14 JANUARY 1955

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This is the theory; it clearly has nothing to do

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with the facts. Ostensibly, the much abused Court of Inquiry whose report brought about the settlement was an independent fact-finding body with the job of clarifying the...

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

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T HE one \ thing that emerges clearly from the settlement of the railway dispute is that it is not a settlement at all. The NUR has got what it wanted, but the question of where...

As it is, the unions have again promised to urge

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their members to co-operate in improving efficiency; the Transport Commission, to judge from Sir Brian Robertson's remarks, is reflecting with an easy conscience that what has...

SPECTATOR

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LS I ABL1SHED 1828 No. 6603 FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1955 PRICE 7d.

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JANUS

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W ILSON HARRIS succeeded Sir Evelyn Wrench as Editor of the Spectator in 1932 and occupied the chair for twenty years. The world was moving from disillusion through dismay...

CHAOS IN KENYA

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A new operation against the Mau Mau was launched on Tuesday. Almost the entire military force in Kenya is engaged in a sweep of the Aberdare forests, where most of the remaining...

Notes

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THE KNOWLAND BLOCKADE Senator Knowland, with his flair for saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment, chose the time of Mr. Hammarskjold's arrival in Pekin to renew his demand...

Aragon and Castille. This must be the first time since

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the eighteenth century that the order founded by Ignatius Loyala has failed to carry off the prize, in a struggle for the ear of a future monarch.

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DANGER IN THE AIR

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piston engines. There must be sympathy with the Corporation for the Comet set-back. When it tried to pioneer British machines it suffered severe loss. But it is not like...

. MENDES-FRANCE GRINDS HIS AXE The announcement that M. Mendes-France

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proposes to introduce a bill altering the electoral system to single-member constituencies brings a new element into French politics. Pre- .aimably, the increased reliance of...

HOUSEWIVES' CHOICE

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LIME GROVE CHUCHUNDRA

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If the BBC should think of adopting an animal for its ,ymbol, an appropriate choice would be Chuchundra, the nusk-rat in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, who was always too timid to come out...

Assuring us that there is 'steadily accumulating evidence to show

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that smoking greatly increases the risk of developing lung cancer,' the British Medical Journal now cheerfully adds that there is 'also a clear-cut relationship between...

SLIGHTLY METAPHYSICAL

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A little over a year ago the Select Committee on Estimates scourged the Home Office for the incompetence, muddle, and lack of leadership it had displayed over Civil Defence...

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NICARAGUA seems to be a rather awkward neighbour. Last summer

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she connived at, and must to some extent have assisted, a military pronunciamento by Guatemalan ertiles which, with the help of a few aircraft initially based on Nicaraguan...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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LAST WEEK the New Statesman published a short letter in which Miss Rose Macaulay. Sir Harold Nicolson, Mr. Isaiah Berlin and Mr. Raymond Mortimer protested, in what struck me as...

Commentary

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THE SCENE is laid. Shortly before Questions end, on the day or the day after Parliament reassembles, Sir Walter Monckton will come from behind the Speaker ' s chair. There will...

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QUIZZING THE READER

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1..., AST year we invited a proportion of our readers to answer a questionnaire designed to elicit their particular likes and dislikes and much else of more general value to us....

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rutr, DUBLIN Evening Mail last week printed the following account

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of a great moment :

UN SUNDAY NIGHT I attended a recording of 'The Goon

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Show,' a BBC programme to which, something tells me, not every reader of the Spectator listens with regularity. It took place in a charming old theatre in Camden Town before an...

A FEW WEEKS AGO the wife of a pensioner in

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our village died after being for some years what is known as not quite right in, the head. A friend of mine, for whom the old man does odd jobs in the garden, undertook to help...

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A Survey of Viet Nam

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By P. T. SIMPSON-JONES* I N accordance with the terms Of the Geneva agreement signed last July, Viet' Nam was once more divided into two zones. The northern half was handed over...

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Wilson Harris

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By R, A. SCOTT-JAMES A FEW weeks ago I saw Wilson Harris at his beloved Reform Club exuding vitality, full of plans for the future, apparently as alert, active and sanguine as...

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No Phoenix in Norfolk

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By ANTHONY HARTLEY Diss, S. Norfolk THE POSTER on the door of the Corn Hall said DISS YOUTH FOR CHRIST BILLY GRAHAM presents MR. TEXAS—FOR ONE WEEK ONLY. But inside nothing...

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Homosexuality

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A biological homosexual's view I N pointing out some of the disabilities from which biological homosexuals (of whom I am one) suffer, I am demanding not sympathy for them, but...

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Sidelight

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By COMPTON MACKENZIE JF IFTY years ago in February I played Pheidippides in The Clouds of Aristophanes when it was given by the OUDS in the New Theatre, Oxford. My father...

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Country Life

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By IAN NIALL W HEN I passed W.'s farm yesterday it was already dark. A light showed from the shippon and there was a gleam behind the curtains of the house. It all looked very...

Starling Assemblies Writing about the assembling of starling flocks before

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going to roost, a reader who lives in Hampshire remarks : 'Close I to our garden there are several large trees, bare of leaves, to which the starlings come before it gets dark....

Bob has more stories of this countryside than anyone I

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know. Last week, when he was 'on the sick,' I met him on the road and he pointed out to me a man he said was the biggest rogue he had ever encountered, and went on : 'He don't...

City and Suburban

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B y JOHN BETJEMAN FAMOUS English hotel is to be destroyed this spring. It is the Royal George at Rugby, whose thoughtful Classic facade gives such character to this Midland mar...

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Letters to the Editor

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Independent Spectator Peter Kelly, Desmond Albrow Dying Liberalism Geoffrey Aclartd, Allan Batham, M. R. Tannahill, Elliott Dodds Film Censorship Playing to Rule Enosis The...

SIR,—Trimmer is completely wrong when he says that the Liberal

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Party has nothing to say to the electorate. Would he agree that it matters if the people of a democratic country lose both interest in, and respect for, the institution of...

SIR, —There was a time when the splendid dullness and unpretentious

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lay-out of the Spectator had a certain nostalgic charm. Those days have obviously gone the way of 'independence' if your issue of January 7 is any guide to future policy. It...

SIR,—One assumes that Trimmer's 'Political Commentary' is intended to be

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provocative, in the best sense. At the moment, however, its carping unoriginality provokes nothing more than irritation and slightly sardonic amuse- ment. Twice in the last...

SIR,—Trimmer, in your issue of January 7, has a queer

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idea of social and political development. All is well, provided there is no progress, no change! He says '. . . since 1867, when the conditions of parliamentary demo- cracy...

99 Gower Street, London', W.C.1

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Euston 3221

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SIR,—Michael Croft's letter about his film script of Spare the

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Rod reveals an astonishing ineptitude on the part of the British Board of Film Censors. Assuming that the film script remained faithful to the novel—and the tone of his letter...

SIR,—Trimmer could scarcely be wider of the \ mark than in

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speaking of co-ownership as 'a scheme which has been worked out by Liberals in no more substantial detail than by Con- servatives,' and in saying, 'To encourage co- ownership...

FILM CENSORSHIP

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SIR,—Before we had the 'X' certificate, we could not have had the film of Spare the Rod because we had not a certificate that was really for adults only. Now that we have an 'X'...

SIR,—I chanced to pick up a copy of your current

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isiue over the weekend and was some- what amused to read Michael Croft's letter on film censorship, It was the type of letter I should have prob- ably written myself some...

I have not read Mr. Croft's book—a de- ficiency I

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must remedy—so I cannot assess either its literary merits or its documentary accuracy, but I must give my wholehearted support to his protest that 'it is impossible to make a...

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SIR,—Mrs. Lena Jeger in the Spectator, De- cember 31, writes

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of her failure to find Cypriot- Greeks opposed to enosis. Allowances should he made, however, for the fact that Mrs. Jeger's pro-enosis sympathies, as expressed in the House of...

Sta,—Your very severe attack upon the cap- tain of the

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England cricket team is perhaps based upon the acceptance of 'ina'dequate and tendentious information,' which you so rightly deprecated. Later information tells us that at the...

LLOYD GEORGE

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SIR,—As an old Radical and one-time admirer of Lloyd George, I would like to comment. somewhat belatedly, on Henry Fairlic's article of December 10. While agreeing with much...

THE PASSING OF ST. AGATHA'S Stn,—One can but mourn that,

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in Mr. Betjeman's words, St. Agatha's, Landport, should be planned away. It is (should 1 say was?) indeed a noble building, a worthy expression of devout worship and high...

HORSE SENSE

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SIR. — Further to split straws, is it not a fact that the Derby Stakes are won neither by a horse nor a rider, but by a horse owner? E. C.PREECE 75 High Street, Wandsworth, S.W.18

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CINEMA

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To Paris With Love. (Plaza).—Aninial Farm. (Ritz.)--The Bridges of Toko•Ri. (Odeon.)—The Slave. (Cinephone.) OH Pane, Farce, what crimes are committed in thy name! You have only...

Contemporary Arts

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TELEVISION AND RADIO I AM not one of those who listen to the Light Programme variety shows for fun; and until a few days ago I had always beep puzzled by the contradiction of...

ART

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January Mixture THe British Museum Print Room has once again mounted an exhibition of prints and drawings to accompany the Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy. A whole wall...

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BOOKS

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Mr. Berlin's Anti-Determinism By HENRY FAIRLIE M R. ISAIAH BERLIN has one of the most remarkable styles among contemporary writers in ideas. It is both the child and the father...

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Crimean Photographer

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Roger Fenton, Photographer of the Crimean War. His photo- graphs and letters from the Crimea, with an essay on his life and work by Helmut and Alison Gernsheim. (Seeker and...

The King's Rule

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S. R. GARDINER had the habit, so one of my seniors once told me, of working the middle days of the week in the Public Record Office and returning each Friday to Oxford with a...

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Gods and Gryphons

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The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient. By Henri Frankfurt. (Penguin Books, 42s.) The Art of India Through the Ages. By Stella Kramrisch. (Phaidon Press, 37s. 6d.) IF...

An American Actress

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Anna Cora. The Life and Theatre of Anna Cora Mowatt. By Eric Barnes. (Seeker and Warburg, 25s.) AT a careless glance this looks Horridly like one of the usual doctorate theses...

Spectator Competition for Schools

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Three prizes of eight guineas each are offered to boys and girls at school in the United Kingdom or Eire for (a) a story of not more than 1,500 words, (b) an essay of not more...

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Klee

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The Mind and Work of Paul Klee. By Werner Haftmann. (Faber and Faber, £1 10s.) IT is fourteen years since Klee died. Since then the Kunsthistorisch bulldozer has set itself with...

Private View. By Jocelyn Brooke. (James Barrie, 10s. 6d.) THIS

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book consists of four portraits, or essays, in what the blurb calls 'managed autobiography.' There is a first-person narrator wilt) is a little boy in the first and last ones...

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The British Seashore. By H. G. Vcvers. (Rout- ledge, 10s.

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6d.) KAY DICK

A Village by the Jordan. Told by Joseph Barati (Harvill,

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12s. 6d.) THE Russo-Jewish pioneer who founded one of the most famous and one of the earliest collective settlements in Palestine has written, or rather dictated, the story of...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT WHAT is called a 'technical reaction' over- took the New York Stock Exchange at the end of last week and in spite of some re- covery I am not sure that it...

Company Notes

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By CUSTOS THE industrial share markets are now be- ginning to be affected by the fall in British funds. If the yield on War Loan and the other undated stocks continues to rise...

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Some of the definitions in Johnson's Dictionary a r e

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unconventional, e.g.. 'Patron: Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.' For a prize of I'S competitors are asked to invent equally...

Nursery Rhymes for the Times

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SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 254 Report by Allan 0. Waith Many nursery rhymes are based on historical incidents-'Goosey Goosey Gander' was Bishop Gardiner and the 'old man who...

second prize to JOHN BRUCE, 40 Lomond Street, Helensburgh. Chambers'sTwentletirCentury

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Dictionary, New Version, Is recommended for Crosswords A copy of the De Luxe edition of Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary and a book token for one guinea will be awarded...

1

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