ir HE problem which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to face in preparing his Budget was that of financing the war at the rate of £2,000,000,000 a year (higher by £5 00 ,...

Staff for the three services and the transference of Sir Charles Craven from the Admiralty to the Air Ministry to speed up produc- tion are moves that will substantially enhance...

When Scandinavian countries were invaded by Germany concern was immediately felt in the United States about Greenland, through which there was some danger that the war would be...

When Russia invaded Finland there could be no question of pursuing the Anglo-Russian negotiations then in train regarding a trade agreement between the two countries Any...

In his St. George's Day speech Mr. Duff Cooper went further than is altogether wise in declaring that "this series of crimes which had made a horror of Europe were not the...

Mr. Lloyd George's jubilee, after fifty years' representa- tion of Camarvon Boroughs in Parliament, would not have been complete without the warm tribute that was paid to him...

The - debate on India in the House of Commons last week has had repercussions of some interest in India. For the Opposition, Mr. Wedgwood Benn, Secretary for India in the last...

procedure of the House of Commons. On the whole, the Standing Orders are devised for the protection of the private Member, and any sweeping change would probably be for the...

is confident about the future. There are misgivings in several quarters, especially among the Liberal Opposition and the left wing of the Conservative Party. The critics share...

Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : At the moment the sun is shining on Sir John Simon. He is on better terms with the House of Commons than at any time since 1931. It is...

A grave injustice is being done to dwellers in evacuation areas, particularly London, by the Government's failure to announce measures of relief which ought to be provided to...

Henceforward, in accordance with an arrange- ment concluded by the Press generally in view of the paper shortage, no copies of The Spectator will be supplied to retail...

A s its eighth month approaches completion the war has woken up. It is being fought today in Norway in three elements. In one of them the Allies' superiority is incontestable ;...

very sound basis, was that the German Empire is a fraud and a bluff."—Lord Londonderry, April 23rd, 1940. "In an incredibly short space of time Herr Hitler restored the sense...

T HE statement a few days ago by M. Pierlot, the Prime Minister of Belgium, that Belgium's defensive preparations are costing her £70,000,000 a year, and that the total of her...

an admirable little book on the Scandinavian countries pub- lished last year. "Norway," I read, "is geographically even further removed than Sweden from the turmoil of European...

one of the last—of the old type of Labour leader, prudent, con- ciliatory, but quite ready when necessary to show courage :n a fight for his union or his cause. He came to the...

as Orpington. It was announced on Monday that a hospital-train had arrived at that Kentish township with zoo British wounded, presumably from Norway. An hour later a correction...

that the island should seek to become part of the British Empire has actually been made in the Althing—the Iceland Parlia- ment, which claims to be the oldest body of its kind...

as applied to an article in The Spectator has just reached me. In a leading article in this journal on April nth it was remarked that the German attack on Norway could have had...

By STRATEGICUS W ITH the junction between the Allied troops and the Norwegians the campaign enters upon its third phase. In the first, the Germans by securing a foothold in the...

By ERWIN B EFORE very long America's economic position as a neutral is bound to come under severe pressure. It is now distinctly recognised in official and some business...

By F. E. HARRISON W AR has a profound effect on religion. It not only calls it in question, and divides, as every crisis does, alienating some and attracting others, but like a...

By THE REV. PHILIP PRIME, S.J. T HE heavens portend another storm in the educational 1 world, as soon as the war is over. The Act of 1936 is one of the few important...

By EVELYN SIMPSON W HENEVER I see references to the state of "public opinion" in England, and when I read the results of the investigations of the Mass Observers, I wonder how...

By J. H. SHACICLETON BAILEY F EW people can have to write more open testimonials during the course of a year than heads of colleges and schools. Nearly every member of their...

to notify THE SPECTATOR office BEFORE MIDDAY an MONDAY OF EACH WEEK. The name, the previous address to which the paper has been sent and receipt reference number should be quoted.

"With British troops in Norway to help that country resist the Nazi invaders, and with Finland's heroic example fresh in their minds, Europe's remaining neutrals are taking...

the rapid acceleration in American production of fighting 'planes forced Hitler to abandon his plans for a long war of attrition, which he believed he could eventually win, and...

By A. M. CHIRG WIN T HE immediate impression that the visitor to Japan receives today, as in the past, is of courtesy and kindli- ness. And as long as he continues within the...

orders distributed by traitors to paraly-,e the defence services and its soldiers disguised as commercial travellers disembarking at ports to begin fighting, all indicate a new...

and if they do not get in a more difficult position than they are in at the present moment, then their attitude towards the Duce will get more powerful and the end might well be...

By HAROLD NICOLSON A LTHOUGH I enjoy detective novels, I am bored by spy-stories. I find it hard to account for this difference in appreciation. It may be that the spies whom I...

in the first place the fact that the Germans have since 1933 and before devoted a large proportion of their immense organising-power and their limited income to the perfection-...

Germans are imme- diately informed even of the smallest incident in Allied countries. There is the story (told alternatively about Pre- sident Lebrun and King George VI) of how...

readily we shall slide into that state of suspiciousness and gullibility which is the exact mood which the Germans wish to create. The mere fact that Herr Hitler confessed to...

efficient. The methods then adopted, and some even of the officials who applied these methods, still remain. They are trained experts in protecting us against the activities of...

alone with the family of a well-known Jewish financier and that on the following day the German wireless from Stuttgart announced this event with glee. He told me also that the...

light of the revelations which may come to us from Yugoslavia, extreme vigilance must and will be exercised. I hope, how- ever, that no popular outcry, no Press campaign, no...

Cream or Butter Wise people in the town ordain in their wisdom that countr, products, such as butter, shall not be sold above a certail. price. They do not perhaps know all the...

is at last within sight. It consists in the conversion of material now dropped into the sea, or burned or piled in unlovely dumps in else lovely country places, into an...

has been brought out in the campaign for the reduction of the tale of rats and mice by the multiplication of cats. If a cat takes to ratting and mousing it rarely attacks birds....

4. Gone With the Wind." At the Empire, the Ritz, and the Palace.—" For Freedom." At the Gaumont. WAY back in the early days of this century a certain business man remarked that...

would be if it could capitalise its primroses—which heaven forbid. It seems to me that they have never been so full of flower and so big in flower. The flower is, as a rule,...

halt- century and more, I confess to being astonished that you printed in your issue of April 19th a letter occupying a column and a half signed J. Radinsky, dating from...

[In view of the paper shortage it is essential that letters on these pages should be brief. We are anxious not to reduce the number of letters, but unless they are shorter they...

gear by his obvious dislike of our country or whether they just don't function at all is perhaps idle speculation. But his amazing statement that America is not interested in...

ideas. He informs the readers of The Spectator that the reason why the United States will not help us in the war is because their idea of democracy is different to ours. Let us...

Mr. Wickham's letter in your issue of last week the following sentence occurs : "In State schools no religion is taught." Before making statements so categorical and so...

makes some very acute comments on the departure of Auden, Isherwood, Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley to the U.S.A. In the course of these remarks he says : "Mr. Stephen Spender...

differs, yet your critic Mr. Derek Verschoyle and Mr. Somerset Maugham are largely in agreement. One wonders whether famous writers and critics are not inclined to put forward...

SIR,—Mr. Wilson Harris's rejection of Federal Union as an immediately practicable aim is based on three contentions: a. That there is in Europe-today no common consciousness...

SIR,—A definitive edition of the Collected Letters of William Makepeace Thackeray is being prepared by Mr. Gordon N. Ray for publication by the Harvard University Press. The...

Sot,—Sir Daniel Hall, in his article on the above subject, notes that price and rent of farming land in certain areas is showing a tendency to rise. This demonstrates the crux...

The Unemployment Services. By Polly Hill. (Roudedge. 78.6d.) • THE piecemeal growth of the unemployment services, the conflict of principles embodied in them and the large...

The Background of the Bible The Bible and Archaeology. By Sir Frederic Kenyon. (Harrap. 15s.) The Bible and Archaeology. By Sir Frederic Kenyon. (Harrap. 15s.) ARCHAEOLOGY is...

DR BORKENAU has made for himself quite a distinguished reputation with his books since he came to this country. A trained sociologist, he is an original and arresting thinker on...

THE new volume of the Official History covers the fighting in France and Belgium during the first five months of 1917. Considered in terms of historic consequences, the...

Alcohol and the Nation. A contribution to the study of the liquor problem in the United Kingdom from 1800 to 1935. By DURING the last war a Central Liquor Control Board was set...

rather than the savings bank probably owes something to the activities of John Law, the Scot who became Comptroller- General of France. Law, who had studied finance in England...

Agnes Strickland. By Dame Una Pope-Hennessy. (Chatto and Windus. 16s.) SIR WALTER Scow, with his tales that could be regarded as fiction founded upon fact, opened a pis aller...

Let the Band Play Dixie. By Ursula Branston. (Harrap. is.) IT was, I think, 0. Henry who wrote that the man who bounded to his feet in a New York restaurant when the band played...

A History of the Expansion of Christianity : Volume Three. By Kenneth Scott Latourette. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. ifts.) Willi this new volume Professor Latourette's monumental...

and Windus. 9s. 6d.) The %ray to Santiago. By Arthur Calder Marshall. (Cape. 7s. 6d.) Our Lady of the Earthquakes. By Peter Brooke. (Cresset Press. 75. 6d.) The Witch in the...

IT was recently recorded in our columns that the first question put to a certain candidate for a commission in the Guards was, "Do you hunt?" Prizes of book tokens for £2 25....

Shakespeare had lived in the twentieth century he might have written an historical play about the reign of King George the Sixth, and the usual prizes were offered for the best...

DUNLOP RUBBER COMPANY THE forty-first ordinary general meeting of the Dunlop Rubber Company, Limited, was held on Wednesday, April 24th, at the Edward VII Rooms, Northumterland...

HAVING called for a severe Budget the City will not com- plain now that it has got one. True, the castigation is not applied precisely over the area advocated, but most people...

ASSOCIATED AUTOMATIC MACHINE CORPORATION TAXATION POSITION THE eleventh ordinary general meeting of the Associated Auto- matic Machine Corporation, Limited, was held on April...

[A prize of a Book Token for one guinea will be given to the s ,■!der of the first correct solution of this week's crossword puzzle to he opened. Envelopes should be marked...

The winner of Crossword No. 59 is Dr. J. L. Falconer, Red Cot, 570 Chorley New Road, Bolton.