23 NOVEMBER 1951

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Malayan Agenda

The Spectator

The Colonial Secretary leaves for Malaya on Monday to study at first hand a situation which, through rapidly mounting Communist terrorist activity, is rapidly becoming more...

A PLAN FOR THE SUDAN

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T HE Government's determination not to be jockeyed out of the Suez Canal Zone has been backed up with deeds ; reinforcements for the garrison continue to arrive ; labour' is...

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Americans at Strasbourg

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The American Senator who asked, at this week's joint session of delegates from the United States Congress and the Council of Europe, what he and his colleagues were required to...

The Yorkshire Electricity Scandal The facts disclosed during the hearing

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of the case against the Yorkshire Electricity Board at Leeds Assizes last week will no doubt be the subject of an early statement in the House of Commons, and almost certainly...

Second Thoughts on Broadcasting

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The Government's decision to extend the B.B.C.'s charter and licence for a short period after the existing expiry date, Decem- ber 31st, comes just in time to enable Parliament...

M. Pleven Survives .

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The excitement and uncertainty which attended Tuesday's vote of confidence in the Pleven Government and the powerful speech with which the French Prime Minister himself asked...

Federation in Africa

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With his impending visit to Malaya and his successive declarations of policy on the advance of colonies towards self- government, an intensive drive for the development of...

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The 1952 Olympics

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At the annual dinner of the British Olympic Association this week the Duke of Edinburgh expressed his confidence that Great Britain Would make a good showing in next year's...

The Cut That Wasn't

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Those daily newspapers which, drawing upon information supplied by an active imagination, recently forecast cuts in imports of tobacco, petrol, films and wine, now have the dual...

AT WESTMINSTER

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T HE House of Commons has behaved like the House of Commons in the debate on foreign affairs, and it has not . always been doing that of late. There has been a welcome escape...

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THE TROUBLED SCENE

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B Y his two speeches in the House of Commons this week Mr. Eden has demonstrated, certainly not before it was time, that foreign affairs are being handled with a new vigour and...

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Readers of the Spectator are not in the main alcoholics,

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though one or two of them sometimes write as though they were. But everyone, however sober, must be concerned with the question of the cure of alcoholism, particularly since...

Something seems to have gone wrong with one of the

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figures in my recent paragraph .regarding numbers at Cambridge this term. The addition of 1,038 from the women's colleges brings the total university population, not the total...

At Cambridge, it would seem, diplomats grow rather than are

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trained. Details have just reached me of the tact with which something between a diplomatic incident and an international crisis (if a slight hyperbole may be permitted) in...

The spectacle of the Society of Friends applying its principles

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to football has more than a passing interest. The story is told by the New York Herald-Tribune of last Monday, under the heading SWARTHMORE WINS GRID CLASH WITH SPORTSMANSHIP...

That Charles Dickens himself—or anyone else at all—could give readings

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of Dickens' works comparable to those offered by Mr. Emlyn Williams at the Criterion is so hard to believe as to be virtually incredible. For Emlyn Williams, after all, is one...

Reading by chance in the last few days Higham's excellent

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book on Charles I, I came on a passage which at the present moment is neither uninteresting nor irrelevant. It deals with one of Henrietta Maria's ill-fated accouchements. "...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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T HE Rommel film is apparently to be shown in Germany in spite of the - American authorities there, who have no power to stop it, but wish they had. There would seem to be...

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On Understanding Dockers

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By SIR ROBERT HYDE* S . IR JOHN ANDERSON, chairman of the Port of London Authority, is quoted as having said recently that a modem and efficient grain-elevator was lying idle in...

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Doon the Water

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I N the press of news in the past few weeks, most of it bad, the English Press has not paid enough attention to an ominous article in The Glasgow Evening News foretelling, in...

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Life and Years

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By PROFESSOR R. E. TUNBRIDGE* I MPROVED sanitation, the development of preventive medicine and the advances in chemotherapy during the past fifty years have so increased the...

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The Future of Cyprus

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By HARRY FRANKLIN Nicosia. C YPRUS, geographically Middle East, politically a British Crown Colony, is in spirit Greek. The island is inevitably closely bound up with Middle...

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UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

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Student Election UPERFICIALLY, General and Rectorial Elections have much in common. There is the, preparatory softening-up process. Loud-speaker vans cruise round the...

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MARGINAL COMMENT

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By HAROLD NICOLSON I HAVE been reading this week an interesting and suggestive book recently published by the firm of F. A. Herbig in Berlin. It is called Ein_Leben fur den...

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CONTEMPORARY ARTS •

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THEATRE I WAS in some doubt, when the curtain fell, as to whether I should surrender to rage or compromise on boredom. I knew before I entered the theatre that it would take a...

CINEMA

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"Another Man's Poison." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.)-- "Scrooge." (Odeon, Marble Arch.)--" Encore." (Plaza.) IN Another Man's Poison, Miss Bette Davis's first English...

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MUSIC Two English symphonies received near-first performances at the Festival

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Hall last week. On Wednesday Basil Cameron conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the recently revised version of Edmund Rubbra's Symphony No. 2, originally composed in...

"Int 6pectator," gobember 22nb,1851 Tun last of the sons of

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George the Third died on Tuesday, in the old German palace of his race. To the manes of Ernest King of Hanover the Spectator has little apology to make for misrepresentations...

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SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 93 Set by J. M. Cohen A

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prize of L5, which may be divided, is offered for a translation of this sonnet by Joachim du Bellay. The form of the original must be kept, but substitutes from any landscape...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 90

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Report by Lewis' Petrie A prize of L5 was offered for Private Persons' Bills for putting down irritations and petty injustices of daily life. Daily life—to judge from the way...

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Behind the Age-Limit

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Six—Mr. Holland's letter raises points which are of great interest to' teachers (university entrance, sixth-form time-tables, alternative ordinary subjects, &c.), but I suspect...

The Plight of the Liberals

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Sut,—Mr. Noel-Baker seeks to show that, despite some differences, there is a natural affinity between Liberals and Socialists. He argues that in the sphere of social reform "...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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The East-West Problem Sot,—The Society of Friends enjoys a well-earned reputation for sincerity and scrupulous regard for the truth which carries with it a special...

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A 44 Spectator " Competition SIR, —I cannot help feeling that

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many of your readers must deplore as I do the choice of subject for competition in your last issue, on the grounds of its being in really bad taste. Not a few, I dare say, would...

The Pope and the Child SIR,—Believin g that a little experience

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is worth a good deal of theorising, I venture to write as a wife and mother of firm Christian principles and practice who, though in the hands of a skilful gynaecologist, has...

Peace Through Strength SIR,—I, was surprised to read in Mr.

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Nicolson's Marginal Comment of November 2nd that " the only hope of peace is the armed pre- ponderance of our own coalition." This is surely a repetition of " Be so strong as to...

SIR,—The Headmaster of Liverpool College makes two points which seem

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to call for an answer from me, reluctant as I am to trouble you further: (i) " Who started this unprecedented regulation ? " The Secondary Schools Examinations Council...

SIR,—Now that the Catholic doctors have broken silence in their

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own and the Pope's defence, it becomes easier to attempt a summary of this mutter. Plain speaking is necessary. The Pope, well aware of the facts, was dealing primarily with...

Page 17

Sweet William

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SIR,—A nearly related species to Sweet William is the old-fashioned Agrostemma Coronaria. or " Bioody William." Li it not more likely that is the plant named after the Duke of...

Time—Spans

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SIR,—Your correspondents have given interesting particulars of longevity and of spans covering two generations. My letter, however, was con- cerned only with spans within a...

The University Vote

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SIR, —The purely selfish and narrow attitude of most of those contributing an opinion on this nationally important subject is surprising. None seems to recognise that the...

Church and Chapel

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Sta,—Mr. W. R. Cummings takes me to task for calling the Methodists' secession "still a recent calamity " and for declaring that " those who try to bring them back are doing...

SIR,—Mr. R. C. B. Gardner says that the Herefordshire Domesday

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does not appear to have been " translated." A transcription of it, how- ever, was published last year by the Pipe Roll Society. There is no mention of yew trees in the entry...

"After All " SIR,—In Sir Evelyn Wrench's most generous review of

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my book, After All, there has crept a typing or printing error which makes me say that " for five years 1 had not slept between blankets." What I wrote was sheets. To the...

Low—Pommelled

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SIR,—I would allow George Brinsmead almost all his epithets in Gaucho Elections, but not " high-pommelled " to his gaucho's saddle. The Argentine recado (in contrast to the...

Churchyard Yews

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SIR,—It certainly does appear as though Mr. Gardner, suddenly looming up in the deep field, had caught me on the boundary. The question is whether even he did not have one foot...

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Fouling Your Own Nest

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For how many home-growers is not the prohibition of imported fresh fruits a lifebelt against a sea of troubles ! I am reminded of a Hereford- shire farm of interacting cora,...

In the Garden

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Having been laid up, I gingerly took a few steps along the paving above the garden—to see April in the lap of November, grape hyacinth, scilla, crocus, snowdrop and even...

COUNTRY LIFE

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Few are the countries exempt from the world-phenomenon of the disparity between population and food-supply, the Malthusian dilemma. How many have refrained from violating the...

A Weasel Stor,

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In reply to my note on a weasel and its young, Commander Phipps Hornby sends me his tale of a personal encounter. Wheeling his bicycle uphill in Scotland, he met two young...

What Harm is Done by Wild e Animals The Ministry of

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Agriculture sends me Wild Mammals and the Land as a sequel to Wild Birds and the Land. It has a well-designed cover, is full of striking photographs, and is written by a...

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK

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Eccentric's Progress The Nun of Lebanon. By Ian Bruce. (Collins. 21s.) " Nor having seen the lady until late in her life, when she was fired with spiritual ambition, I can...

Waterloo Soldier

The Spectator

THIS book is of the greatest imaginable interest for everyone who takes delight in reading about the British infantry soldier, as well as for the military historian. Among all...

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Art and Society IT is no doubt symptomatic of the

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present age that such difficult works as Toynbee's Study. of History and Spengler's Decline of the West should have attained something like popular success. When contemporary...

Page 22

Before Sarajevo

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THE name of Professor Pribram and the, charm of his personality as described in the translator's preface to this book are certain to arouse high 'hopes in students of modern...

Literature in Verse - ?

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Collected Poems. By Marianne Moore. (Faber. 12s. 6d.) MARIANNE MOORE has a definite reputation in the United States, but she is scarcely known on this side of the. Atlantic,...

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Shelley Again

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The Young Shelley: Genesis of a Radical. By Kenneth Neill Cameron. (Gollancz. 2 is.) SHELLEY, like Shaw and Shakespeare, is always news, and anyone discussing him and his...

Page 26

English Railways

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British Trains: Past and Present. By 0. S. Nock. (Batsford. t6s.) The Great Western Railway: An Appreciation. By 0. S. Nock. (Helfer. 18s.) " Barrtsit RAILWAYS " implies the...

Fiction

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Tillotson. By Philip Trower. (Collins. los. 6d.) THE basic difference between " popular " novels and " classic " novels would seem to be in the author's approach to his...

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Shorter Notices

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Winston Churchill. By J. G. Lockhart. (Duckworth. 6s.) To cover the seventy-seven years of Mr. Churchill's life in just over twice as many pages, and to cover them adequately,...

Tidelines. By Keith Shackleton. (Litter- worth Press. 31s. 6d.)

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THIS picture-book of birds aims at giving atmosphere rather than scientific detail. Like Mr. Peter Scott, who writes a foreword and was trained in ornithology by the same head-...

THosE, and they were many, who found pleasure in that

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unusual book The Confes- sions of an Un-common Attorney, will no doubt welcome this posthumous volume of essays and papers from the same hand, with a short memoir of the author...

We are informed by the Burke Publishing , Company that

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the contents of their B.B.C. Children's Hour Annual are, with one excep- tion, new and original work, and not, as stated in our review last week, " collected from the various...

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THE " SPECTATOR " CROSSWORD No. 653

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[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, December 4th, addressed Crossword, 0 Gower Street,...

SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD. No. 651 SOLUTION ON DECEMBER 7

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The winner of Crossword No. 651 is MRS. I. M. PAYN, Greystones Cottage, Llanmartin, Nr. Newport, Mon.

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By CUSTOS IF any idea still lingered that investors would allow election victory enthusiasm to outweigh the obvious uncertainties of the immediate outlook it has been...