22 MAY 1947

Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK

The Spectator

T HE speed and energy with which Lord Mountbatten is pursuing his central task of arranging for the transfer of power to Indian hands in June, 1948, are commendable in every...

Readjustment After Moscow

The Spectator

One fact which becomes plainer and plainer about the Moscow Conference, as the air is cleared of disappointment and accumulated press comment and Foreign Ministers' desks are...

Page 2

American Arithmetic

The Spectator

The hopes and fears, rumours and denials, and ups and downs of American foreign economic policy are apt to cause such confusion that it is worth while pointing out that...

Wool Test Case

The Spectator

There is no point in mincing words about the proposal of the Robertson Bill to raise the United States tariff on imported wool from 60-75 per cent. to 110-125 per cent. If these...

The Lords and Bankside

The Spectator

The debate in the House of Lords on Monday added materially to the overwhelming weight of opposition expressed in every quarter to the proposed power-station on Bankside. Lord...

No Progress in Greece

The Spectator

Such hope as there was—and there was never very much—that the announcement of the Truman Doctrine would be followed by a speedier movement towards a peaceful settlement in...

Rates and Taxes

The Spectator

The debate on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill is over, and the last word, like the first, was Mr. Dalton's. The efforts of the Opposition to prove that, since the surplus...

Page 3

AT WESTMINSTER

The Spectator

I AST year, when the Conservative Party started their practice 4 of dividing against the Finance Bill as a criticism of financial policy, the Chancellor wound up his speech by...

The Lords and the Transport Bill

The Spectator

There was a time when it seemed just possible that, faced with the hastily drafted and inadequately debated Transport Bill, the House of Lords would take its life in its hands...

Proprietary Medicines

The Spectator

The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, in a report on the sale and advertising of proprietary medicines in which it requests the Minister of Health to bring them under...

Page 4

HUNGER IN GERMANY HERE are many long-term issues of vital

The Spectator

importance to be T faced in Europe today. The dominant short-term issue, so dwarfing all others that they seem relatively insignificant, is hunger in Germany. That would be true...

Page 5

Someone just back from studying the French Army gives me

The Spectator

some interesting information about the rigours of conscript training in that country. Service is for one year, beginning at twenty, and every man, even if detailed for clerical...

The death of Sir John Fischer Williams will waken many

The Spectator

regrets. For some years he had been out of active life, but those who knew him at the Bar, or as adviser to the Reparation Commission at Paris after the last war, or living...

Nothing can be more laudable than that Members of Parliament

The Spectator

should do service wherever there is service to be done. One of them, I see, offers himself publicly thus: COMPANY DIRECTOR, M.P., seeks DIRECTOR- SHIP of established concern...

* * The Liberals are pursuing Mr. Eric Gandar Dower,

The Spectator

M.P., to the death, or what they keeps on hoping will be the death. Under the heading " The Word of a Tory " they reproduce verbatim Mr. Gandar Dower's election address in June,...

The appointment of Mr. Henry Willink as Master of Magdalene

The Spectator

is much more interesting than such appointments usually are. Like the retiring Master, Mr. Ramsay, and his predecessor, A. C. Benson, the Master - Elect is an Etonian, but they,...

* *

The Spectator

I have not heard for some time a more brilliant or devastating speech than Lord Samuel delivered on the Bankside power-station project in the House of Lords on Monday. The...

A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

T HE interesting account in Tuesday's Times of the results of an enquiry into the position of the small local paper in America naturally provokes comparisons with the fate of...

Page 6

M. RAMADIER'S FIGHT

The Spectator

By D. R. GILLIE T HE Fourth Republic has entered a new phase of its history this month. The renewed difficulties of the ordinary citizen in search for food—mainly bread and...

Page 7

LABOUR AT MARGATE

The Spectator

By KENNETH YOUNGER, M.P. T HE 1947 Conference of the Labour Party, which is due 'to start at Margate on May 26th, is likely to differ as strikingly from last year's Bournemouth...

Page 8

AMERICA'S WHEAT RECORD

The Spectator

By GUNTHER STEIN New York. O Nthe sun-bathed fields of Texas the winter wheat is getting ripe for an early harvest. All over the United States the winter crop is far advanced...

Page 9

KOREAN TUG-OF-WAR

The Spectator

By ROBERT T. OLIVER T HE paramount question of whether we are to have one world or two will receive a partial answer in the negttiations by which Russia and the United States...

Page 10

THE TRANQUIL SUDAN

The Spectator

By MICHAEL LANGLEY Khartoum. Across the Blue Nile from the palace lie three huge piles of millet, 5o,000 tons of the country's staple foodstuff, stacked by the Govern- ment as...

Page 11

TRANSPORT THE GUNMEN ?

The Spectator

By SIR ALEXANDER PATERSON I T is commonly noticed in history that the problems facing govern- ments ments are recurrent, and that the proposals for their solution are similarly...

Page 12

ANGLER'S APOLOGIA

The Spectator

By E. LOUDON " W HAT is it," asked a Latin at dinner, " that the Englishman enjoys about fishing? " Most of us there were fishermen, as far as time and business allowed. If we...

Page 13

MARGINAL COMMENT

The Spectator

By HAROLD NICOLSON O N Friday evenings I have been listening to an item in the Home Service entitled " Twenty Questions." The Radio Times, with its accustomed gentility,...

Page 14

ART

The Spectator

" ART is either a plagiarist of a revolutionist," said Gauguin. There are at the moment exceptional opportunities for studying afresh the work of three English painters who were...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS

The Spectator

THE CINEMA " How Green Was My Valley " (Tatler).—" The Gay Parisienne " (Rialto).—" The Barber of Seville " (Academy).—" Chasing the Blues " (Non-Theatrical Distribution) THE...

MUSIC

The Spectator

IF there were members of the Albert Hall audience on April 15 who had experienced the occupation of their country by the Germans, they must have been surprised to hear the...

Page 15

Pink Feathers Someone, whose letter has vanished, sent me the

The Spectator

other day a few, brightly pink leatChers picked up on the shore near St. David's in Pembrokeshire. They are an interesting find. It seems to be tolerably certain—on the...

In My Garden That excellent organisation, the National Book League,

The Spectator

has just issued (from 7 Albemarle Street, W. 1) a most admirable list of Garden Books for the Amateur, under 21 heads (price 9d.). It is even daintily illus- trated. I am so...

Postage on this issue : Inland, lid.; Overseas, ld.

The Spectator

Noise and Song • It is said, with undoubted truth,

The Spectator

that birds can be stirred to song by the stimulus of a 'cello or fiddle. The experiment has been made successfully with the nightingale. Other than musical sounds seem to...

Tan countryside and its preservation do not much concern that

The Spectator

most beneficent body, the Pilgrim Trust (though last year it gave £1,000 to the C.P.R.E.). It is concerned more with bricks and stones than trees and rivers ; but every...

" IesEN? " said Miss Modern, when I mentioned last

The Spectator

week's broad- cast of A Doll's House. " Oh, he's a complete back number, as out of date as Queen Victoria herself. Just look at those side- whiskers! " I don't know whether this...

Absent Icemen The theory that Buchan or other periods of

The Spectator

warmth or cold or wet or wind have fixed dates in the year's calendar has been abruptly con-, tradicted by recent experience. The Festival of the Three Icemen (which has a wide...

Page 16

THE PROVISION OF BOARDING SCHOOLS

The Spectator

SER,—Until the passing of the Butler Education Act only the delinquent, the defective and the well-to-do were able to enjoy the advantages of a boarding education. Now education...

JEWISH CAMPS

The Spectator

Sin,—Having spent six months last year in the United States, and having followed the Palestine question in the American Press, I was very much distressed over Jewish propaganda...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Spectator

AMERICA'S SYMPATHY SIR,—It did one's heart good to read in a recent New York Times that you, as Member for Cambridge University, had told the House of Commons that you were "...

Page 18

THE 1928 PRAYER BOOK

The Spectator

Sm,—Bishop Stepien Neill commits himself to some large affirmations about the Chuch of England in your issue of May 17th. Two of them I take leave to doubt. First, he says : "...

AN EDUCATIONAL YARD-STICK Sia,—Janus describes the list of entrance scholarship

The Spectator

winners at Oxford as bearing witness to the high standard of grammar-school education, in that four of the first six places in the list are occupied by famous day- schools. It...

B.B.C. FOREIGN BROADCASTS Sta,—The European Service of the B.B.C. should

The Spectator

not be treated as a Cinderella from the point of view of publicity. I found during recent visits abroad great interest in broadcasting from Britain, but little knowledge of...

THE FOREIGN SERVICE

The Spectator

Sitt,—I em glad that Mr. Nicolson has again drawn attention to the misapprehensions which seem to continue in relation to the Foreign Secretary and the function of our Foreign...

Sul,—In deleting the page-references in my review of Mr. C.

The Spectator

S. Lewis's book you make me do him an injustice. The words describing Nature " as a vast process going on of its own accord " occur not as would now be supposed in a statement...

To ensure regular receipt of The Spectator, readers are urged

The Spectator

to place a firm order with theii newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold copies are non-return- able....

PIGEON-HOLING MR. C. S. LEWIS Sra,—Mr. C. S. Lewis has

The Spectator

for some time been a stout defender of the orthodox Christian faith, but in Canon Raven's review of his recent book there is a welcome note of caution ; for, though Mr. Lewis is...

Page 20

BOOKS OF THE DAY

The Spectator

The Poetry of Baudelaire SAINTE-BEUVE gave no proof of courage when Les Fleurs du Mal appeared in 1857, only to be instantly prosecuted as blasphemous and obscene. He might...

Page 22

Snapshots of a Problem

The Spectator

Palestine Mission. By Richard Crossman. (Hamish Hamilton. 10s. 6d.) MR. CROSSMAN is one of those rare Englishmen who, going to Palestine, can survive there a barrage of Zionist...

The Warlike Harry

The Spectator

ONCE granted that the gaze of the student of world-history is to be directed upon a series of individuals seen against a background of their times, Dr. Jacob is to be...

Page 24

The Shadow of Hazlitt

The Spectator

The Life of William Hazlitt. By P. P. Howe. (Hamish Hamilton. 15s.) A nitruiANT spirit, a critic of genius, a man delighting almost feverishly in the visual arts, ardent for...

Irish Point of View

The Spectator

WE must forgive the Irish if they laugh at us ; be grateful if they do no worse. Few reversals of historical fortune can be funnier than that of the once oppressing English, who...

Page 25

" THE SPECTATOR" CROSSWORD No. 426 [A Book Token for

The Spectator

one guinea will be awarded to the _enuer of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, 'rune 3rd. Envelopes must be received...

SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD No. 424

The Spectator

IfICIMACI11131g 0110C110. CI E4 El1 CI CI 0 kairiramm ME1011110 IN El 0 0 0 El III 0E1000 0000 MI 0 DEE ETI 0 0 El e4R 012 KIMIMIOCUIDE3 R IS El 610III0 0 EI100ifi 0 El M 0 E1...

Page 26

Book Notes .

The Spectator

DR. THOMAS MANN during his recent visit to this country spoke about a new philosophical novel which he has just completed and on which he has for long been working....

Fiction

The Spectator

MISS STORM JAMESON is famous and distinguished not only for her great gifts as a novelist but also because, having a markedly strong sense of her own time and Of the obligations...

Page 28

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

The Spectator

By CUSTOS Just . as industrial share prices seemed well set for regaining the peak level reached in January they have suffered a sharp jolt this week. Just what happened to...