23 MAY 1969

Page 1

In praise of strikes 0"

The Spectator

In his reminiscing moments the Prime Minis- ter likes to recall with pride the time when. as a young President of the Board of Trade in the Attlee administration, he flew to...

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Rhodesia farewell

The Spectator

The publication this week of the latest of several Rhodesian constitutions since tan ought to mark the end of the three-and-a- half-year struggle to reach a negotiated...

Europe awaits but for how long?

The Spectator

Britain's attempts to take her place in the Community of western Europe have suffered from a mistiming which has been so per- sistent that it might have been comic had it not...

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

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Three astronauts were launched from Cape Kennedy in an attempt to approach within 50,000 feet of the moon in dress rehearsal for a landing on the moon's surface later this year....

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Strangelove as pig in the middle

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POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH Seven months ago, we all rejoiced to hear of Mrs Judith Hart's appointment to the Cabinet as Paymaster-General. Those of us who in- quired...

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The beleaguered campus

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AMERICA GEOFFREY WAGNER Geoffrey Wagner is an Associate Professor at the City College of New York. New York—`You can't have a revolution every day,' said the SOS (Students for...

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A hundred years ago

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From the 'Spectator', 22 May, 1869—The efficiency of the Naval Reserve has been tested by a cruise, and so far with the greatest success. Two thousand men, more than were...

Unholy alliance

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MIDDLE EAST TUFTON BEAMISH, MP A recent visit to Iran and the Arab countries convinced me that although Marxist ideology makes little appeal to Moslem hearts and minds,...

Children grow up

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MALAYSIA DICK WILSON Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, once proclaimed in a New Year message to his nation that 'Everyone in Malaya is free to live his life...

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The pursuit of the unattainable

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GOVERNMENT JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE, MP As with the comedian of the silent screen whose trousers were fated to fall down from the moment they were put on, there is a fas- cination in...

Prothalamion

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CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS An amendment to the Divorce Reform Bill has proposed the establishment of two sorts of marriage—the one sort liable to the new divorce regulations, the other...

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SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

J. W. M. THOMPSON It will be a great comfort to many, I am sure, to know that they will be able to obtain news of the next sterling crisis or devaluation from a choice of no...

Page 8

The kingdom of Bevan

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PERSONAL COLUMN CHRISTOPHER BOOKER I recently had the bizarre experience of listen- ing to a conversation between Malcolm Mug- geridge and Aneurin Bevan on the subject of...

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Golden bore

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THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY Although I had never actually met him, I somehow did not much like Mr John Osborne, the playwright. I have, in the past, -thought up many possible...

Play time

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TELEVISION STUART HOOD There was a time when the Independent Tele- vision schedules used to include a quota of ninety-minute plays. Ninety minutes was natur- ally a...

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Wasted cities

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HOUSING NEIL WATES Subsidised housing has been the political panacea of the postwar decades. There is now increasing awareness amongst, both political parties --that...

Bargain hunt

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CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN When fixed prices began to die their. lingering death, there were many who thought that the country would be turned into one vast orien- tal...

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There is a happy land . . .

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TAXATION RICHARD LYNN Richard Lynn is Professor of Psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin. Dublin—A yawning tax loophole for writers and artists...

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Paul's purge

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TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Pope Paul VI has surprised me and upset me again—with something even more serious than his trousers. For he is downgrading saints, limiting the...

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The last of the Whigs BOOKS

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HUGH TREVOR-ROPER In 1944, when he returned from America to England, Bertrand Russell was more respect- able than he had ever been since the outbreak of the First World War....

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NEW NOVELS

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Freud's boy HENRY TUBE A Family Romance Richard Wollheim (Cape 30s) Termush Sven Holm translated by Sylvia Clayton (Faber 21s) Felix Barbara Levinge (John Murray 25s) When...

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Thunder and flash

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OLIVER WARNER Gordon at Khartum—is there any fresh news? The answer is that while there is little now to be discovered, there is always more to say. For Gordon was an...

Red hairs in Japan

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PAT BARR One of the more extraordinary episodes in the vigorous, acrid saga of East-West contact concerns the activities of the Netherlands East India Company (the Jan...

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Filling the gaps

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TIBOR SZAMUELY The View from Lenin Hills William Taubman (Hamish Hamilton 30s) Russian Peasants and Soviet Power M. Lewin (Allen and Unwin 70s) Despite the vast volume of...

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Weimar Culture : the Outsider as Insider Peter Gay (Seeker

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and Warburg 50s) Prelude to Hitler ELIZABETH WISKEMANN This book is a fascinating study for anyone with any experience of the Weimar period, although one cannot help asking...

Where to go

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FRANCIS WATSON Icelandic Journals William Morris (Centaur Press 126s) The travelling writer' is a somewhat different animal from the writing traveller. Of the two volumes...

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People's will

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DENNIS J. DUNCANSON This is not a general analysis of the rise -and fall of Chinese dynasties, nor a full his- tory of the Chinese civil war either. It is a former American...

History today

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DAVID WILLIAMS They say that if you fly very high the land un- derneath you, while getting smaller, yields fresh significances: patterns of ancient husbandry, for example, may,...

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The Leonardo enigma ARTS

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BRYAN ROBERTSON The Royal Collection of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at Windsor Castle consists of about two thirds of all his surviving studies; the ex- hibition at the...

Shorter notice

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The Mind of a Mnemonist A. R. Luria (Cape 25s). A. R. Luria is Professor of Psychology at Moscow University. His brief, straightforward account concerns the case history of a...

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THEATRE

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Nunn's tale HILARY SPURLING The Winter's Tale (Stratford-upon-Avon), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Chichester) Honour and Offer (Fortune) Perhaps the most auspicious, certainly...

Page 22

Inadmissible Evidence (Cameo-Poly, 'X')

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CINEMA Star billing ROBERT CUSHMAN Nicol Williamson is the only actor known to me who relies primarily not on his eyes or voice but on the creases in a permanently furrowed...

Brighton blues MUSIC

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DOMINIC GILL Three years ago, when the first Brighton Festi- val came to town, there were whispers—some of them deafening—that here at last was England's answer to Royan. A...

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FESTIVALS GUIDE 1969

The Spectator

All dates and programmes in this guide are, of course, subject to alteration. CAMDEN: ends 1 June This year's festival has concentrated in par- ticular on Berlioz, it being the...

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A yen for your thoughts

The Spectator

MONEY WILLIAM JANEWAY `Money' and 'crisis'—the words have become virtually inseparable. But the twice-yearly financial farragos which send speculators into orbit and central...

Market report

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CUSTOS We seem to be in the middle of a classic bear market, short rallies (last Friday and Mon, day's movements were an example) quickly giving way to prolonged declines....

ffolke's tycoons-20

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Page 28

Stakes and ale

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PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL Bad week though it has been for equities, three of my more speculative, second portfolio shares have begun to pick up steam again. I refer to British...

A lesson in communication

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LETTERS From the Rev Peter Curgenven, the Rev J. A. H. Bell. Peter Cloft, D. A. N. Jones, Peter Cadogan, Sir Dents Brogan, David Pugh. W. H. F. Barklam, M S. E. Grime, Roger...

Sir: May an old Anglican priest support Ludovic Kennedy (9

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May) in his complaint that Anglican services do not easily 'communi- cate' with a worshipper? The Anglican liturgy is a work of art; and will communicate best when it is...

Page 29

Student stirs

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Sir: Mr Wiggs reports (Letters, 16 May) tHat student representation in Southampton Uni- versity is not working: that the left is packing and prolonging the meetings to secure...

Sir: It could be that the situation on the left

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is even worse than Richard West (16 May) makes it out to be. My own conclusion, after trying to make the Biafran case intelligible to my erstwhile left wing friends, is that the...

Table talk

The Spectator

Sir: I should like to begin by pointing out to Mr Richard Walker that I am not a Roman Catholic, although 1 was brought up as one. I am in the position of John Calvin, Martin...

Biafra and the left

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Sir- Richard West's article (16 May) on Biafra and the left seems to me unfair on the left. Of course, it depends what he means by the left. If he means merely the editor of the...

Sir: I fear that M Val6ry Giscard TE,staing is not

The Spectator

the only Frenchman 'wearing an Old Etonian tie to which he is not entitled—vide Sir Denis Brogan, 2 May, and your competi- tion No. 552. Two years ago, I spent a short holiday...

Page 30

Butterfly music

The Spectator

Sir: I see that in a review of a book about Puccini (9 May) Mr Charles Reid writes: 'Mr Ashbrooke writes: 'This is the obverse of deli- cacy . . ." Perhaps so.' And perhaps, if...

Down, Jenkins

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Sir: 'I was therefore intrigued when I read in the "Miscellany" column of the Guardian that Mr Jenkins was to replace George Gale as the Mirror regular columnist. "Miscellany"...

The case for a referendum

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Sir : Surely your contributor Mr Skidelsky (9 May) is guilty of a serious lapse in assuming that we have no machinery or intent of the much-abused politicians here, to obtain...

Now that the ball is over Sir: Here we are,

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exactly one quarter-century into the nuclear age, and very lucky to have survived that far, and Tibor Szamuely seems to have learned nothing (see his article on Czechoslovakia,...

This kind of thing must stop

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Sir:- I hope that I am not the only admirer of Oscar Wilde's writings who resented Mr Barry Humphries's nasty little piece (9 May). Mr Humphries's literary discrimination is...

Spouse traps

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Sir: If the cautionary tale contained in R. A. Cline's article (9 May) is followed to its con- clusion it is at least probable that the characters involved in it will be seen to...

Poison ivy

The Spectator

Sir: Referring to Rolf Hochhuth's play about the bombing of Dresden and other cities, Lord Chandos (9 May) comments on the symbolic- satiric Sikorsky theme as follows:...

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Nelson's column

The Spectator

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS Hopping mad. That anyway is how one observer this week described brilliant and amusing young Horatio Nelson, hero of St Vincent and Aboukir Bay, idol...

No. 554: Freak-out

The Spectator

COMPETITION Readers may have noticed our guide to festivals in Great Britain which we publish in this issue on page 695. A brief scan through it will reveal the not very...

No. 552: The winners

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Trevor Grove reports: 'Now lesser men will "creep out again to feel the sun" ' wrote Sir Denis Brogan in his 'Table talk' of 2 May, reflecting on the passing of 'Good King...

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Crossword no.1379

The Spectator

Across 1 He's in love with company and that's sticking together! (8) 5 In this way I prohibit the pressure-line (6) 9 Gets aboard and carries along (8) 10 Woolly beast met with...

Chess no. 440

The Spectator

PHILIDOR Black White 8 men 8 men J. Fridliius (1st prize, St Petersburg Zeilung, 1898). White to play and mate in three moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 439...