demagogues on the other. It was left to the Daily
Sketch to pull the real scare story of the election. In huge headlines it told its readers that, were Attlee put in, the kingdom of Bevan would be nigh, and accompanied this with a photo of the future Prime Minister himself looking his most dictatorial. Of course, all this is grand fun for the journalists, but anyone actually interested in politics may be inclined to agree with Mr. Alistair Cooke, at present slumming in an English election campaign, when he describes the whole business as 'This oddly pedestrian, old-fashioned, and doctrinaire election' However, as a by-product it has produced Lord Russell's moving invoca- tion of the modern apocalypse and appeal for the brotherhood of man. This was the noblest speech of the week. The wittiest remark came from the Labour candidate for Wokingham (Conservative majority, 11,000): 'Not much that I can do,' he said, 'with Broadmoor at one end and Sandhurst at the other.'
WILDCAT Of more vital interest to the general public is the threat of a railway strike over Whitsun. The talks between the British Transport Commission and the Associated Society of Loco- motive Engineers and Firemen having broken down, ASLEF has called a strike for midnight on NW' eun Saturday, and so far neither the efforts of Sir Walter N .mckton, Minister, of Labour, nor the statement of the National Union of Railway- men that they will not support the strike have done anything to shake their determination to maintain differentials between the footplate men and the rest. The National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers also called a strike of their members ,on Monday in an attempt to force recognition of their union on the joint negotiating committees at the various ports. Their dispute with the Transport and General Workers' Union about the 'poaching' of members made it certain that the TGWU would oppose any such recognition, and the public was promised the inspiring spectacle of processions of dockers being led to work by officials of the larger union. In spite of this, some 18,000 men remain on strike in Manchester, Hull. Liverpool, Garston and London. The seriousness of a situation in which inter-union rows continually lead to strikes was underlined by the Prime Minister's summoning a delegation from the TUC to Downing Street on Saturday. and Mr. Tom O'Brien, vice-chairman of the TUC, has also spoken of the danger of wildcat strikes. The strikes and the election possibly explain the relatively small fuss made in the press about the fact that road casualties were up 3,000 last month as com- pared with the year before. But this rather sombre piece of news provides no talking point for any party politician. The roads must look after themselves, and the motorist seems to interest Ministers purely as a potential payer of petrol tax.
v
us to think that they [the' Western Powers] do not want negotiations, but simply to talk about negotiations in order to wreck the negotiations.' Soviet objections evidently concern Western ideas on the length, place and agenda of talks at the summit, but no very clear clash of viewpoints has yet emerged. Mr. Dulles's statement at a press conference that a policy of neutralisation for Germany would not be acceptable to his governmene was intended to reassure Dr. Adenauer, whose objections to any such idea have already been put forward, but might provide the Soviet Union with, the excuse it needs for saying that the West is laying down impossible conditions for Four-Power talks. Meanwhile, Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Bulganin are expected in Belgrade at the end of the week, and Marshal Tito has dissociated himself from any suggestion of ideological sympathy between Yugoslavia and the USSR by laying stress on the 'inter-state' character of the talks. An ominous sign from the • Middle East is the Soviet announce- ment of the execution of three Turkish 'spies,' which may be the preliminary to the resumption of the Russian press cam- paign against Turkey. On the Eastern front peace has also failed to advance, Chou En-lai's proposals for negotiations about Formosa having so far not produced any Very definite action from any of the interested parties.
LONG KNIVES IN NORTH AFRICA Colonial and racial problems supply most of the more picturesque action this week. In North Africa assassinations and bomb-throwing continue in Morocco (between twenty-one and twenty-three people were killed last week alone, and there is talk of a night of the long knives for the end of Ramadan), while in Algeria a full-scale guerrilla war is going on in the Aures mountains and the region around Constan- tine, and the French troops in the department are being brought up to the strength of 100,000 men. In Tunisia, in spite of the assassination of a 'leader of the old Destour (pan- Islamic nationalist) Party. things are quieter, and attempts by French settlers to wreck the agreement between the Govern- ment and the Tunisian nationalists have so far met with no success, though it remains to be seen what they can do when the agreement comes before the 'French Parliament. The Manchester Guardian (which has been the only British paper to report the North African situation with a proper under- standing) comments that 'a successful outcome to the negotia- tions with Tunisia' would probably do most to bring peace to the other two parts of the French North African Empire. In Kenya, attempts /to induce the Mati Mau forces still in the field to surrender having failed once again, an all-out attack has been launched on them which, it is to be hoped, will produce better results than have all-out attacks in the past. Going south, the debate on the Government Bill to pack the Senate in the South African Parliament has been remarkable for a neat piece of ,sophistry by Dr. DOnges, Minister of the Interior, but this will hardly allay the bitterness felt by English-speaking South Africans at what they regard as a Nationalist attempt to subvert the constitution. In Singapore the new government of the colony has surrendered to the Chinese scho6lchildren and dropped its demand for a purge of trottblemakers from the schools. In Southetn Viet Nam M. Diem, taking time out from organising the wholesale arrest of his opponents, has decided that a move must be made to deal with the sinister General Ba Cut and his Hoa Hao (dissident Buddhist) supporters. The Greek Government is exercised over the refusal of the Government of Cyprus to allow Greek airmen returning from Korea to go into town after landing at Nicosia. Hovfever, it is doubtful whether any- one will be sufficiently naive to be exercised with them.
v
VIVE LE SPORT!
International sport has provided almost as much blood and quite as much ill-feeling as international politics. As the Observer commented in its euphemistic way, this has been an `emotionally disturbing week of international sport.' Scarcely had the cries of 'Foul play!' died down over Rocky Marciano's victory in the world heavyweight fight than British football teams entered on a series of matches. marked by incidents hardly calculated to spread that sense of good will and 'may the best man win' which provides the proverbial justification of sporting activity. At one point in the match between Scot- land and Austria the crowd swarmed on to the field, and both in this match and in the one between England and Spain the referee was accused of partiality. To cap it all, in Tuesday night's TV boxing the likely winners in the bouts were dis- qualified. Only motor-racing and golf remain unsmirched : the Monte Carlo Grand Prix Was won on Sunday by Maurice Trintignant (France), and the US easily won the Walker Cup. To end on a more cheerful note. Hutton is to captain England in all five tests against South Africa, and Field-Marshal Pibul Songgram, Prime Minister of Siam, has offended addicts of tauromachy by saying that while he liked the bull-fight he attended as a spectacle, he did not care for the killing of the bull.
CULTURE TRIUMPHANT General news includes the discovery of a new super-nova star and that radio waves are emitted by Jupiter every third day. Sydney is to build itself a new opera house, and the National Art Collections Fund has been left the Cook art col- lection, which includes many fine English and Dutch pictures, for distribution to museums throughout Britain. Professor Lattimore has been given a passport to deliver his lectures in Western Europe, and the first new oyster dredger to be built at Whitstable for over,twenty years has been launched. Thus the cause of culture is everywhere triumphant. Finally, habitual users of Americanisms may feel reassured. If, in the course of some dispute, they should happen to use a harsh transatlantic phrase, this will not be slander. English is English and Ameri- can is American, and never the twain shall be understood in the same legal sense.
Previous page
