Nothing can in the long run avail the Finns against Russia's overwhelming resources unless help comes to them quickly and generously. They have the moral support of most of the...

S OME ten days ago it was feared that the courageous Finnish resistance was at length proving unavailing against the overwhelming superiority of the Russians in num- bers and in...

The " important announcement " foreshadowed for Wednesday of this week by a Japanese Foreign Office spokesman did not materialise. Instead a political crisis was threatened, and...

The Manchester Guardian has done a useful service in republishing an article in the Angriff by Dr. Ley, the head of the German Labour Front. With elaborate mendacity and...

The address by the Pope to the College of Cardinals on Christmas Eve, linked as it should be both with the exchange of visits between the Pope and King Victor Emmanuel and with...

The French Yellow Book on the origins of the war was published too close to Christmas to get in this and other countries the attention it deserves. It supplements, without in...

The Christmas address delivered at the Ministry of Propaganda by the German Minister whom it gratifies The Times to style nudely "Goebbels " (though it so far relaxes as to call...

The protest voiced by twenty-one American republics, headed by the United States, against the activities of belligerent warships in the so-called safety-zone of 30o miles round...

The letter in which on December loth Lord Halifax gave formal recognition to the Czecho-Slovak National Committee as " qualified to represent the Czecho-Slovak peoples, and, in...

Both Belgium and Holland adhere firmly to their neutrality and their determination to defend it ; but it appears to be their fixed intention to stand together, not...

The Rumanian-German trade convention which was signed at Bucharest last week appears to have given the Ger- mans a good deal less than they had hoped for, particularly in...

It is possible that we shall not know till the war is over all the devices which the Government is using to counter the danger of mines indiscriminately laid by the Germans in...

The two railway accidents in Germany last week brought the total number of serious accidents in that country since the war to seven, with no fewer than 396 persons killed and...

of news- papers and other journals supplied to newsagents on the usual sale-or-return basis has now to be seriously restricted. Readers of The Spectator are therefore urged to...

C HRISTMAS oratory has been voluminous and various. General von Brauchitsch has been assur- ing the German people that they must win because their cause is right. M. Daladier...

N EARLY four months have passed since this country became involved in war, but the conflict is still in the initial stage, and the positions which will have to be faced when it...

Kelly of Galway City has been enunciating regarding certain journals which he stigmatises as highbrow. They include Studies (The Universe), The Dublin Review, The Spectator, The...

has received a good deal of praise, and deservedly. Its argument is clearly and forcibly stated, and sustained on a high moral level. But if a second edition is called for,...

on Saturday night made me wonder whether after all the last word on propaganda has been said yet. " There is no Allied propaganda in the United States," said Mr. Swing, " there...

for evacuated school-children to be set homework by post. Surely a gratuitous aggravation of the horrors of war. But a striking testimony, all the same, to the thoroughness of...

French Parliaments, as a spectacular demonstration of the unity of the two countries. The suggestion is interesting, and in certain circumstances such a session might have...

we knew more about the French. Students of the Paris Press are accustomed to the blank spaces which indicate where the censor's blue pencil has been active, but the cases where...

By STRATEGICUS F we are to attempt a summing up of our position, four 1 . months after the beginning of the war, we must be as strictly impartial and as objective as an...

By C. W. GUILLEBAUD I T has been stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the war is already costing this country L6,000,000 a day. Even if, for various reasons, it is...

By DOROTHY L. SAYERS [These extracts from the war-time letters and papers of the Wimsey family appear weekly in THE SPECTATOR] to and Ir. Miss Letitia Martin, Dean of...

By J. R. BELLERBY T HE current concentration of thought on war-aims is altogether salutary, but it may be questioned whether the discussion begins far enough back. We do not...

By ROLT HAMMOND [M. de Monzie, the French Minister of Public Works, stated in the Chamber this month that the construction of a Channel Tunnel would' be one of the first public...

By ERWIN D. T HE invasion of Finland made a tremendous difference in the American attitude toward the European situation, and the end is not yet. To many Americans, the war...

By JANET TEISSIER DU CROS T HE great trees of the Allees are bare, and through their branches the stars shine dear in the frosty air. The traffic rushes up from the Cannebiere...

propounded a theory which has a bearing on this theme. He said that, after constant visits to the National Portrait Gallery, he had come to the conclusion that our...

in fact the instantaneous, impressions of previous years. A dual effect is produced upon the memory. The first effect is atmospheric, as when one plunges a hand into a bowl of...

tour, what interest this workman could possibly derive from the photograph of an unknown uncle of some unknown aristocrat abandoned in a Crimean villa. The interpreter answered...

By HAROLD N1COLSON HAVE devoted some hours during these Christmas holi- days to a task which is both otiose and exacting, both sedative and precise. For years the snapshots...

a previous age seem so remote that they lose all reality. I was examining recently a college group taken at Balliol is 1879. There they all were—Lord Salisbury, Lord Midleton,...

task filled me with depression. I experienced " the ground-swirl of the perished leaves of hope." I felt that I had concluded this year, 1939, with an act of piety towards the...

CANADA'S CONTRIBUTION By GRANT DEXTER AFTER four months of it, most Minister Chamberlain's remark war. From one end of Canada of frustration. No one seems to business of...

MUSIC Christmas Fare SADLER'S WELLS'S contribution to Christmas entertainments is a new production of Die Fledermaus, and the restoration of the ballet to its programmes....

Remontons les Champs-Elysees." At the Academy.- " The Rains Came." At the Gaumont. How unbearable these films of M. Sacha Guitry would be if they were not so successful. One...

Some dwellers in Sussex have been wondering about the identity of a strange bird. The general description (which should be accurate since it comes from a headmaster) would fit a...

Taste Catches Up I no not know what is the purpose of the Royal Academy in holding an exhibition of all kinds of contemporary art for the first time within its walls. Such an...

or friendly robin, and the pleasure of rewarding its friendliness is a good deal harder to satisfy in war-time. The robin's favourite food is butter. If allowed on to the...

call it an estate—the workmen have been allowed, have indeed been encouraged, to trap rabbits as freely as they will, if the toothed trap is avoided. What used to be a crime has...

found in a letter written by an Indian to his relatives at home the comment : "England is a country where no man goes hungry and dogs look after the sheep." The town children...

Sta,—Miss Sayers accuses others of ignorance, and shows her own. She writes that Christ claimed to be God, and quotes John viii, 58 and xviii, 5. She seems not to know that...

vivid Geneva Impressions which such an eminent historian as Professor Eileen Power contributed to your issue of December 22nd on the basis of her visit to the recent meetings of...

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must...

SIR,—Sir C. H. Robinson says that " it would take an axe "- an oddly inappropriate weapon—" to drive into the heads of the old ladies of the League of Nations Union " the simple...

Sul, —Amid all the chaos of conflicting, amorphous and muddled opinion with which the columns of our Press are at present filled, it was quite refreshing to read the letter...

Sta,—As a Deacon ordained since the outbreak of war—at Michaelmas—I was very interested in Mr. Wallace-Hadrill's letter on Ordinands and Military Service. The present scheme has...

Sta,—Many people are seriously asking this question—not without reason, as there is a good deal to suggest that we are fighting this war with kid gloves on! The mailed fist is...

SIR,—Regarding your reference to " conditions which for some years have indicated a coming decline of population," I beg to submit that you should have said a coming excess of...

SIR,—In your issue of December 1st Mrs. Leigh Clare suggests that readers might adopt a particular family or indi- vidual among the unemployed. A friend of mine, in response to...

THE literature of our modern culture is characteristically propagandist. So far is this statement true, that the first question that enters the mind of the reader who picks up a...

Views of Brighton Brighton Aquatints. By John Piper. With an Introduction by Lord Alfred Douglas. (Duckworth. 2 IS.) UNTIL 1914, by all accounts, Brighton had still an air of...

My Fight to Rearm Britain. By Viscount Rothermere. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. is.) WHEN the history of international relations during the past twenty years is reviewed twenty...

Lafayette. By W. E. Woodward. (Cresset Press. 18s.) THE period from 1757 to 1834 is one of the most eventful in French history. The Seven Years War was fought and lost ; the...

Matter and Light. By Louis de Broglie. (Allen and Unwin. 12s. 6d.) THIS book consists of a number of studies compiled by the famous French physicist, Professor Louis de Broglie....

The Alps. By R. L. G. Irving. (Batsford. los. 6d.) THE text that accompanies picture-books is often a mere make-weight: Mr. Irving's book is an exception. His 120 pages of text...

Life and Living. By Frederic Wood Jones, F.R.S. (Kegan Paul los. 6d.) IN the nine chapters of his new book, Professor Wood Jones has re-assembled some of the most original and...

that, as everyone knows, by way of Winchester and New College, or alternatively Eton and Trinity. But not always. You can start life by selling newspapers at ten, go on to a job...

PRIZES of book tokens for £2 2S. and Li Is. are offered for the most interesting answers (of not more than 300 words) to the following quettion : Whom do you consider to be...

COMPLAINTS are believed to issue from progressive nurseries to the effect that all existing nursery rhymes are out of date, and prizes were consequently offered for new nursery...

IT may seem odd, but it is happily true, that investors are entering 1940, after four months of war, not merely in a spirit of fortitude but with hope. Nor is the expectation of...

So far the war has been kind to tobacco shareholders. Here is British American Tobacco, with its interests concen- trated in overseas markets, showing a profit for the year...

Shareholders and depositors of the leading building societies are looking to their chairmen this year to give them a reassurance on two of the main war problems affecting the...

Shareholders in Booker Bros., McConnell and Co., the old-established sugar growers, have had the good fortune to enjoy steadier dividends than has been the lot of most investors...

Fund and Life Assurance Society, has sprung a surprise on the insurance world. After much ratiocination of the kind one likes to associate with insurance men, who are also...