and acted. Seven Cabinet Ministers went, among them Mr. Selwyn Lloyd (who refused a peerage), Sir David Eccles (who didn't), Mr. Harold Watkinson and Dr. Charles Hill. A few...

N o doubt Mr. Macmillan's abrupt action was forced on him sooner than he might have wished by speculation in the press, which (how- ever prompted) must be taken as the token of...

T fiE roof of the world is, paradoxically, a comparatively safe place for nations to quar- rel on. China and India are equally alive to the insuperable logistic problems which...

I NTERNAL demands for reform and a desire to impress Common .Market countries shaped Franco's Cabinet changes last week. The . harsh_ austerity imposed on workers, together with...

Pr HERE now scents sonic slight hope of agree- ' ment on a nuclear test ban treaty, if, as appears, the West's new methods of detection render obsolete the arguments about...

R. MAUDL1NG'S last act as Colonial Secre- tary was an encouraging omen for his appointment as Chancellor. For his land purchase scheme in Kenya shows a rare combination of...

From MURRAY KEMPTON NEW YORK H ARLEM, with due consideration for Prime Minister Nkrumah's pretensions, remains the most famous Negro community on earth. Like Mississippi, it...

prospective Liberal candidate for Oxford City, has asked me to make sure that I get the first name right of Mr. Ifor Davies, the Labour Member for Gower, if I've any further...

que's - Lions I should declare my own interests, which can most simply be described as highbrow 0 0 the one hand and lowbrow on the other. The areas which seem to me unhealthy...

out as clearly as I had expected in the post-Pilkington argumentation. Everyone seems to be agreed that the introduction of commercial competition THE SPECTATOR, JULY 20. 1 962...

course, there's a mighty detonation like Dr. Leavis's Richmond Lecture, but literary controversy is on the whole a tame business in the south these days; and metropolitan...

I vE no doubt the Prime Minister found him- self pressed for time at the end of last week, but it's still a great pity that he didn't make the effort and get all the face-saving...

rough 00 the Duke of Wellington when he wrote: Great Captain, who takest such pains To prove--what is granted—liem. COn. With how moderate a portion of brains Some heroes...

By HENRY FAIRLIE IF the Conservative Party were not in its I eleventh year of office, and if the Government were not in electoral difficulties, the new Cabinet would be...

By JOHN COLE 0 NE of the reconstituted Cabinet's most diffi- cult decisions this winter will be about the railways. With the National Union of Railway- men's conference now...

The Stimulus of Competition By RICHARD BAILEY ECEN1 discussions in Brussels have concen- trated so much attention on the Common- wealth that the problems facing British...

By R. A. CLINE AWYERS hanker after continuity. Each new case has to be spun out of a previous one, if humanly possible. In the lawyers' paradise there are never new laws, only...

By KENNETH HOPKINS F recent years, as everybody knows, a splen- did new industry has grown up—the buying a nd selling in bulk of papers, documents, manu- s cripts, letters,...

issue of July 6 of 'barely perceptible mergings of mean- ing' in the wording of the Pilkington Report. No doubt he is right. But what about this example from his own article:...

Barnard PaY' TV J. B. Williams Common Market Albert Maria Goitres Where's Mr. Donnelly? Renate Prince Sleep-Walking Lionel H. Grouse What Mr. Hoggart Said Maurice Bruce, Roy...

Crossbow has received plenty of publicity but little attention. The comments on it, whether in the Observer; the Telegraph or the Spectator, have concentrated, without...

S1R, — On September 29, 1961, in this paper, Mr. Desmond Donnelly not only offered all conceivable support to any demonstration by British nuclear disarmers in Red Square (he...

Carson, and as one of the spoilt children of the Commonwealth, record my fear that Britain's entry into the European Community will be a severe blow to the economies of...

so cogently that 1 hesitate to put forward some points he has overlooked. The shortage of channels. This exists only if Pay TV is thought of as something which must be pumped...

already been collected, so us to avoid unnecessary list of some 3,500 words and phrases which hav e anyone who is interested in the project will write to me c/o Routledge and...

SIR,—Starbuck has unfortunately been misled in preparing his 'Spectator's Notebook' for your issue of July 6. As chairman of the conference concerned I must point out, in...

little piece about 'Richard Hoggart's talk to adult education tutors in a recent 'Spectator's Notebook.' Still, as a member of the conference and chairman of Mr. Hoggart's...

argues with, or even addresses, an organisation which simply ignores one's letters. A friend of mine has devised a very effective way of coping with this problem. Whenever he...

not think that, as Mr. Fleming implies, a knowledge ot. Portuguese was among them. The relevant passage from Boswell's Life (Chapter IV) reads: 'Having mentioned that he had...

SIR,—Torture was necessary in Malaya_ pleads Mr. Adeane, who obviously disliked it. Necessary for what? We never caught Ching Peng and after a ten-year war in which we used...

SIR,—It has occurred to me that my reference to Mr. Geoffrey Gorer in my review last week of The Moons of Paradise by Mr. Mervyn Levy might be misunderstood. 1 was thinking of...

when I read the remarks of Cyril Ray (whom I presume to be a journalist) on the British Railways Harwich-Hook night service, whilst making my umpteenth crossing on this route....

of my husband, G. D. H. Cole, who died in 1959. As your readers are probably aware, the scope of his activities was wide; but he kept very few'personal papers. I should be...

phobia about British Railways cross-Channel ser- vices to get the better of him. Please assure him that i (and doubtless many others) would be de- lighted to spend the rest, of...

Half-Cockpit By BAMBER GASCOIGNE Chichester Festival Theatre.— WHETHER by accident or de- sign the Royal Shakespeare Company walked away with the thunder earmarked for...

Asser Unseated By JOHN GOWER W HO wrote Asset's Life of Alfred?' It was daunting, as one settled down for the final session of the Anglo-American Conference of Historians, to...

Trainload of Trombones By ISABEL QUIGLEY The Music Man. (Warner.)— THERE'S no doubt where the best fun (and the best every- thing else, come to that) is to be found this week:...

Strings to the Loot By CLIFFORD HANLEY In the first, place, there isn't much doctrinal validity in commercial television in its present form. Mr. Thomson has attacked the...

Mystery Motorist Br CHRISTOPHER SYKES T HE decline of Lawrence of Arabia's reputa- tion is one of the most catastrophic in recent fat! It is easy to see why the disaster has...

Perceval's Narrative. Edited by Gregory Bate- son. (Hogarth, 42s.) At A superficial glance it might seem odd that this book should appear on the list of a general publisher....

P ersonal Experience, 1939 - 1946. By the Rt. Hon. Lord Casey. (Constable, 30s.) WHEN Lord Lothian, British Ambassador to ' A merica, arrived in New York in November, 1 940 , he...

Britain's Locust Years, 1918-1940. By William McElwee. (Faber, 25s.) THROUGHOUT the first half of Britain's Locust Years, William McElwee is content to relate the story; he...

Happy Days. By Samuel Beckett. (Faber, 9s. 6d.) What does it mean? he says—What's it meant to mean?—and so on—lot more stuff like that—usual drivel.. . . And you, she says'...

Marshal of France. By Jon Manchip White. (Hamish Hamilton, 35s.) THE life of Maurice de Saxe, Marshal of France in the service of Louis XV, has been little known in Britain,...

The New Architecture of Europe. By G. E. Kidder Smith. (Pelican Books, 10s. 6d.) iTIE. American author of this text-and-picture guide to 225 post-war buildings in sixteen...

As every novelist knows, the English don't have souls and to pretend that they have is to involve oneself in a vast amount of unnecessary work. It would be simpler to write a...

The Harvesters. By Cesare Pavese. Translated by A. E. Murch. (Peter Owen, 18s.) ON the dust jacket of the English translation of Paesi Tuoi, which has just appeared under the...

R y NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Dear Reggie, I have been so frightfully busy sacking so many of your colleagues—1 would have done it a month ago but i was told Hitler • choSe June for...

Tile Art and Architecture of Ancient America. By George Kubler. (Penguin Books, 84s.) 1- 112 Tate Gallery exhibition of Mexican Art ' 3 ( 1953 left an impression of cruelty and...

By CUSTOS T HE Stock Exchange reaction to the Mac- millan purge was one of extreme caution. The City assumes that there will be a change in economic policy — towards...

14 °NOON County Freehold and Leasehold Properties Ltd. has substantially increased the to tal group income and the net revenue after a higher tax charge, for the year ended...

Chaos ex Machina By LESLIE ADRIAN A neighbour tells me that she wanted part of her Kenwood liquidiser replaced and rang Kenwood's London. number to ask for advice. A rather...

By CYRIL RAY ISLINGTON used to be a par- ticularly Londonish part of London, but it sometimes seems, these days, as though every corner of the world is Arch Barbecue' hag...

At the end of a recent luncheon in a private room at Pimm's in the City, the managing d ire. ; for of that restaurant gave his guests no t cognac, but an Armagnac--and one t h...