johnson's pamph- let, Observations on the...

AMES AS BATSMAN

The Spectator

[To the Editor of Trim Srm-re.roa.] Sm,—There is one point in your note on the Test Matches which challenges comment. You mention rightly the part played by Larwood's bowling...

Poetry

The Spectator

Dead Leaves (Suggested by the music of " Feuilles Mortes," by Debussy.) I Am the mood of Death I steal the twilight away And come with the darkness To gather the leaves to my...

THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN GALSWORTHY

The Spectator

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] • ' Sra,—I have been entrusted with the official biography of the late John Galsworthy, and should be grateful for the publicity of your...

DIRECT subscribers who are changing their addresses are asked to

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notify Tsar SPECTATOR office BEFORE MIDDAY on MONDAY of EACH WEEK. The previous address to which the paper has been sent and receipt reference number should be quoted.

A Hundred Years Ago

The Spectator

" Tim 8mm-remit," FEBRUARY 23an, 1833. The news from the United States is not of much importance this week. The Prmident'slast message to Congress had been received in...

Page 19

What is History ?

The Spectator

IIv BONAMY BOBiw v. CLIO is a muse, and most of us probably regard history as an art. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive it as being anything else. For you cannot, as a...

Page 20

Essays in Order

The Spectator

TIIAT remarkable little series " Essays in Order " continues its appointed task of bringing the wholesome influences of Christian philosophy into the turbid currents of modern...

Sex and the Child

The Spectator

Sex Education in Schools. By Theodore P. Tucker and Muriel Pout. (Gerald Howe. 3s. 8d.) ON the subject of sex education, parents and teachers have had no lack of advice. All...

Page 21

Authors and Publishers

The Spectator

FOR something over thirty years, in his capacity of Secretary to the Incorporated Society of Authors, Mr. G. Herbert Thring has devoted laborious days to maintaining the rights...

The Dean and the Freshman

The Spectator

Things New and Old. By Dean Inge. (Longman. 3s. 6d.) AT the hegira:ling of February the Dean of St. Paul's went to Cambridge, his old university, to conduct a mission to under-...

Wilson and House

The Spectator

The Strangest Friendship in History. By George Sylvester Viereck. (Duckworth. 18s.) WHATEVER virtue this * rather distasteful volume possesses is due to its subject rather than...

Page 22

The Social Sciences

The Spectator

Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. 15 vols. Edited by Edwin R. A. Seligman, LL.D., and Alvin S. Johnson, Ph.D. Vols. V, VI, VII. (Macmillan. 31s. Cid. each vol.) IN a work of...

Page 23

Wyndham Lewis : a Discursive Exposition. By Hugh Gordon Porteous.

The Spectator

(Desmond Iliumsworth. 8s. tid.) BETWEEN the earthquake of Lawrence dead and the still small voice of Mr. Eliot living, the wind of Mr. Wyndham Lewis has not had much chance...

Ma. TSCHIFFELY is an Argentine and was a schoolmaster. "

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I wanted variety," he says. So he rode from Buenos Aires to Washington, a distance of some ten thousand miles. It took him two and a half years. He used the same two horses all...

Page 24

Fictio n Dir L. A. G. &sorra, .

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PRAISE be for a book which is really funny, and for satire so good-natured that it does not want to alter what it ridicules. England, Their England is the story of a young man...

Page 26

COLOURED GLASS. By Inn'es Hart. (Rich and Cowan. 7s. 6d.)

The Spectator

The Vicar's wife again : this time young and stupid, and in love with somebody else, so that tragedy follows hard upon her marriage with the elderly James. This portrait of...

GREEN STOCKINGS. By Mrs. Fred Reynolds. (Bodley Head. 7s. 6d.)

The Spectator

A very charming crinoline story, about a young wife who nearly forgets herself. Decorous and subdued as are Mrs. Reynolds' characters, they move vividly through the garden...

THE LILY FIELD. By Constance Rutherford. (Hodder - . and Stoughton. 7s.

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Gd.)—A competent story of Henry V's campaigns in France. Its chief characters are a soldier and a little Parisian girl, and the crowded life of the time, as they see it, is...

THE DNENCHANTED CIRCLE. Rupert Latimer. (Nicholson and Watson. 'Ts. 6d.)—Mr.

The Spectator

Latimer wants us to know that stodgy, unimaginative people who live in Knightsbridge are not really stodgy and unimaginative at all. Those who would- like this point settled...

THE GOLD RIM. By Irene Rathbone. (Dent. 7s. 6d.) The

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author of We That Were Young tells of a really credible spinster who engineers coincidences for an equally credible, if more ordinary, young couple who do not know their own...

IMMORTAL Mummy. By Christine Orr. (Hodder and Stoughton. 7s. 6d.)

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A nasty young Edinburgh free-lance discovers the Father (deceased) of Scottish Drama, writes him up for all he is worth, and finds he had made a bad mistake. Miss Orr's satire...

SAY Au R'vom BUT NOT GOODBYE. By M. P. Shiel.

The Spectator

(Benn. 9d.) By an elliptical, close packed manner of writing, the author of this Ninepenny has managed to say as much in forty thousand words as most people say in ninety...

DINNER AT NIGHT. By R. J. White. (Hodder and Stoughton.

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7s. 6d.)—The material advance of Arthur Gale, from high-tea circles to those which have dinner at night, symbolizes both his own development and the rise of villa-dom. Arthur...

HENRY AND EMMA. By John Newlands. (Jenkins. 7s. 6d.)—A simple-minded

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tale of a simple-minded Cockney couple, who lived in a-cul-de-sac, won some money in a sweep, and longed for honest poverty again. The wit is a matter of misplaced H's ; but...

PEBBLES IN THE Posen. By Joseph Cabot. (Ham'sh Hamilton. 7s.

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6d.)—An original and highly diverting novel about an assortment of people, less unconnected than they seem to be, ranging from a spoilt young woman to a small boy at a "prep."...

Further Fiction

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NOBODY STARVES. By Catherine Brody. (Collins. 7s. 6d.) The slump of 1929, as it affected factory workers in Detroit. Miss Brody's story of Molly and Bill is both an individual...

Twos AND THREES. By Barbara Wootton. (Howe. 7s. 6d.)—Miss WoottOn's

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twos and threes are, so to speak, pairs and triangles, in the accepted fiction sense of the words. Her stories, ordinary enough for several pages, have here and there a sudden...

KNIGHTS OF THE Moose. By J. M. Denwood. (Hutchinson. 7s.

The Spectator

6d.)—A tale of the Scottish border ; midnight raids, abductions, cattle-stealing, and a dramatic reconciliation between Dacre and Buceleuch.- High romance, with plenty of...

Page 28

Current Literature

The Spectator

THE WAITING CITY : PARIS 1782-88 By L. S. Mercier Miss Helen Simpson has taken an immense amount of trouble in translating and annotating select passag es from Louis Sebastien...

THE RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONALISM By Norman Bentwich The Hebrew

The Spectator

University of Jerusalem has a chair in the International Law of Peace, held by Mr. Norman Bentwich, late Attorney-General of Palestine. His first course of lectures, entitled...

ENGLISH TRADE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY By Eileen Power and

The Spectator

M. M. Pesten The interest and importance of economic history, based not on mere theories but on a thorough investigation of the abundant materials at the Record Office and...

THE SOCIETY. OF DILETTANTI

The Spectator

By Sir C. liareourt-Sni - ith' and Dr. G. A, Macmillan Two hundred years ago a number of gentlemen interested in art and antiquity formed a dining club in London. SOme of the...

Travel

The Spectator

Spring Cruises in 1933 Camino has recently become so popular that there is no need to state here its obvious and manifold attractions. The ship- ping companies are offering to...

CHARLEMAGNE By G. Pr Baker

The Spectator

It is not easy to decide what kind of reader Professor Baker ' had in mind when he was writing this life of Charles the Great ' (Grayson, 18s.). The manner suggests that he is...

Page 31

Finance—Public & Private

The Spectator

The Recent Gold Purchases I no not know of anything which better illustrates the abnormal conditions of the present time and the artificial influences operating than the recent...

Page 32

It is impossible that the London Stores should not feel

The Spectator

the effects of the general trade depression, and the fall in prices which has now extended fairly generally to retail businesses. Having regard to those. conditions I consider,...

PROVIDENT Mtrrum. LIFE.

The Spectator

The latest report of the Provident Mutual Life Assurance Association is a good one. It shows an increase of £207,000 in the new sums assured, the total being £1,715,948,...

TOBACCO PROFTFS.

The Spectator

Even the prosperous Tobacco companies are feeling the effects of world depression, and the report recently issued of the Imperial Tobacco C ompany shows that the net profit for...

Financial Notes

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ABBEY Roan. The progress made by the Abbey Road Building Society would seem to be of the non-stop order, for in spite of the discouragement recently given by the Society to the...

Bank Rate 2 per cent., changed from 24 per cent

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on June 80th, 1932.

Page 34

" A. J. Alan " is one of the few

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people who have really attempted to exploit the possibilities of the microphone as an eminently suitable- medium for story-telling. He is radio's troubadour. 'Re has wisely...

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The Spectator

13 - B1111211G1 11 011313E1113011313 113 / eo e© a ansilla '471' ildllaoarin CI EINICIONCI #13%,13 r4 El 13 IN =generic EVIINIIININ 111 - '13/ CI CI MI MI...

The Radio Review

The Spectator

" WORKERS OF EUROPE," the new series of Friday night talks, began well with a discussion between a German and an English agricultural worker. There was a refreshing absence of...

In the early days of broadcasting few items in the

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pro- grammes were as heartily abused as chamber-music. Letters poured into the offices of the B.B.C. insisting on the immediate removal of this high-brow and perverted form of...

"The Spectator" Crossword No. ai

The Spectator

BY XANTHIPPE. tA prize of one guinea will be given to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's cross-word puzzle to lie opened. Envelopes should be marked "...

It is no doubt good policy to change, from time

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to time the broadcasters in such regular series as the Theatre, Cinema and Books talks. The position these speakers hold is one of considerable influence, and a variation in the...

Regional, 9.5). • Monday : Chamber Conceit (Daventry National, 8.0)

The Spectator

; " Tannhauser and the Jockey Club " (London Regional, 9.15, and Tuesday, Daventry. National, 9.20). Tuesday : Orchestral Concert (London Regional, 9.0). Wednesday :...