HEN Sir Brian Robertson said at Frankfurt on Monday that "a rather historic day had ended " he was speaking of the relaxation of tension on one sector only of the German front....

If they never bring in a single new recruit, the proposals of the Oaksey Committee for an increase in policemen's pay are already justified. Policemen are not being paid enough...

Israel, says her Prime Minister, has the triple task of preserving her security, absorbing all the immigrants who wish to enter, and maintaining a "decent standard of living."...

It seems increasingly probable that the United Nations will in the course of its present General Assembly rescind the resolution it took two years ago on Spain, and increasingly...

The agreement reached on Wednesday, after less than a week's discussion, on India's place in the Commonwealth is one more demonstration of the British genius for wise adaptation...

Everybody knows that greater output per head at lower cost is what is needed in British industry generally and in the Lancashire cotton industry in particular. How many people...

T HE Easter weather and the more hopeful prospects in Berlin sent a tanned and invigorated House back to Westminster last Tuesday. Whatever depression the Budget had caused —and...

There was something symbolic about the accident of the ballot which enabled Mr. Bowen, the Liberal Member for Cardigan, to raise in the House of Commons his demand (supported by...

M R. ATTLEE'S review, given to the House of Commons on Tuesday, of the recent rragic events on the Lower Yangtse was on the whole well received ; and his critics, pursuing with...

I don't think I have told before. On November 11th, 1918, Mr. Andrewes Uthwatt, as the future Law Lord then was, and Mr. A. G. Gardiner, Editor of the Daily News, walked out of...

rest ; to others restaurants ; to others railway-trains ; to others three Latin- American republics. But the letters have lately attained a new and very meritorious connotation....

and not unimportant question is asked by a writer in Le Monde. He empha- sises the completeness of the literary isolation which the Kremlin succeeds in establishing by banning...

dealing with prolixity in the House of Commons. Since Tuesday, because in the debate on War Pensions on that day, Mr. Roderick Bowen spoke for 76 minutes ; Mr. C. J. Simmons for...

lately, as a result of his obdurate opposition to the Atlantic Pact, but fortune has rarely treated him so ill as it did this week. His article in Tuesday's Daily Mail was...

I T would be charitable to suggest that Mr. A. R. Johnstone, of the British Ally, the paper published by the British Embassy in Moscow and sold to the extent of 50,000 copies...

By OWEN TWEEDY O N December 9th, 1917, Lord Allenby received the surrender of Jerusalem, and two days later, in his proclamation, read from the steps of the Citadel just within...

By ELIZABETH WISKEMANN I F the Italian Press interprets its Government correctly, Premier de Gasperi and his colleagues arranged first to induce the Chambers to agree to...

By DUDLEY NOBLE I T is refreshing to find Britain once more in the record-breaking class. The performance that the Austin car and its crew recently put up in America is all the...

BRITISH GUIANA DEVELOPS By ST. GEORGE COOPER* T, Demerara. HE name " The Magnificent Province " has often been given to British Guiana, and today, as it stands on the...

By R. D. BARNETT T HE discovery of ancient writings and lost languages is perhaps the greatest excitement of the scholar's life and this is a field which is still far from...

By E. H. W. ATKINSON I T was about half past mid-day when a young man in a bright blue shirt, a dark blue beret and bright brown corduroy trousers asked me if I would have the...

IN THE BUSH COUNTRY By DAVID DONNISON (Magdalen College, Oxford) As we drove down to the auction the road ran out ahead of us, straight and hard, to the corner where it turns...

since pre-war days, it is still necessary to place a firm order with a Look.tall manage' or newsagent to ensure regular weekly delivery of THE SPECTATOR. Newsagents cannot...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I WAS reading last week the late Professor Marc Bloch's tragic study of the military disasters of 194o, which has just been published in an English...

THE THEATRE Danny Kaye. (London Palladium). OF what is it compounded, the allegiance that we give to Mr. Danny Kaye ? We cannot, I think, be said to " owe " it, or if we can...

" Passport to Pimlico." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.) " John Loves Mary." (Warner.)—" For Them That Trespass." —(Plaza.) IT is very enlivening to the spirit and all too...

ERIC.H Kleiber, who has been conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a series of concerts, is a conductor's conductor. He is much more than that, of course ; but the...

THE majority of recent records are orchestral. First, in order of size, come two Strauss tone-poems—Tod and Verkliirung played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Clemens...

IN the late war the Bavarian State Gallery in Munich, the Italianate palace built by Ludvig I to contain the collections of the Royal House of Bavaria and usually known as the...

Calpin's interesting and balanced article South Africa Janus. It was indeed a pity that the English Press, on the whole, rushed into condemnation of Dr. Malan's policy before...

African Swamps, mentions the fact of the cyclical flooding of swamps. It may be of interest to Professor Debenham and your readers to know that there are reasons to think-that...

from the youngest of the universities, may I express my astonishment at the disillusionment so vividly described by Penelope Houston in her article Dead End ? Surely the...

U.N.O. AND EUROPE was curious to read in your leading article of April 22nd that ' the United Nations can hardly be numbered (among) the multiplicity Of bodies engaged in the...

farmers in this country last year exceeded by 22 per cent. their incomes of the previous year. This disclosure occasions more surprise to farmers than to anyone else. When& was...

think, chiefly of peat— is a godsend to the rather lazier gardener who does not possess a " green thumb." It enables you, of course, to put out your seedlings without any...

SIR,--Mr. Martin Cooper suggests that the audience of Bach's Passion music might participate next year in the chorales. Admittedly a large proportion of the audience is familiar...

SIR,—It is tragic that little or nothing is taught about the British Empire in the schools of Britain. I had this fact confirmed recently when acting as question-master in a...

THE art of local history lost its most able exponent when Mr. Reginald Hine died at Hitchin on the eve of Easter. He was on the way to finish a full-dress history of...

SIR,—The Massachusetts Institute of Technology are preparing for publication a complete edition of the letters of Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, at the...

SIR,—In an article by Alan Ivimey, in the Spectator of April 1st, entitled . Sweden and the Pact, appeared these words: " She already co-operates With the Marshall Plan, though,...

StR,—Mr. Trevelyan's suggestion that the Liberal Party should make an election agreement with Tories or Socialists means, as he must surely appreciate, the Liberal Party's...

avoided the pollution that had destroyed the waters in neighbouring valleys, two observers on different reaches watched a startling phenomenon, and one of them noted a most...

the botanists say'that there is especial danger of the complete loss of certain plants characteristic of the marsh. We have been so thoroughly polishing up the English...

A simple little device for multiplying some plants has succeeded beyond expectation in one small paddock. The owner in idle moments bent down and lightly buried the heads of...

Costa - Brava I AM sure Miss Rose Macaulay would be the last person in the world to wish to turn her favourite haunts in Spain into tourist-ridden resorts ; in fact she says so...

Wandering Scholar. By M. J. Bonn. (Cohen and West. 18s.) " Tuts book," writes Professor Bonn in his prelude, "is not a history of my time, nor a full tale of my life. It is a...

Kafka : His Mind and Art. By Charles Neider. (Routledge & Kegan Paul. 12s. 6d.) LITERARY criticism should be written from a definite point, of view, but without partisanship—a...

IT will be generally agreed that few men have a better right to be heard on the subject of university education than the Chairman of the University Grants Committee, so that the...

rA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, May 10th. Envelopes...

The winner of Crossword No. 525 is J. H. JACKSON, ESQ., Ashley, Market Drayton, Shropshire.

Fairy Tales of Land and Sea. By Simonne Rate!, with illustrations by Philippe Jullian. (The Bodley Head. 6s.) UNDER the title Contes de la Terre et de la Mer the nine romantic...

Jamaican Journey. By W. J. Brown, M.P. (Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d.) EITHER you can't stand Lord Beaverbrook or you become a devotee, says Mr. W. J. Brown, M.P., in Jamaican...

HERALDRY has suffered from a proliferation of popular text-books, repeating one another's errors, seldom referring to first-hand sources and differing chiefly in the whimsical...

18s.) THE first Earl of Charlemont was descended from a typical adventurer who invaded Ireland in - 1599 with the Earl of Essex. In the course of time these land-grabbing...

10s. 6d.) One Page Missing. By Hans Yaray. (Gollancz. 9s.) A REVIEWER is both less and more than a critic. Less; because he has to judge books hastily, and in contexts which...

Toulouse-Lautrec : Au - Moulin Rouge. By Daniel Catton Rich. Gallery Books No. 20. - (Lund Humphries. 4s. 6d.) THE general approach of this admirable series is now well-known,...

ATTRACTIVE by reason of the admirable series of photographs by Mr. W. E. Lake, this slim volume must be considered in one sense spurious. Miss Nellie Kirkham, who contributes...

" mainly about the stony and wooden details of a farm- stead in the south of England," is not at first sight particularly readable ; but gradually, as Mr. Grigson fills in...

(The Bodley Head. 15s.) THIS comprehensive and practical American selection from the works of representative Russian writers contains material from the eleventh century to the...

By CUSI'OS IT would be equally true to describe the stock markets just now as commendably steady or in a rut. They are certainly impervious to any news, either good or bad,...

the individual selection of plates. Of the standard of reproduction one can be sure that it will be adequate. And one never expects too much from the text, for the allotted...

Tourist Association.) THESE extracts from Kierkegaard's diary kept during his journey to his father's old home in ..the summer of 1840 are for those who already love their...