HE present Government completes its first year of office this week. On the whole it can claim to have justified itself. It inherited difficulties some of which were inevitable,...

A rigid censorship makes it difficult to assess the gravity of the reverses suffered by French Union forces in the Thai territory to the northwest of Hanoi. The post of...

Optimistic suggestions that a solution of the Sudanese problem may be just round the corner have been coming out of Cairo. It would be comforting to believe them, but at the...

The Christian Democrats of Italy and their allies are seeking (in their own interests, it is true, but also for the _sake of ensuring stability of government) to avert the...

The United Nations Assembly, while waiting for Mr. Eden and M. Schuman, who are waiting for the United States elections, has made a lethargic beginning. Nothing impressive has...

The best feature of the proposal for a European Defence Community has always seemed to be that Such an organi- sation could effect a fusion of two fundamental aims in the...

There is one grain of sense in the campaign which Mr. Emanuel Shinwell is-conducting for the reduction of the period ' of conscription. Mr. Shinwell is right in saying that,...

Exhaustive as the enquiry into the Wealdstone railWay disaster has so far been, nothing has happened to allay the grave disquiet which the travelling public must still feel.-...

When the International Court of Justice decided last Decem- ber that Norway was entitled to fix a four-mile limit, instead of the generally-accepted three-mile limit, for...

T HIS has been a restless_ week in Parliament. Members of both House§, fretted perhaps by the continuation in force of the £25 travel allowance, seem to have been under special...

i s no longer any question about the weight and determination behind the offiNal measures to deal with the Mau Mau threat in Kenya. The declaration of a state of emergency, the...

considerable mystery about his wife, and a good deal of doubt as to whether he was in fact married. Mrs. Morley never appeared in public." A Liberal official who had to arrange...

regains the two or three attendants it was required to dismiss in the interests of economy—surely a shabby kind of economy —but the English traveller abroad is still restricted...

at the age of 102 will be noted with interest as well as regret by those who remember the article he contributed to the Spectator two years ago in the week of his hundredth...

the London Stock Exchange, but he has not—assuming the remarks attributed to him in a New York message to be authentic—realised how unwise it is for an Englishman to intrude...

C OMMENThas been made on the strength of theBevanites in workers with the hand—the hand that taps , the type- writer or drives the pen. Quite apart from Mr. Bevan's wife and her...

advertisements in Trafalgar Square. It will be objected that there are not two M.P.s for Westminster. Strictly speaking there are not. But Sir Harold Webbe, who wants to keep...

By MARY B. BRUCE S a Scot, I was brought up in the belief that I went to church in order to listen to a text and a sermon. After„, the service was over, no one ever asked what...

Abbey, Dr. S. M. Berry, Secretary of the International Con- gregational Council, and the Editor of the Spectator, have now considered the papers submitted on the two subjects of...

is for Governor Adlai Stevenson, on the ground that Eisen- hower's , policies now, and certain discriminatory practices permitted under his command in war-time Europe, do not...

Auguste Lecoeur, one of the secretaries of the Communist Party, paid M. Pinay a most unusual compliment. In the course of a review of the political situation before the Central...

By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. I STOOD by the finishing-post and looked along the course, that wide, straight strip of turf which eases itself into a hollow, then climbs until it...

Tenpence Return By MARGARET E. Sill/EN (University of Edinburgh) 1 CAUGHT it—just. The last one flew past heedless - and full: the one before sated itself with the first two...

TEN years have passed since frantically they dug Their careful holes , in sand and history; They wrote their 'airmail letters which proclaimed How much they missed their wives...

By HAROLD NICOLSON p LUTARCH was wont to interrupt his .tales of .glory and disgrace by inserting moral reflections upon the manners and customs of his - time. It would be a...

Concert de Musique Francaise. (Wigmore Hall.) WE can allow ourselves some self-congratulation: Toscanini and Cantelli have come and gone, lauded sky-high as they should be - but...

THEATRE The Apples of Eve. By Allen Berthal. (Comedy.) " Doctor, have you got a hypodermic ? " ." Yes, of courser " OF course the doctor has a hypodermic. This, truly, is a...

IT was the accident of time and place and comradeship (with Matisse) that brought Marquet into association with the Fauves. Though for a time a certain free vitality and rhythm...

The Gentle Gunman. (Odeon, Marble Arch.)—Julie de Carneilhan. (Studio One.)—The Young Caruso. (Rialto.) EALING has now turned its brisk eye towards Ireland and the acti- vities...

He used to stand there daily, Hunched like a heron on the touchline, Peering abstractedly into some private River of thought. Then one day, Addressing no one in particular, He...

Meeting R. on • the moonlit road, I stopped to talk. He had a mongrel pup at his •heel, a lively little animal that he was already bringing into the way of rabbiting. It was too...

My brother and I were tramping home on the second half .of an eighteen-mile walk, and hurrying before the rain, when a buzzard rose in the rough ground Jo our right. He rose so...

" Salmons, man. The river wass full of them," he said: " The poachers got more than them that owned the water. They knew every pool, every hole and every salmon that wass comin'...

IT was one of those autumn evenings when the light made the scene look unreal. It was an orange light, touching the underside of a great black bank of cloud and the tops of...

even-yet. Both the Caen and St. Brigid need a well-drained, sunny situation, and, unless the soil is light, they should be lifted each season. They are, I think, one of the...

Suit,—Will you permit me to call attention to one aspect of the situation on the railways extremely disturbing to the mind of the ordinary layman, namely the admitted fact that...

SIR,—No ex-prisoner (except myself), and certainly not " Ex-Prisoner," seems capable of rational appreciation of prison officers save as composite Egyptian taskmasters,...

Tito and Mihailovk SIR,—I would like to comment on a point which may be of some interest to historians in Miss Wiskemann's review of Mr. Zilliacus's Tito of Yugoslavia in your...

I saw ? In the section marked Biography twelve books on Bernard Shaw. 0 happy Uncle Bernard ! 0 enviable fate ! Was ever any dramatist so truly up to date ? No wonder that...

Sot,-1 share the surprise of Janus and Mr. John Satterly that it should be necessary to close Westminster Abbey for six months to make it ready for the Coronation; but I hope...

Snt—Derek Hudson, in a review of Shaw's Corner, states that Bernard Shaw " listed a number of serious errors" in my previous volume. Perhaps your reviewer may care to let me...

Sut—My attention has just been drawn to Mr. Michael Graham's article, Extinction of the Eskimo ? • (October 3rd). Cultural fatigue is becoming an increasing sociological problem...

Snt—Janus asks in your current issue why Shaw's reputation should go into eclipse. Is it not because he expressed so well and an long the spirit of an age which came filially to...

Sot, — In his article on the controversy within the Labour Party, Mr. Gaitskell omitted to mention another sphere of propaganda in which -the Bevanites excel. He is certainly...

in spite of the author's frank admission that it is a series of memories and not reports. One cannot help wondering whether Johnson's comments on Boswell would not have been...

Snt,—I was pleased to see Mr. Berger's protest against your learned critic's employment of the term " middle of the roaders," There seems to be an idea prevalent in London (and...

SIR, —Mr. Martin Cooper is indeed unfortunate in his choice of operas for the titillation of dramatic critics. Any -playgoer knows that as a play Traviata is an extremely...

SIR, —This pleasant little village has groaned long enough under the oppressive weight of the monstrous and fictitious name . Llanfairpw11-...

Snt,—For some time past, we have been gathering material for an anthology of work by younger British poets, which we hope to bring out next year. Since the emphasis of the...

SIR, -1 fear that, in voicing What is a fairly widespread astonishment at the very great esteem now enjoyed by 'Nielsen's music in some circles in this country, I have...

Sm,—I feel it a public duty to ask for your publicity for a denial of freedom imposed not by any Governmental body but at the instance of commercial notions of what is popular...

was most interested to read Sir William Hamilton Fyfe's article " Religious Jargon," in a recent Spectator. With another parish priest I have recently transliterated the 1928...

Set by D. R. Peddy " After twelve years of smoking I smokedfifty cigarettes a day. Now, six months later, thanks to X, I actually find them offensive." A prize of £5 (which may...

Report by Frank Evelyn Competitors were invited to submit excerpts from the autumn lists of imaginary publishers, and the usual prizes were offered for the most hateful...

BUT if war is to fall upon the world, what does it involve ? What are the main things at stake, if Europe should be involved in a general contest ? . . . The first thing that...

Success Story of a Novelist , A. E. W. Mason.- By Roger Lancelyn Green. (Parrish. 21s.) Wnii an engaging personal modesty and in a spirit of affectionate admiration, Mr. Roger...

review ' ord Macmillan's " A Man of Law's Tale " ; R. J. Cruikshank Spectator Harvest ; and Sir Ronald Storrs " The Travels of lbn Jubayr," translated and edited by R. J. C....

Generals and Admirals. By John Cresswell. (Longmans. 18s.) AN island Power can only exert its military strength against an enemy by first gaining command of the sea and then...

- Tun reign of William IV has never attracted from posterity even one-tenth of the curiosity aroused by the lives and reigns of his predecessor, George IV, or his successor,...

A Pattern of Islands. By Arthur Grimble. (John Murray. 18s.) As instructive as it is entertaining, this loosely-knitted book of recollections of the author's early career as a...

Downs and Dunes. By Sir Edward Salisbury. (Bell. 45s.) Tins book is an expanded and much enlarged version of two courses of lectures delivered -by Sir Edward to the Royal...

The Aeneid of Virgil. Translated by C. Day Lewis. (Hogarth Press. 21s.) THE popularity of the Penguin prose translations, especially Mr. Rieu's Odyssey, has shown that, with...

THE sub-title of this book is the story of archaeology." The story which archaeology has taught us in the last hundred to hundred and fifty years is twofold. First it has told...

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged to place a firm order with their news- agent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as...

Venables. By Geoffrey Wagner. (Murray. 12s. 6d.) - Where Nests the Water Hen. By Gabrielle Roy. (Heinemann. 12s. 6d.) BUT why have so many reviewers called Venables a Gothic...

A Reading of George Herbert. By Rosemond Tuve. (Faber. 25s.) GEORGE HERBERT, has always been considered an easy poet.- Alone of the metaphysicals he was enjoyed and reprinted...

By CUSTOS THERE is something very like a stalemate in the stock markets. Against the background of gradual recovery—at least in what may be termed our basic economic conditions—...

guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct ,elution opened after noon on Tuesday week November 4th, addressed Crossword. bearing NUMBER of the puzzle to 99 Cower...

winner of Crossword No. 699 is: Mrs. F. J. BURNLEY, Hutton-Le- Hole, York.