Portrait of the Week
A TEMPORARY but considerable strain has suddenly been im- posed on the Western alliance by the delivery of a consign- ment of arms from America and Britain to the Tunisian Government; this transaction has been much resented in France where it is felt that a good many of the weapons will find their way to rebels in Algeria. Both Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Gaitskell have defended what has been done and the Ameri- can Administration is also impenitent. None the less, the French Foreign Minister has hastened to Washington to try to have included in the agreement some safeguards against the arms find- ing their way into the wrong hands. Meanwhile French parliamentarians had walked out of a conference of NATO members and the visit of the new commander of the French home forces to Britain had been put off as a sign of displeasure. M. Gaillard's new government is still grappling with the economic crisis and has received special economic poWers to cope with the situation.
Mr. Dulles has announced an American plan for establishing intermediate missile bases in NATO countries. Apparently a number of Atlan- tic countries have signified their agreement with this arrangement.
A certain amount of activity has been going on in the United Nations but there has been little to show for it. A proposal sponsored by Britain and others that a UN mediator should return to Kash- mir with the object of gradually demilitarising it was greeted with howls by Mr. Krishna Menon, who rose from the bed where he was lying ill with high blood-pressure; he accused Britain of plot- ting against India and the British delegate of not listening to him. His comment, added for good measure, that Sir Pierson's speeches were boring was later withdrawn. A motion was also approved calling on North Korea to observe the armistice terms now put in jeopardy by an arms build-up north of the line: The Western powers have agreed to include some new members in the disarma- ment committee as a concession to the Russian view that the committee ought to include all the members of the UN, but this has failed to secure Soviet participation. A scandal is rapidly brewing up at UNESCO which, it is said, approved the sending of $100,000 worth of radar equipment to Egypt in the guise of educational relief.
President Eisenhower has been playing golf but has found time to deliver one of his morale-boost- ing lectures, promising increased defence expendi- ture (and tax). The Americans are, so they say, near the solution of the problems of exploding H-bombs in outer space. Lord Montgomery of Alamein has announced his approaching retire- ment. Thirty-nine murderers, amongst them ten women, have attended a conference on prison reform in India. Telephones are still in the home news; partly because the House of Commons is still simmering over the telephone-tapping affair and partly be- cause charges for many calls are to be reduced at the beginning of next year, and the 'local' call is to extend to an average of seventeen miles. The tribunal set up to investigate the Bank rate leak is to be chaired by Lord Justice Parker, though the announcement of this appointment caused some angry moments, since the Prime Minister took the opportunity to imply that parliamentary privilege was being used to cover defamation. The Committee of Privileges of the House of Com- mons has decided that there has been a breach of privilege by the London Electricity Board in threatening a libel action against Mr. George Strauss.
The Church Assembly has debated and ap- proved the Wolfenden Committee's recommenda- tions on homosexuality, and the retiring Bishop of Chichester has said that the Government ought to be entrusted to seven or ten honest men. Dr. Edith Summerskill has lost her place on the Labour Shadow Cabinet, and debutantes their presenta- tion parties which the Queen is to discontinue after next year in favour of larger and more 'popular gatherings.' Britain is to supply Italy with an atomic reactor. Seventeen miners have been killed in a pit explosion in Ayrshire.
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