18 MAY 1956

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ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6673 FRIDAY, MAY 18, 1956 PRICE 9d.

The Spectator

THE BALANCE OF FEAR

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T HE ending of the London meetings of the UN sub- committee on disarmament has not marked any advance towards agreement. The Western Powers were only able to achieve a common...

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FROGMANIA

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T HE Opposition let slip a good chance on Monday by mishandling the frogman debate by concentrating on and around the frogman episode itself, rather than using it to launch a...

THE VENERABLE SENATOR

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By RICHARD T HE President's appointment of Senator Walter George as his personal ambassador to NATO is at once a beau geste and a shrewd political act. Senator George is greatly...

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CHURCHILL AND CHARLEMAGNE

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By Our German Correspondent Bonn S IR WINSTON CHURCHILL seems to have enjoyed himself at Aachen on Ascension Day setting the cat among the Euro- pean pigeons. The prize-winners...

ODOUR OF BLOOD

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By DARSIE GIME 1 N spite of occasional optimistic statements from M. Lacoste, , the Minister for and Governor-General of Algeria, the shun - lull there does not appear to be...

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Political Commentary

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By HENRY FAIRLIE r r HE Government let it be known last week that it had refused to raise the salaries of MPs and julli ° t Ministers. So far this disclosure has caused little...

Portrait of the Week

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inF the first importance,' the Minister of Labour had proinised; an exaggeration, because this report on automation from the Department of Scientific and Indus- trial Research,...

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IT HAS BEEN clear for some time that the Home

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Office does not feel itself bound by the normal rules of civilised behaviour; but its failure to produce the Casement Diaries is so incomprehen- sible that I think it must be...

A Spectator's Notebook

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1 , () R ONE WHO is such a painstaking, not to say laborious, .student of foreign affairs, Mr. Dulles is astonishingly light- he arted when it comes to making a phrase or giving...

HONGKONG] there is everything to buy from soap and cosmetics,

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eggs and nutmegs. English-looking rosy-cheeked apples priced oddly in Chinese characters. . . .'—The Times Special Correspondent in the first of six articles on a 'Far Eastern...

ALTHOUGH Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth no doubt genuinely thought that his

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first amendment to Mr. Silverman's Bill to abolish the death penalty (that which would have left the supreme punishment for murders committed during robberies) would help the...

ABOUT HALF a century ago A. D. Godley wrote a

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poem about a quarrel over an island between Greece and England. The island that Greece wanted then was not Cyprus. 'The Isle of Wight!' said Parliament, and shuddered at the...

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East and Steer

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BY MARGARET STEWART SUDDEN descent of reporters, commentators, photo- , graphers and newsreel men on the little village of Gwaun-cae-Gurwen, shattering the bleak calm of a West...

BALLADE TO AN OLD FRIEND

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BY C. S. FORESTER What brought you to me? Accident or fate? A punishment or answer to a prayer? A glance towards my shelves reveals you there In seven volumes—no, by now it's...

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The Curragh Affair

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BY BRIAN INGLIS W • HAT the devil is up?' This question alone, from a letter written by Hubert Gough in March, 1914, is enough to dispose of the belief—if it still lingers in...

Mr. Wilson and the Scrolls BY HUGH MONTEFIORE E DMUND WILSON

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has returned to do battle over the Dead Sea Scrolls. In his original article in the New Yorker, published over here in book form, he seems to have had three objects in mind in...

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In Committee I 3 Y DONALD Mcl. JOHNSON, MP H OW well I

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remember when, a young and enthusiastic parliamentary candidate, I taxed the doyen of my political acquaintances on what seemed to be the Political inertness of the inter-war...

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SPECTATOR INDEX , THE full alphabetical i co ndex of

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contents and contribu tors to Spectator olume 195 of the (July-December, 1955) is now available. Orders, and a remittance for 2s. 8d. per copy, should be sent to The Sales...

City and Suburban

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BY JOHN BETJEMAN I HAVE an impression that Cambridge today is rad. 9 1: :. like . what Oxford must have been in the 183 1 Religion is in the air and angels' wings seem to be...

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Under Two Hulls I N the anxious period after Munich our

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arrangements for both taking and interpreting high-altitude aerial photo- graphs were primitive; indeed ' they scarcely existed. ! at erpretation of all photographic...

. VIP ilopettator

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MAY 21, 1831 ZOOLOGICAL Sociew.—The Society has just receivpd a most important addition in the purchase of a male elephant, recently arrived from Madras. . . . The elephant...

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THE MALTESE MAZE

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S1R,—Your issue of April 6 contained an article by Mr. C. Hollis entitled The Maltese Maze.' This article, I regret to say, contain s a number of serious inaccuracies on the la...

Letters to the Editor

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The Webbs Lord Beveridge The Professions and the Bureaucrats John Vaizey The Maltese Maze Fr. Charles G. Vella Dylan Thomas in America Alan Hunter The Salary Squeeze J. A....

99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1

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Euston 3221

THE PROFESSIONS AND THE BUREAUCRATS

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SIR,—It is undoubtedly the case that Mr. Fairlie, in his two artWes on Mr. Turton, has developed an important and overlooked theme, the use of public propaganda in good causes...

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THAT DINNER

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SIR,—The trouble between the Soviet leaders • and the British Labour Party would never have arisen if, instead of dinner, there had been high tea.—Yours faithfully, 40 Carlyle...

131 LAN THOMAS IN AMERICA

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• cannot believe that Mr. Arlott is simply !adulging in a rearguard action in his current letter. There seems rather to be a point at W hich our intelligences fail to come into...

THE SALARY SQUEEZE

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SIR,—Mr. M. R. J. Anderson begins his diffuse article with a remarkable paragraph. If I understand him correctly he is suggesting that hank managers blame 'the credit squeeze'...

IS TEACHING A PROFESSION?

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SIR, — It would be interesting to know on what evidence Mr. Collins has based his generalisa- tions. My own thirty-six years of experience in schools and training colleges as...

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Angry Romantic

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LOOK BACK IN ANGER, By John Osborne. (Royal Court.) IT has not been very often in recent years that we have seen a good first play by a young author on the London stage. Still...

Contemporary Arts

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Cosy Calm To return to the mannered calm of English television after a spell in New York is at once cosy and crueL There, something like 500 hours a day of entertainment,...

Archaic Sophisticate

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Two exhibitions by Italian artists coincide London this month; the sculptor Marini holding an exhibition at the Hanover Gall and ten realists are on view at the Leien stc '...

THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE. By Hugh Mill (Duke of

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York's.) THE thriller in novel form has to be watel tight of plot and well-nigh flawless in acne if it is to attain even moderate success. In he theatre it can be ill-shaped,...

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Almost Ballet

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LES BALLETS DE PARIS DE ROLAND PETIT' (Palace Theatre.) Two familiar and two new ballets, e all O f ' Roland Petit, constitute the programm e the season which opened last week....

Business Jungle

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PATTERNS OF POWER. (GaUMOGt.)--NIGHT- MARE. (Gaumont.)--THE SCARLET HOUR. (PlaZa.)--PORT AFRIQUE. (Odeon, Marble Arch.) —IT'S NEVER TOO LATE. (Rialto.) —THE MARCH HARE. (Odeon,...

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BOOKS

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The English Opium-Eater BY PETER QUENNELL A N Y account of the existence of Thomas De Quincey is apt to recall Gibbon's description of the Byzantine Empire, which (the •...

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The Secret Sacrament

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wAT E , INTO WINE. By E. S. Drawer. (John Murray, 25s.) MI N, in his Apologia, records how deeply impressed he was nglican days by Wiseman's quotation of Securtis iudicat iii te...

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Golden Horn

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.110 1° WHETHER as Byzantium, Constantinople or Istanbul, for I be d twenty-five centuries the City of the Golden Horn has 1 d coveted for its strategic and commercial...

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U Trivia

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l i s s MiTrolta shows herself once more to be a brilliant journalist. e r i article, which is the central piece among the reprints collected ii l 4bie bis volume, reveals the...

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Success Stories

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THE STORY OF THE PEERAGE. By L. G. Pine. (Blackwood, 25S.) MR. PINE'S book is designed to bring the peerage to the people. It derives from lectures delivered to 'something like...

Slinky Splendours

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LES GIRLS. By Constance Tomkinson. (Michael Joseph, 15s.) CONSTANCE TOMKINSON came to London from Canada before the war to be an actress. So as not to starve she became a chorus...

Out to Grass WILLIAM, OR MORE LOVED THAN LOVING. By

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Lord Sadl ° (Chapman and Hall, 7s. 6d.) HERE is the self-portrait of a young man who has the courage fi , his convictions and the capacity to express them clearly, br le , ‘ ,...

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New Novels

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PETER VANS1ITART'S The Game and the Ground (Max Reinhardt, 12s. 6d.) is something that many novels claim to be and aren't—a story of our time; a story, that is, that arises...

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DISINFLATION IN AMERICA

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DAVENPORT n i i° 1 Tly is always of great importance for i i,„acives and particularly so at the present 1 had been kidding myself that Mr. wit "ehnan could afford to take some...

COMPANY NOTES

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By CUSTOS THE present reaction in industrial equity shares should remind the investor that, technically, this is still a bear market. The recent recovery in the index from 170...

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Country Life

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By IAN NIALL Them arc a number of lovely wild blooms that are rarely if ever brought into the house, among them, blackthorn, crab apple, gorse, and hawthorn, which is said to...

CUCUMBERS Ridge cucumbers are worth growing when one has no

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glass-house, and one of the best varieties is King of the Ridge. Regular water- ing, the application of lawn-clippings and, when the fruits fill out, the frequent use of the...

THE THUMPER

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The man who had been busy thumping back the stones and soil in the hole where they have been laying our new water main paused and said, 'You'll be a bit fed up with us lot, eh?'...

MOUNTAIN PONIES

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A pair of young mountain ponies, as alert as deer, stood in the gorse at the foot of the hill, watching as I approached along the rough track. Their mothers were missing, and...

Chess

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By PHILIDOR No. 50. A. COTTACCIII WHITE (7 men) BLACK 16 'tient.. WHITE to play and mate in two moves: Far advanced pawns are sometimes a source of weakness, sometimes of...

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The Amazing Marriage

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A schoolboy of my acquaintance stated in an examination that Charles ll was married to 'Catherine of Uganda.' Competitors were asked to imagine that this interesting. marriage...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. ) hree Set by J. M. Sinclair

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Competitors are asked to name occasions which Max might have illusu ate be hut didn't (e.g., The ilthenteum hears aims death of Little Nell; the Proust familY the Meseglise...

Solution on June I Solution to

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No. 886 on pag e fhe winners of Crossword No 885 are: Mits. M. M. DAVIS, 1 - 80 1 e t 1 0 ' Leamington Spa, and LADY WILES, Holywell, East HotublY. '- Sussex.

SPECTATOR CROSSWORD No. 888

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ACROSS 1 Suitable material, perhaps, for the inebriate's garment of repentance (7). 5 Flowery ending to a legend is perilous (7). 9 It goes all the way round (5). 10 Bugle...