NEWS OF THE WEEK A BYSSINIA .. .. .. 450 Arabs : And Jerusalem, 2 ; plans for Jerusalem, 134, 745 ; the League and Jordan, 450 558; refugees returning to Palestine, 809 ;...

T . HE Conference of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers which opens at Colombo on Monday may well turn out to be considerably more important than dis- cussions regarding it have so...

Sir Stafford Cripps, with a touch of that frankness out of which his former political reputation was made, pointed out on Wednesday that about half the factors which helped to...

A note of reserve marked the references made by the Russian propaganda services to China during the official celebrations of Marshal Stalin's seventieth birthday ; though she...

There is surely something excessive, something not unconnected with the coming General Election, in the praise which has been lavished upon the miners for their success in 1949....

Wherever the responsibility may be adjudged to lie, the break- down of the loan negotiations between the Colonial Development Corporation and the International Bank is...

How far Zionism is a religious and how far a secular movement the Zionists have never been able to agree among themselves. There can, however, be no doubt that the current...

The cry of the underpaid schoolmaster has been heard so often in the post-war years that mere reiteration has in some cases deadened its effect. But the arresting address given...

With no more known of the result of the General Election in Egypt than that the Wafd, led by the now veteran Nahas Pasha, is assured of a clear majority in the Chamber, detailed...

p RESIDENT TRUMAN'S annual message on the state of the-Union came in time to introduce a greater element of stability into the views of Americans on their own future. Until he...

Trans- late into Latin: " My wife could not remember how much 'milk was left." Answer: "Mea feminam non potebat souvenire quaniam

infants in 1949 as in 1948. This surprises me. There is nothing to be said against Susan, and nothing very much for it. But why choose it ? The name never seems to have...

remember. The House of Lords gains Sir Steven Bilsland, a notable figure in the life of South-West Scotland, and five estimable Members of the House of Commons. Among the new...

T HE widening activities of the company which owns the Daily Mirror are worth watching. The Mirror itself, with a circulation of over 4,000,000, is reckoned an asset to the...

Prime Minister is 75. Meanwhile brilliant public servants like (for example) Sir Wilson Jameson, the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, are being retired at 65....

available tomorrow, which is a holiday in Scotland." Such is the almost incredible decision of the Postmaster-General. We are bitterly familiar with the cynical disregard of the...

a new body, the British Empire Society for. the Blind, whose forma- tion is announced this week. Several points about it strike one at once. One is the immensity of the need for...

is an event in journalism. He is going where he is going, I imagine, because the Herald represents his spiritual home, as the Evening Standard certainly did not. At first sight...

By QUINTIN HOGG, M.P. REAT weight has always been attached to the pronounce- ments of distinguished lawyers in public life on matters which, although in themselves of political...

of Poetry By CECIL DAY LEWIS T HE subject of patronage for poets has been much discussed recently. During the war sales of 1,000-3,000 of a new book of verse were not uncommon...

By D. W. BROGAN T HEY used to say in Rome that if you had to leave thi city, you should throw a coin into the fountain of Trevl and you would be sure to come back. In the late...

BEFORE us, the stone basin and its fountain: The squatting dragon's jaw spouts glittering streams Into that round pool where the one carp dreams Hot noon away. And over there,...

By JOHN BRAY A FTER the war British prestige in Egypt suffered a steady decline, and now that our forces are by treaty confined to - the Canal Zone, only a suggestion of what...

With this first issue of 1950 the Spectator is instituting a weekly competition, which it is hoped will interest its readers. A prize of £5, which may be divided, will be...

Campione Del Mondo By JULIAN BULLARD (Magdalen College, Oxford) W E tramped into San Sepolcro, Giles and I, about five o'clock on a broiling September afternoon, and made, as...

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 p ERSONALITY is the most evanescent of human attributes. However active may be our curiosity, however vigorous our application, we can derive little more...

CINEMA 44 Holiday Affair." (Leicester Square.) — " Paid in Full." (Carlton.)—" The Cure for Love." (Odeon.) ALTHOUGH Americans are the most sentimental people in the world,...

concerts in the year will hardly have noticed the change that has crept over one of the lesser features of our concert life in the last few years. Perhaps he does not, in any...

WHAT IS A CENTURY ?—HOW MUCH IS HALF ? Can you count a hundred ? Nobably you have advanced thus far t in the science of arithmetic, and in that case you can say whether a:...

(With apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge) NEAR Waterloo did Herbert Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Thames, the ancient river, ran Past taverns numberless to man...

THE dust raised by Christmas and the New Year is beginning to settle ; but, before we forget the season altogether, may I salute Alexandra Palace for its farewell to 1949 and...

SIR. —Your correspondent, the Rev. A. Edward Keene, carries my full cop- currence when he protests against the perpetuation of " unsound or even misleading ideas," but what...

What Roman Catholics Want SIR,—You ask, " What does the Catholic ask for that he has not already got ?" it is not a question of the number of jobs for Catholics. It is a...

more than other taxpayers. The financial arrangement has been judged fair in Scotland. By a fully Christian education" I mean an institutional one, with school, teachers and "...

statement that is definitely not correct: "Every country in Western Europe today is under the rule of a Catholic Prime Minister or Chancellor." I think the Netherlands at least...

SIR,—The covert sneer in the Spectator of December 23rd against Catholic contributors to The Times was indeed sui generis. I challenge you to refer to any single excerpt from a...

used to denote collectively Christians who are not Roman Catholic ? " It is probably undesirable that Christians who are not Roman Catholic should be denoted collectively, for...

used to denote collectively Christians who are not Roman Catholics ?" Certainly not " Protestant," for this word could hardly be applied to some 200 million Christians in the...

SIR,—May I correct two mistakes made by your correspondent, Mr. Harvey R. Cole, on "Propaganda and the Election ? " He says: " No- body can obtain sugar except from Tate & Lyle...

SIR,—The Spectator of December 30th declares the new Cambridge town plan to be " as a whole, a large, imaginative, and practical conception." I wonder whether you have given due...

claimed to be Catholic." Surely this claim is made, explicitly or implicitly, by all who confess the Christian Creed, which affirms belief in the Holy Catholic Church,....

that since its institution by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300, with a few exceptions due to political disturbances, Jubilee or Holy Years have been celebrated in Rome at least every...

SIR,—As another of the humorously termed " self-employed " clergy, I have just been in the same circumstances as your correspondent, the Rev. R. M. French (though I confess that...

SIR,—A point rather overlooked in Lord Hankey's book (and by many others) is that most of the crimes committed by German officers were breaches not only of international law but...

SIR,—May I ask the authoress of the touching article printed in the Spectator of December 30th to consider the following words taken 'from a memoir of a friend of mine who died...

SIR,—Dr. Stephen Taylor is quite right when he states in his article Cortisone Problems that: "None of the three agents so far discovered was the last link in the chain." They...

SIR, Mr. Nicolson's Marginal Comment in the Spectator of December 23rd was full of the sealon's spirit and provided a welcome contribution to the week-end's reat4ipg. In his...

SIR,—There is a fallacy, which is, I believe, widely held, implicit in the letter of " Rector who has been a full-time teacher." Your correspondent confuses skill in teaching...

SIR. —J. G. Lockhart, in his Life of Cosmo Gordon Lang, records the remark about clerical moustaches as having been made by King Edward VII at Windsor in 1908 (p. 179). " On the...

The scientific experiment to test the truth of the "no-digging claim " has now been just a year in operation. The intermediate verdict, from Chertsey, is negative in form ; but...

SIR,—The mistletoe is not so particular about geography as Sir William Beach Thomas implies in his evergreen Country Life, in the Spectator of December 23rd. There he states...

SIR. —I am writing a life of Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, M.P. (Lord Wedgwood), and should be very grateful if anyone who has letters or information likely to be of interest in...

the deaf hear music ? " Having been deaf all my life perhaps I can enlighten him a little. " A delicate ear for verbal music" might be interpreted as hearing the inflexion and...

The market in English, perhaps also British, farms gives a striking illustration of the Kipling motto that " civilisation is transportation." Land hunger is general, and in...

Amato attributes of the past Christmas, much more important than the mistletoe, most of it imported from France, was the return of the coco- nut to the market. The tits...

the sweet and thorn- less Zephyrine Drouhin, has surpassed itself this winter. A singularly perfect bud, very sweetly scented, opened on the eve of the 'New Year. Within a few...

Sta.—The contributor of the article Shop Stewards omits to mention that to forget this.—Yours faithfully, J. H. M. STEVENSON. the shop stewards are usually paid by the...

In some farming papers, notably the Farmer and Stockbreeder, a succession of laments have been published from husbandmen whose cows have suffered from wire snares. Frequently...

1he Concept of Mind. By Gilbert Ryle. (Hutchinson's University Library ; Senior Series. 2S. 6d.) THE hypothesis that every human being has a body and a mind (or is both body and...

Life in Russia Military Attache in Moscow. By Major-General Richard Hilton, (Hollis and Carter. los. 6d.) The People of Great Russia. By Geoffrey Gorer and John Rickman....

EVERYONE knows Lamb's two essays, Blakesmoor in H—shire and Mackery End. Potent examples of the Elian quality, to the devout Elian they are sacred texts. Lamb's early -...

Schiller. By William Witte. Modern Language Studies VI. (Black- well. i 2S. 6d.) Schiller. By H. B. Garland. (Harra!). I cs.) THE Victorians' enthusiasm for Schiller seems to...

Benito Mussolini: Memoirs 1941-43. Edited by Raymond Klibansky. (We Weide Id and N icolson 8s.) PROFESSOR KLIBANSKY has brought together a valuable collection of material...

we can often learn nearly as much about the critic as about his particular themes. Each man draws his deductions in accordance with a certain bias of mind. Even his choice of...

THE novels of Mr. Claude Houghton have all shown him to be imaginatively aware of a deep level of experience, a reality under- lying or overshadowing the everyday world. To him...

Piccadilly Pageant. By Simon Dewes. (Rich & Cowan. I6s.) IN spite of a quite shocking collection of misprints, mostly mis- spellings of familiar proper names, and other signs of...

[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 after noon on Tuesday week, 7anuary 17th....

PA t ret 6 u 5 5 - r! Ilk., a,,,a, - ANA _.. 5,,E50....u„:, o!NS LU R enon-rill IN .1 111k 'EARTHEN Nib `f R E . A '4 o T I... E TIE if , i c Erl ii 1 741111A MI31. E glER...

By CUSTOS APPROPRIATELY enough, the New Year has opened without any exuberance in the stock markets. This is election year, and although it is arguable that the basic facts of...

is a series of sketches of people whom the author has met and who have influenced him. He begins with a few pages on his childhood, and later there are brief statements about...

Head. iss.) IT is hard to imagine now that the innocuous canary-coloured quarterly from which Mr. Denny has made his selection could have caused such a furore in 1894. Provoked...