17 MARCH 1967

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Britain and the new Europe

The Spectator

`Wilson sure de Gaulle will say yes' ran the startling headline splashed across the front page of the first edition of last Sunday's Observer, above the name of that news-...

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The ghost of Panmunjom

The Spectator

First the bombing of the Thainguyen steel works, then the heaviest series of air raids on North Vietnam for the past four months: the Americans this week have once again stepped...

Portrait of the week

The Spectator

most: PERFIDIOUS French very nearly said 'Non' to the General after all: Sunday's second round of voting left the Gaullists with only a wisp of a majority, Foreign Minister...

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The other Mr Wilson

The Spectator

POLITICAL COMMENTARY ALAN WATKINS Just over five months ago, at a dinner given to commemorate the birth—or perhaps it was the death—of Ramsay MacDonald, Mr Harold Wilson...

Doggerel

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CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS I Six little pigs joined the Market. One little pig stayed at home, Requiring more time to consider The text of the Treaty of Rome. II If governments have...

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The worst of both worlds?

The Spectator

FRANCE MARC ULLMANN Paris—At ten past ten last Sunday evening M Maurice Couve de Murville was declared defeated. Half an hour later a spokesman for General de Gaulle told...

Ticking time-bomb

The Spectator

ADEN PHILIP GOODHART, MP Visitors to the offices of the British high com- mission at Al Ittihad, the headquarters of the South Arabian Federation, still have to edge past...

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Life with father

The Spectator

SVETLANA TIBOR SZAMUELY Under a dictatorship nobody can be really happy: the beneficiaries of tyranny are caught in the same inexorable grip as its victims. This essential...

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What Disraeli would do

The Spectator

OPPOSITION ROBERT BLAKE Disraeli is regarded as the most potent figure in the traditional folklore of the Tory party —and rightly so, if sometimes for the wrong reasons. Yet,...

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SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

J. W. M. THOMPSON So far the Americans have come out of the Svetlana Stalina episode extraordinarily badly. Stalin's daughter obviously can throw a unique light on Soviet...

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Dear diary

The Spectator

THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN Of all the features in a serious newspaper the diary is the one most likely to cause trouble and bring in the lawyers. Everyone secretly wants to get...

Stern and wild

The Spectator

TELEVISION STUART HOOD Scotland is in no sense an easy country to pro- vide with an acceptable television service. The bulk of the population is concentrated in a narrow strip...

A hundred years ago

The Spectator

From the 'Spectator,' 16 March 1867—The New Englanders seem to be in a panic about the Canadian Federation, which they call a breach of the Monroe doctrine, as it will tend to...

Page 9

Chess no. 326

The Spectator

PHILIDOR Specially contributed by Richard Hancock (Iver, Buckinghamshire). Black to play and help White to mate him in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 325...

Weight and see

The Spectator

MEDICINE JOHN ROWAN WILSON Most men have some secret demon inside them which they find themselves condemned to fight throughout the years of their adult life—lust, envy,...

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Politicians and corruption

The Spectator

PERSONAL COLUMN J. H. PLUMB William Ewart Gladstone, the Victorian states- man, was occasionally forced to reply to a personal letter when he was sitting at his desk in the...

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Henry James's unravished brides BOOKS

The Spectator

C. B. COX Henry James's treatment of sex has tantalised and mystified his commentators. When his young heroines, with their extraordinary inno- cence and purity, associate with...

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Open mind

The Spectator

NEVILLE BRAY BROOKE This book is concerned with the open mind, the life of the spirit, and the intimations of mortality that can be interpreted from daily, or even hourly,...

Race, Community and Conflict: A Study of Sparkbrook by John

The Spectator

Rex and Robert Moore (Institute of Race Relations/OUP 50s) Prejudice is real DONALD G. MACRAE Our sociological knowledge about our society is based on a paradox. Money and...

Of the plain way

The Spectator

JOHN HOLLOWAY I believe the farmers hate My flower-laden paddock. Three years I Wrenched at the hay with the rotary Roaring, stinking, stalling on the hummocks: Now, I have...

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Men in revolt

The Spectator

RONALD HINGLEY The complete story of Russian terrorism is one of the most fascinating never told . . . never told, that is, in its full span from Karakazov's unsuccessful...

Unscrambling an Empire: A Critique of British Colonial Policy 1956-66

The Spectator

by W. P. Kirkman (Chatto and Windus 35s) Decline and fall DOUGLAS BROWN The essential truth about decolonising is that the retreating imperialism has no choice of heirs....

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The Investigating Officer by Frederick L. Keefe (Hamish Hamilton 30s)

The Spectator

NEW NOVELS A question of guilt DAVID GALLOWAY Very Like a Whale by Ferdinand Mount (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 25s) ) Waiting for Winter by John O'Hara (Hodder and Stoughton...

Murderers all

The Spectator

MAURICE PRIOR This month's batch of crime novels is pretty diverse and rather more deductive-slanted than usual. A fine example of an oblique murder mystery is Lonely Heart...

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CINEMA

The Spectator

Babbling Brook PENELOPE HOUSTON The Marat/Sade (Odeon, Haymarket, 'X' cer- tificate) Grand Prix (Casino Cinerama Theatre, 'A' certificate) Few things are more awkward—more...

The Ivy league ARTS

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HENRY TUBE Time in Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels is not the healer, but the revealer. If there is one thing a character can be certain of as he enters her stately pages it is...

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Benito Cereno (Mermaid)

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THEATRE Poet bites poet HILARY SPURLING With the theatre in its present fuddled state, drifting between a frowsy naturalism and the even drabber, complacent, narrow-minded...

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Little old masters

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ART ROY STRONG It must be deliberate planning on the part of the Courtauld Institute to have an entrance to their galleries so stealthily concealed. The sur- prise of finding...

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CUSTOS

The Spectator

Market notes The long three-week account on the Stock Exchange opened firmly and was helped by the favourable trade returns, the 'gap' being cut in February to £3 million. It...

The importance of Mr Lever MONEY

The Spectator

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT It was good to read this headline in a Sunday paper: 'Lever: High Pay and Profits Vital.' The speech to which this referred was made by a new junior member...

Crossword no. 1265

The Spectator

Across 1 Sweet product of dairy and distillery? (12) 9 Brown's capable stock-in-trade (9) 10 Felix the lightweight (5) 11 Florence's sisters (6) 12 Action ahead means of a...

Solution next week

The Spectator

Solution to Crossword no. 1264. Across. 1 Bonesetter 6 Parr 10 Ought 11 Bracketed 12 Titulars 13 Spiral IS Boob 16 Vale 17 Elfin 20 Candy 21 Lark 22 Mere 24 Sherry 26 Hcrakle,...

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Penny plain

The Spectator

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN The decibels of the decimal dialogue have crashed over my tolerance threshold. What with the Government pounding away, the Con- federation of...

Built-up sector

The Spectator

JOHN BULL Some of the more spectacular casualties of the setback in the economy have been the big con- struction groups. John Laing has stopped mak- ing profits for the time...

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A letter to my son

The Spectator

LETTERS From I. B. H. Tutyne, Bishop Frank Hough- ton, Rev John Huxtable, Martin Shalkross, Mrs Elizabeth M. Kemp, Andrew R. Gaynor, J. L. Lord, Rev Gordon Wilson, T. E. W....

Sir: I would like to congratulate Simon Raven on an

The Spectator

admirable piece of paternal advice, which his son will undoubtedly appreciate before he is much older; I know I have done myself ever since my father spoke to me in such a...

Sir: Although a regular subscriber to the SPEC- TATOR I

The Spectator

have little idea of the ages of your contri- butors. I had always thought of Mr Simon Raven as a man in his early twenties making his living by Perpetrating odd and immature...

Sir: In reviewing Pamela Hansford Johnson's hook On Iniquity, John

The Spectator

Rowan Wilson (10 March) says that most ordinary people feel 'that the intellectual leaders of our society have with great brilliance and ingenuity destroyed most of the moral...

On iniquity

The Spectator

Sir: John Rowan Wilson's book review last week contained wise reflections on current trends in journalism, television, the cinema and the theatre, such as I have longed to see...

The purpose of education

The Spectator

Sir: In 'Personal Column' (3 March) Anthony Bor- ges, presents an admirably argued point of view. His proposition that the real function of education is to show us how to read...

Sir: I am a Free Church minister, entertaining perhaps some

The Spectator

of the 'poisonous enthusiasms' from which Simon Raven believes the Church of England to be free: it is 'a quiet and decent superstition.' Anglicans do not need me to come to...

Sir: Have you the courage to print a letter from

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a mother to her daughter, whose virginity she wishes her to retain, as against such a man as Simon Raven exhorts his son to be. And have you also the courage to record the...

Sir: I think I must be one of many readers

The Spectator

of the SPECTATOR over a long period who are surprised and distressed that you should have printed the article by Simon Raven in your issue of 10 March. I pass over his cheap...

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In for a month

The Spectator

Sir: Mr Giles Playfair writes (10 March) that 'in the sense that thousands of men are sleeping three to a cell originally built for one, imprisonment in 1967 is a less civilised...

Sir: 'Juvescence' was Mr Eliot's own idea; 'Beet- hovian' (Letters,

The Spectator

10 March) was not mine but the printer's. Anthony Burgess 24 Glebe Street, Chiswick, London W4

Sir: In the absence of my chairman, now in Italy,

The Spectator

may I express very humble appreciation of the excellent and authoritative article by Mr Joseph Macleod (24 February)? The Italian government, the great national and...

Mr Wilson and his dogs

The Spectator

Sir: May it be pointed out to Mr Desmond Don- nelly, *41 , , that Pharaoh and Moses are not to be found in the book of Genesis? (SPECTATOR, 10 March, page 272). L. G. Sargent

Florence apres le deluge

The Spectator

Sir: I should like to express my deep appreciation of Joseph Macleod's article 'Florence glints le deluge in your issue of 24 February. It is entirely accurate, both with regard...

Inhospitable Shaws

The Spectator

Sir : Mrs Spurling is entitled to dislike Shaw as much as she pleases but when she is the critic of such a reputable periodical as the SPECTATOR she should know better than to...

Sir: Your article The Barnsbury scandal' will have been read

The Spectator

with sympathy and understanding by many residents in Islington. The need for an Ombudsman is likely to be felt in other parts of the borough in the near future. Last May the...

The Barnsbury scandal

The Spectator

Sir: I have been supplied with a copy of the letter signed by Mr Christopher Higgins, chairman of the Greater London Council planning and communications committee, and dated 6...

Sir: With apologies for harping on dogs, may I remark

The Spectator

on an unsuspected link between Harold Wilson and the Virgin Queen, who might usually be supposed to have absolutely nothing in common? Was it not the first Elizabeth who said,...

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AFTERTHOUGHT

The Spectator

JOHN WELLS 'Life is just one damned thing after another.' —Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915). With ruffles beginning to blossom once again from the breasts of our dandies, and rich...