NEWS OF THE WEEK y UGOSLAV spokesmen have insisted with such emphasis that the trade and compensation agreements signed with the United Kingdom on Monday would have no influence...

The never very edifying spectacle of the French Assembly debating the Budget is going forward this year in the shadow of the next general election. Consequently, the efforts of...

With great good will and considerable misgivings, the Dutch this week recognised the unequivocal independence of the United States of Indonesia. The two nations, Holland and...

That time-honoured feature of the English scene, a strike at Christmas, was supplied this year by certain motormen of- the Southern Region of the British Railways, who...

The mills of Transport House grind slowly, but the lumps remain as large as ever. The full report on wages policy, published on Tuesday and to be discussed at the anxiously...

The new Cambridge town plan was urgently needed. Traffic con- ditions in Cambridge cannot continue as they are ; unless drastic steps are taken, indeed, they will get steadily...

" Unit 731," twelve of whose officers are being tried as war criminals by a Russian military court at Khabarovsk, was the section of the Kwantung Army which dealt with chemical...

T HERE is of course no reason to distinguish particularly a year which happens to be a multiple of fifty from any other. Nineteen-fifty today means simply the begin- ning of...

Anthem. Must the B.B.C. do this ? Whose idea is it ? Can it be supposed that King George himself, pursued by this eternal tune wherever he goes, wants to hear it both before and...

will be fully discussed at the Colombo Conference, for there is good reason to doubt whether we are adequately informed about what is happening in the peninsula. Christmas is...

well. I feel sure Addison would have liked it equally. These reflections are inspired by someone who suggests that, to avoid frequent misunder- standings, it might be well to...

n1 - HAD better say at once that I spent Christmas in Cambridge ; otherwise the fact will become evident rather irritatingly. The high point, beyond question or contest, was the...

is raised by the article on Professor Samuel Alexander in the latest supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography. Here reference is made to Professor Alexander "...

comments on the recent Times articles and correspondence on " Catholicism Today " (not " Roman Catholicism "—one of many indications that the original article was written by a...

By ROBERT WAITHMAN Washington A FUNNY story about an Englishman and an American appeared last week in the widely read and expertly pro- duced Saturday Evening Post. It occurs...

tt' JOHN KITTESFORD F GYPT goes to the polls next Tuesday. For several weeks the streets of Alexandria and Cairo, and even of provincial towns like Tantah and Mansourah and...

li. JI AN ASQUITH D URING the war the youth of the country.coined a very apt phrase descriptive of their endeavours—" to bash on regardless." If this sometimes caused the...

By J. M. ANDERSON HESE shop stewards," said a man sitting opposite in a suburban train to Waterloo, " seem to be behaving more like political commissars every day." He flung...

Drury Lane and at the Olympic, the " intro- duction " is the chief feature ; and, as is commonly the case in modern works of this class, the harlequinade comes in but flatly...

; Canada (Canadian Magazine Post) 14

By LLN ORTZLN T HERE came a ring at the door of my villa the other day. When I opened it, I found a man in a blue uniform and a peaked cap. He had a smouldering Gauloise in the...

Greek Dialogue By J. R. BAMBROUGH (St. j.)ho's College, Cambridge) Q UOT homilies, tot Graetiae. Every man must find his own Greece. A description of the country, if you have...

By HAROLD NICOLSON S IR MAX BEERBOHM is the only modern essayist whose work is likely to survive. It may seem strange that a man who has devoted so much care and patience to...

THEATRE Plays for the Holidays " TELL me," people are always demanding, " a good play to go to." I find this injunction extraordinarily difficult to obey. For one thing, it...

"Bicycle Thieves." (Curzon.)-- "The Doctor and The Girl." (London Pavilion.)--“Dear Wife." (Carlton.) Bicycle Thieves has every conceivable virtue save one, and that, I think,...

SADLER'S WELLS has added a new fairy-story ballet, as well as Hansel and Gretel. to its Christmas repertory. Beauty and the Beast is a pas de deux danced to Ravel's Mother Goose...

1 WONDER occasionally how much of the B.B.C.'s sweetness is wasted on the desert air. At Christmas-time, for instance, how many other claims there are on an ordinary man's...

SIR,—Recent debate on the question of election expenses has shed so little light on fhe subject that it is essential for the law to be clarified, and probably amended. It is...

S IR.—The main danger of the secluded lecture-halls of Edinburgh seems to be that they seduce the young from an ability to interpret facts. It was noticeable in the...

best served by an honest recognition of the true natures of the bodies which propose to unite, and is hindered by the perpetuation of unsound or even mis- leading ideas about...

Christian Units• and Division sin.—in accord with your excelknt aiticle on The Spirit of Christmas, may 1 offer some comment on your paragraph, Holy Year Reflections? If we are...

Snt.—This episode, which illustrates some of the hazards of life in the Welfare State, may be of interest to you. My wife has suffered from arthritis for many years, and we...

Sta.—In the Spectator of December 2nd, the second paragraph of " Lancastrian's " letter on " The Post Office and the Public " reveals a state of affairs in one of the older...

SIR.-1 fear that Sir W. Beach Thomas was faintly derisive about " rural " Sheffield in the Spectator of December 16th. May I tell him that Sheffield's south-west and west...

SIR, —I am afraid that the Duchess of Atholl has either misconstrued or overlooked my object in writing to you. However, you will, perhaps, allow me to comment briefly on her...

SIR.—Cables published in the New Zealand Press quote you as stating that the Conservative Party here does not contain men of the " calibre of Peter Fraser and Walter Nash." The...

Below are printed the answers to the Christmas Questions published in the Spectator of December 23rd:— 1. a. Gloucester Cathedral. b. Westminster Abbey. C. Bene- dictine Church...

may belong to winter, one of trees, the other of lawns. The value of the tar distillate sprays—such as Mortegg and the rest—is now beyond question. They do more general good,...

THE vans, equipped with ladders, that toured the country on the eve of this Christmas to get holly berries' for the urban celebrators, cut a deal but secured few corals." It was...

As a picture of the ways of birds in winter I liked some lines, written, I believe, by H. R. Pyall, a Fettes master, some years ago. Its title is " Instinct." " On the face of...

What should be the practice and policy of Lords of the Manor of our commons ? Certain controversies have arisen. One school holds that nature should be left to deal with these...

A modern variant of the legendary good work of Lob-lie-by-the-fire has been recorded in Lancashire. A worker in a Preston mill, being a patriot and a gardener, was seen...

“Painted Countries" Maps and Map-Makers. By It. V. 1 0019. (liatsiord. jos.) THE study and collection of early maps is becoming a hobby with many people. It is no new...

Et:w are the critics in whose influence posterity finds nothing to regret. A great man may jockey his brilliant over-riding thesis to victory, confounding his rivals, seeming to...

LORD HANKEY must always be heard with respect on any inter- national question, but it is to be feared that this volume will not increase the respect. His thesis—that the...

Zen Buddhism. By Christmas Humphreys. (Heinemann. los. 6(1.) I SHOULD like to recommend this book to just those readers who would be most reluctant to read it, to those who, for...

Mary Russell Mitford. By Vera Watson. (Evans. iss.) "To her only surviving relative and most cherished friend, HER BELOVED AND VENERABLE FATHER, these volumes full of endearing...

East of the Iron Curtain. By Vernon Bartlett. (Latimer Mouse. 8s. 6d.) THE value of Mr. Bartlett's new book lies, not so much in the narrative, as in the conclusions. The...

IA Book Token for one gumca will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to b. opened after noon on Tuesday week. joinery 10th. Envelopes...

SOLUTION ON JANUARY 13 Th e winner of Crossword No. 560 is Thomas Carter. Esq.. Deng \rwcastle-on-Tyne. View, Heaton Road,

London Is London. Edited by D. M. Low. (Chatto and Windus. los. 6d.) Flower of Cities—A Book of London. (Max Parrish. r 8s. 6d.) A RESOUNDING poem written by William Dunbar in...

Madame Recamier. By Margaret Trouncer. (Macdonald. t 2s. 6(1.) JULIETTE RECAMIER has been dead a hundred years, and still we do not know her secrets. In her will she ordered...

Eth‘ard Lear's Parrots. By Brian Reade. (Duckworth. 8s. 6d.) THESE charming little books contain welcome selections from the plates of two classics of bird art accompanied by...

THIS book purports to supplement the biography of Tito with hitherto unpublished facts. It seems to be designed primarily for the enlightenment of a class of people who are...

By CUSTOS IN the past two weeks we have been treated to some rare example of official thought in our controlled financial economy. First, Mr. Dalton, who never seems to tire of...

Edited by Philip Wayne. (I ongmans. i is.) This collection of letters begins with one from Dorothy Osborne in 1653 and ends with one from A. B. Ramsay to E. V. Lucas in 1932,...