Cramp is always a danger to a contortionist ; and Marxist economic doctrine is now playing the part of this inconvenient affliction in China, where the State has rearranged...

Australia; forts° long a great laboratory of economic and social experiment, is now preparing to extend its pioneering activities into the field of politics with a Bill to...

T HE events of the past week should have taught any Germans who are still in doubt about it that patience and reason in their dealings with the Western Allies will pay good...

The most important feature of Dr. Malan's interesting and comprehensive review of South African policy on Monday was his statement that in view of the uncertainties of British...

The Liberals should be flattered by the attentions Lord Woolton on the one hand and Mr. Morgan Phillips on the other are paying them. Lord Woolton's wooing should be the more...

The things that are wrong with the British building industry have been enumerated fairly frequently, but never quite so thoroughly as in the repoist of the Working Party on...

There seems to be general agreement that vegetables are expensive ; but on the reason for this state of affairs there is little in common between the views of the producers, the...

G EVEN any frequency of divisions in the present state of parties it was always possible that sooner or later there would be a tie. But a tie is so rare an event that it lies...

The rights and wrongs of the latest Civil Servants' grievance are going to be difficult to sort out. Some indication of the complica- tions of the case lies in the fact that the...

Recent correspondence in the Spectator has shown not only how much general interest the subject of euthanasia arouses, but also what a wide range of practical, as well as moral,...

T HE debate in the House of Lords initiated by Lord Elton on the formation of a National Government will have served at any rate to clarify ideas which on this particular...

Browne, when they have a chance of seeing it, as no doubt they soon will. So far it has been tried out at Brighton and Bournemouth with notable success, thanks no doubt...

sent me semi- satisfactory explanations of the difference between Dumbarton and Dunbarton. The real difference seems to be that one—the latter— form is right and the other...

something, involves so many authorities that the danger that talk may replace action for months or years to come is serious. It is satisfactory, therefore, that that influential...

broadcast last night that he shed no tears over the abolition of the ' cat.' " So the Daily Telegraph. Why the " who is 60 " ? The words presumably have some relevance. Would...

on his scertary in future.

T HE projected visit of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Moscow opens up interesting possibilities. Mr. Trygve Lie is apparently making the journey on his own...

mixed up last week-end with Rotary Inter- national's annual conference. Rotary, a most admirable movement, initiated in Chicago in 1905, is not as well known as it deserves to...

By ROBERT WAITHMAN Washington Y OU will almost certainly have read somewhere that a wave of hysteria is now engulfing the United States It may have occurred to you to wonder...

By HENRY COLMAR p ASTOR NIEMOLLER is the dark horse in the political life of post-war Germany. His lack of political instinct is as striking as his personal integrity. One...

By C. K. ALLEN, K.C. T HE Greeks had a word for it, or at all events the psycho- logists, who are very good at the Classics, invented the word for them. It is schizophrenia,...

FROM A CORRESPONDENT Cape Town, April 24th 0 VERSHADOWED here and, no doubt, abroad by the question of the High Commissioner territories is the imminent change in the status of...

By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. T HE Great Central Railway, I have heard, was built that well-to-do and leisurely-minded people from the middle of England could travel to Lord's...

Palmyra By W. K. F. BOSWELL (Peterhouse, Cambridge) I N the heart of the desert an ancient city and a modern village lie side by side. Long ago men used to rest there after...

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

By HAROLD NICOLSON N OW that I have ceased, presumably for ever, to be a rising politician, I shall strive, by devoting my declining years to art and literature, to recapture...

44 Cheaper by the Dozen." (Odeon.j..-■---" Champagne for Caesar." (London Pavilion..)--" Prelude to Fame." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.) Miss MYRNA LOY is renowned for...

THEATRE , 4 Sauce Piquante." (Cambridge.) ALTHOUGH I cannot claim to have made a study of these entertain- ments, I have the impression that the British are—or perhaps it would...

wholly bad or wholly good. It is difficult to recommend Prelude to Fame because so much of this story of a selfish and ambitious Englishwoman's desire to be recognised through...

to express violence, since it moves in time and is susceptible of virtually infinite dynamical variations. The range of these variations has been hugely extended in the last...

back to the screen looking as attractively middle-aged as ever. He takes the part of a highly educated man who regards the normal television quiz as the forerunner of...

Magazine Pest) Id.

The Royal Academy. THE one hundred and eighty-second summer exhibition of the Royal Academy is prefaced by a quotation from Schopenhauer : " Treat a work of art like a prince :...

MR. WILFRID BLUNT, in his foreword to the catalogue of the delightful exhibition which is on view at the headquarters of the National Book League, 7, Albemarle Street, W.1,...

Set by Gwendolen Freeman A prize of 13, which may be divided, is o f fered for a comment by Tennyson, Browning or Matthew Arnold on the 1950 Royal Academy Exhibition. Entries,...

Even in this marbled flesh you may surprise The music in her delicate fingers fine, Her delicate fingers that could notes combine To entice an angel with sweet harmonies. Long...

Report by Edward Hodgkin A prize was offered for a memoria technica jingle of not more than eight lines which might help schoolboys of, say. 100 years hence to date some of the...

Removal from Canterbury Sts,—There has been a good deal of irresponsible talk lately as to whether or not the Dean of Canterbury should be removed from his office on political...

SIR,—Even flying sauce-boats arrive late at their destination in this rather remote countryside, and so it yvas not until yesterday that I was aware of Mr. Rice's letter in your...

SIR,-1 must apologise for my intemperate references to Mr. Stassen in your issue of March 17th. Having just read his " Granny" I felt that way. I am also sorry that he has...

manners may have some justification, though you might have spared a word of sympathy with him on the price he has had to pay for his outspokenness. Of more moment to the...

definition of the character of coal gives rise to grave dilemmas and uncertainties. The Coal Board, enamoured of the war-time expedient of the scientific combustion of dirt,...

SIR,—AS an Englishman who had the good fortune to spend more than 21 years of his working life in Scotland, I have been distressed by the attitude which you have adopted towards...

would dispute with Miss Ophelia Dane (in your issue of April 21st) that to learn typing and shorthand is the last resort of the young woman who has tried one or more trainings...

He will always find journalists who discourage graduates, or anyone else, from entering their profession, but I think this is largely a measure of self-protection. From his...

from it? You remark that " f',236,000 persons had signed the covenant (which means that some 3,700,000 have not signed)." But, of course, quite apart from the fact that those...

The announcement of a University Commission has taken all by surprise. . . . The greatest grievance of- the present system [of teaching] is that the fellowships involve no...

under an admirable scheme) I noticed one bed that seemed to me rarely ingenious. It con- sisted of tree peonies and early tulips. The middle leaves of the peonies " half...

kir the suppres- sion of rats and mice and certain other enemies of food production. It is now against the law for anyone to allow a number of these on his premises. The pest...

SIR. —I was very interested in the article This Servant Problem, by Marghanita Laski in the Spectator, of March 24th. We have here in Bridge of Allan the only Scottish centre of...

SIR.—" News of the Week " (April 14th) contained a timely comment on the necessity for trade unions to resist the dangers of inflation by continuing to exercise a policy of wage...

IN a considerable experience of bird-nesting I have never, that I can remember, known so many nests deserted. Three thrushes' nests in my garden were deserted, two before any...

In Argentina, so I am told, a " Garden of Peace " has been laid out with beds containing plants especially characteristic of the various countries. England would be all right...

ignorant county ? About ninety per cent, of the complaints I have heard of flower destruc- tion come from this part of the world. Here is a country Rector's experi- ence: "...

D ONS and others have long desired a reasonably short survey of mediaeval art. It is a desire that will never be fully satisfied. Mediaeval art, like mediaeval thought and...

Twenty Years' Gleanings Collected Impressions. By Elizabeth Bowen. (Longmans. 6s.) ." Too often," says Miss Bowen in her review of E. M. Forster's Wbinger Harvest, "...

British Politics since 19oo. By D. C. Somervell. (bakers. r ss.) THERE are various ways of writing history. One way is to state the facts as clearly and objectively as possible...

The Stevenson Companion. Arranged and kntroduced by John Hampden. (Phoenix House. los. 6d.) A HUNDRED years after the birth of Stevenson the legend of the velvet-coated...

Episodes Before Thirty. By Algernon Blackwood. (Peter Nevill. i SS.) ADMIRERS of Mr. Algernon Blackwood's tales of the uncanny and the unaccountable may find this record of his...

Germany : What Now ? By Basil Davidson. (Muller. 125. 6d.) THE subject of this book is of deadly importance to us all, and Mr. Davidson supplies a mass of information which no...

THE English attitude to Goethe does not change. In spite of two centenaries it is still the man we are interested in rather than the poet. No publisher would venture a standard...

The Knyvett Letters (162e-1644). Transcribed and Edited by Bertram Schofield. (Constable. 2 I 9.) Tms charming book, for the production of which the Norfolk Record Society is...

The Seeker and the Sought. By Marie Baumer. (Gollancz. gs. 6d.) IF only people would refrain from reforming the English language when they are writing fiction I Even...

SAMUEL CRONWRIGHT-SCHREINER was a man of temperament rather than letters, and as his wife's biographer he was sometimes strangely indiscriminate. In The Life of Olive Schreiner...

My American Journal. By Andre Maurois. Translated from the French by Joan Charles. (Falcon Press. r is. 6d.) THIS odd production has an odd title. For it is not, or is only in...

THE story of the murder on August 20th, 1940, is here told by General Salazar, who was Chief of the Mexican Secret Service, and there is a political commentary by Julian Gorkin,...

Walls Press. 3s. 6d.) " GEMS from Leaves of Grass"—Whitman himself always regarded any such proposals with understandable distaste. But it is a plain fact that some parts of it...

By CUSTOS Ir says a good deal for the adaptability of City ideas that a /150,000,000 issue of electricity stock can now be announced without so much as setting up a ripple on...

AtIf!TEig 16 114 B E t. A1410. L I • [ I iAl E r4 , $1 I li:0441111 A :ulaiE Is 5 - r!Gir4;/ iOIR %111L1110 k. _ Lei 'L3 ,eisiTIT11...E VIII iB A_L . N El tke.0210 ct. ....

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened alter noon on Tuesday week, May 16th. Envelopes...