ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6659 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1956 PRICE 7d.

A s was expected, the communique issued after the Washington talks between Sir Anthony Eden and President Eisenhower did not contain any very concrete policy decisions, and the...

T HE voters of Malta go to the polls this weekend to decide for or against 'integration' with the United Kingdom. Mr. Mintoff, Prime Minister of Malta, and his Maltese Labour...

By RICHARD H. ROVERE I T can surely be said that, from the American viewpoint , no harm was done by the Washington conference of the Prime Minister and the President. In this...

NA-a. MACMILLAN made a very bad start in his first pro- nouncement as Chancellor last week. This turned out to be the kind of impeccable, though superficial, diagnosis of the...

I T can fairly be claimed,' stated the Daily Telegraph this week, 'that public opinion is by no means ready for the abolition of the death penalty.' That many people still...

By DARSIE G1LUE Paris oNS1EUR MOLLET'S defeat by the French of Algiers marks the limitation of the theory on which his Governtnent is built. Boldness is not a certain cure for...

FTER the frost the thaw. Householders who have been wrestling with burst pipes and the water boards who have been trying to stop the loss of supplies have been having a bad time...

Charles Curran - The Politics of the New Estate D. W. Brogan on H. L. Mencken Christopher Hollis - The Scholar Tipsy

BY HENRY FAIRLIE I N the week of its silver jubilee, the Parliamentary Labour Party has given an impressive demonstration of its new- found confidence. Mr. Bevan ran amok at...

on a camel the other day took off his hat to an acquain- tance and fell off his camel. This reminds me of a friend of mine, a famous QC, who, riding his bicycle to the Temple...

WILLY-NILLY I must return to Section 16 of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907. This, it may be remembered, is what Mr. Lloyd George said 'prohibited him' from placing , a copy of the...

Lord Douro was reported by the Evening Standard to have made about a party he gave at Apsley House. I have before commented upon the astonishing inaccuracy of that news- paper's...

of the Spectator arrive late. We regret any incon- venience that may be caused by circumstances beyond our control.

BY CHARLES WILSON* I T is difficult to know what influence the recent publication of material about scientific education in Russia had on the British Government; there can be...

BY CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS H E was born some sixty years ago, the son of a small farmer. At the age of eighteen he ran away from home, seeing that, if he remained in Malta, there...

BY JOSEPH DEAN F were a Member of Parliament, endowed with the consti- tutional right to have my questions answered, I would ask the Minister how many prosecutions have been...

NOTICE has been given by Sir FRANCIS Buaperr, that he will, on the introduction of the Mutiny .Bill, move a clause abolishing the punishment of flogging. Every attempt to...

BY JOHNBETJEMAN T HE extremely clever and rather on-the-defensive introduction by John Summerson to the exhibition of the last ten years of British architecture held at the Arts...

/ SHALL be sorry if the Government decide to jam the Greek broadcasts to Cyprus. It is wrong of the Greek Government to use Athens Radio for the purposes for which they are...

are the outcome of their planners and designers. Their hardest lot to bear is those who write about them. Mr. Curran's article is typical of conclusions drawn from looking at...

SIR,—Mr. John Sparrow, the Warden of All Souls, courteously takes me to task for depict- ing the Oxford road controversy in an unduly lurid light. Indeed, in a somewhat...

gentle raillery. He has only to extract deftly a few phrases from the context of Mr. Blake's article to make it seem absurd. We all know too the skill of his advocacy,...

The New Estate Charles Curran, John O'Leary The John Gordon Society Graham Greene, John Sutra Oxford Roads Robert Blake, P. A. Brunt, Osbert Lancaster Free Elections Peregrine...

SIR,—In recognition of the struggle he has maintained for so many years against the insidious menace of pornography, in defence of our hearths and homes and the purity of public...

have grasped the significance of the NHS, the title of your leading article should have surely been 'The Cost of the Medicine-Bottle.' That expensive bone of political...

on Mr. Sparrow's magisterial rebuke to Mr. Blake? Whether or not the latter's account of the Manner in which this totally unnecessary con- troversy has been conducted is wholly...

of February 3. While there is much that is excellent in the present Health Service, it is sad to find the Government still wasting much time and money in applying remedies which...

SIR, — Nowadays all entertainment is on ice, including your political commentary. Mr. Fairlie seldom just takes one step in an argu- ment at a time but, like an enthusiastic...

SIR,—The recently reprinted The Altar Steps is the story of the life and spiritual growth of an Anglo:Catholic clergyman up to his ordina- tion and first curacy. But the first...

Poetic or Poetical ? DARKLING CHILD. By W. S. Merwin. (Arts.) THE writing of a modern verse drama is notoriously among the most difficult exercises that a poet can undertake....

the appearance of a parochial matter, the issue between the London Transport Executive and ourselves over the Leith Hill bus service reflects in miniature a national contro-...

of January 13 in effect impute to the Church, or at any rate to its officers, the employment of somewhat shady tactics in achieving the demolition of a church, I am reluctantly...

dramatic critic, translator of Ibsen, and playwright, and should be grateful for any information your readers can provide. Any letters, press-cuttings, articles, reviews and...

SUPPORTERS of the movement have sometimes suggested that the large size of many 'New Realist' pictures proves the painters' ambition to make public decorations for public...

I WANT to make it clear that when I was writing recently about the relationship between the Independent Television Authority and one of the contracting companies, Associated...

The COURT JESTER. (Plaza.) The Court Jester finds Danny Kaye in a mediaeval England amusingly if not brilliantly parodied by authors-cum-directors Norman Panama and Melvin...

Noble Savage BY PETER QUENNELL C ARLYLE was a professed stoic, totally unacquainted with the virtues of silence. So his loyal but sharp- tongued wife considered; and subsequent...

BUGLES AND A TIGER. By John Masters. (Michael Joseph, 16s.) 'IN England I had tried to ape the fashionable ignorance of India, but now already I found myself resisting England's...

THE MEMOIRS OF MICHAEL KAROLYI. (Jonathan Cape, 35s.) MEMOIRS. By Admiral Nicholas Horthy. (Hutchinson, 21s.) BUT for the war most of us would look on Admiral Horthy as the head...

'I WAS happily sitting with my partner on the gilded chairs tied together with his handkerchief as was the fashion, when I saw a strange sight. Here was Marcel Proust crossing...

suspense thriller, from a writer who can usually be relied on to cajole the reader into accepting an impossible plot before stunning him with a rational solution. Here, however,...

Dogged detection by Inspector Jimmy Waghorn, after a com - mercially successful painter, much envied by colleagues at the local Art Club, is found dead in a farmer's...

EYE WITNESS. By Noel Monks. (Frederick Muller, 16s.) AMONG the illusions that die hard is the one about war correspon- dents being the romantic, adventurous figures they were...

novel which leans heavily on contrivance. A New England lawyer, engaged simultaneously in defending a client charged with murder and shielding the woman he believes to be...

THE BLUNDERER. By Patricia Highsmith. (Cresset Press, 15s.) Relentlessly single-minded novel of suspense, as tactically ingenious as Miss Highsmith's earlier Strangers on a...

Murder of an art student in an English country town, setting a satisfactorily tricky problem for a cautious police inspector. Reliably constructed, in spite of a solution which...

melodrama, with a tearful and bedridden heroine who worries about her 'tainted blood' inherited from a pirate ancestor, hears ghostly voices in the middle of the night, and...

6d.) Murderous happenings in an old house in Boston's Back Bay, where first the aged Miss Bellamy's companion and then Miss Bellamy herself are found mysteriously dead....

(Heinemann, 10s. 6d.) 'Boy, the way you managed to keep Gloster all tied up in knots, even when he had you on the run as far as the facts were concerned, is one of the greatest...

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD. By Patrick Byrne. (Staples, 12s. 6d.) The Wildes of Merrion Square revealed talent enough in Patrick Byrne to suggest he would make a worthy biographer...

SWEET AND SOUR. By John O'Hara. (Cresset Press, 12s. 6d.) THIS is a collection of short pieces written for the book page of a New Jersey Sunday paper. There is very little...

6d.) Eventful. thriller, with an Austrian mountain setting, in which an English fencing instructor, once a Labour MP, finds himself entangled in an inordinately complicated spy...

THE first two of these books are both to do with the sailing of small craft for pleasure, yet they could hardly be more different in con- tent. In The Crest of the Wave, Uffa...

THOUGH not necessarily, as some people might claim; artistically immoral, propagandist fiction tends to be tedious, and it is a measure of Edith Pargeter's skill. and of her...

By CUSTOS THE Chancellor's first speech 'pulled the plug out' of the recovery in the stock markets which had developed towards the end of last week. Although it had been denied...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IT is certainly 'a matter of the most desperate urgency,' as Mr. Macmillan told the National Production Advisory Council last week, 'that the whole...

When I visited it, the pond was frozen, and the ice was covered with a confectioner's dust- ing of snow. I stood and looked around for a while, admiring the glitter of sunlight...

BY IAN NIALL FOR me, at least, trees arc as much part of a place as the habitations of man. At the ap- proach to a village on a hill near us two trees were to be seen until a...

BY PHILIDOR No. 36. G. HUME (2nd Prize, 'Good Companions,' 1921) WHITE: (II men) BLACK (14 , men) WHrfE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. Solution to last...

poor cat is not the only creature afflicted With curiosity. I came along the side of the wood just before dusk and heard the first owl call up in the pine trees. Something...

Boxes of healthy leek and onion seedlings are to be prized when it comes to laying out the vegetable garden. In wet or hard weather, when little can be done outside, it pays to...

recognised daddy,"birth - day—how celebrated, those present, gifts, etc.,' first brushes own teeth' and so on. A prize of £5 is offered for a similar record of stages in the...

ACROSS 1 Shades of the RAF! (6, 7) 9 Headgear for a Ctinadian hero (9). 10 How old is the moon? (5) 11 The artist is here to stay (5). 12 Hid spiral (anag.) (9). 13 Backward...

V. PATTERSON , 65 The Rise, Glasnevin, Dublin, and MRS. B. TOCHER, 23 Woodside Road. Worthing, Sussex. 1

There has recently been published a History of Golf by Robert Browning. Competitors were asked to imagine that this was the work of the poet, and for the usual prize, to provide...