24 FEBRUARY 1950

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NEWS OF THE WEEK

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E RESH from his discussions in Paris with the European Marshall Aid countries, and fortified with his proposals for the allocation of $2,950 million for 1950-51 ($687 million,...

The Case of the Generals

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Only the more determined students of that recurrent and fascinating French phenomenon, a Parliamentary inquiry into a scandal, will have followed all the convolutions and traced...

Heavy Weather for M. Bidault

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M. Bidault's task would have been hard enough at the present time, even if there had been no impact of the "Case of the Generals" on inter-party relations. But that impact is...

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The Underpaid Teacher

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The decision of the teachers' panel of the Burnham Committee to give a year's notice of the termination to the present agreement on teachers' salaries is neither unexpected nor...

Melodrama in Hungary

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The aspect of Communist treason trials, such as that just staged in Budapest, which probably puzzles British newspaper-readers most, is why the accused confess. In countries...

Cardinal Griffin and the Schools

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The pastoral letter issued by Cardinal Griffin and read in all Roman Catholic Churches last Sunday has a significant bearing on the vigorous and highly-organised demand for more...

The Truth About Subsidies

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So much nonsense has been talked about food subsidies both before and during the election campaign that it was only a matter of time before some competent economist came out...

The World's Biggest Air Force

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When Mr. Churchill guessed last Saturday that the Soviet Air Force had more than 25,000 aircraft in commission he was possibly giving an uninstructed audience a rather...

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ELECTION NOTES

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(These notes were of necessity written before the votes were cast.) T HE end of the Election broadcasts has left the balance of performance slightly in favour of the...

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THE KING'S GOVERNMENT

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T t‘ HE King's Government must be carried on " ; and carried on it will be, no matter what Administration may be in office next week. That still remains undis- closed as these...

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* * * * The attempt, fortunately unsuccessful, of a

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Lagos native to assassinate Mr. Hugh Mackintosh Foot, the Chief Secretary of Nigeria, brings the whole family into the glare of that fierce light which beats upon a Foot. Mr. H....

* * * * Low has now been adorning the

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Daily Herald's pages instead of the Evening Standards for three weeks. I wonder if he feels satisfied with the change. Low, of course, is always Low, and in his own field...

"Murderer Lewis Wolfe, 42, demanded two bananas and shouted 'I'm

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the Messiah' in Court yesterday. As a result Judge Louis Goldstein declined to sentence him to death in the electric chair." —New York Herald Tribune. The bananas, or the...

* * "We have had there [the House of Lords]

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a very great leader for the past four and a half years—Christopher Addison ; but he is eight, and we have got to strengthen them."—Lord Alexander as reported by the...

* * * * When I received, as pendant to

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my recent story of the Holy Family, the rendering (as depicted by an infant artist) "take the young child and his mother and flea into Egypt," I filed it doubt- fully for future...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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F ROM time to time I am consulted about private news-sheets, obtainable by subscription only, and claiming to supply information of high importance to persons who in their sim-...

I bear of another (presumably grateful) recipient of the degree

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of Ph.D. of the Academic Internationale. He is "the well-known psychologist and hypnotic healer, Mr. Boris Dmtri, of Park Crescent Terrace, Brighton." Mr. Dmtri has also just...

There is something rather agreeable about the British habit of

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under-statement: Here (that is to say, in the Divorce Court) is a gentleman who In 1937, at the age of 21, took a substantial interest in a garage, and married the daughter of a...

* * * * I have not seen Queen Mary's

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carpet. One reason is that when someone I know went to look at it on Monday the waiting-time at that stage of the queue was an hour and a quarter. This is an interesting...

Not tattler, but tackler. See this column a fortnight ago.

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With heartfelt thanks to several correctors. JANUS.

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“At the Highest Levels "

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By MAX BELOFF M R. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S plea for a further approach to Moscow "at the highest levels" was one that was bound to be made as soon as the significance of the...

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Liberty in Liberia ?

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By GILBERT McALLISTER, 0 UR first impression of Robertsfield was highly favourable. We had spent the previous night at Abidjan on the French Ivory Coast. Our hotel had been...

The House

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THE rusty gate had been chained and padlocked Against the grass-grown path, Leading no-whither as I knew well, In a twilight still as death. Once, one came to an old stone...

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Cheap and Instructive

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By N. K. BOOT T HERE was somf thing gluttonous about the capacity of our ancestors to absorb the printed word. At the age of four William Morris was "deep in the Waverley Novels...

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The King's Scholarship

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By C. ROMANNE-JAMES . S OMEWHERE below a bell struck—the signal that the day's work was ended. Perspiring with the effort of trying to master an exercise in English, Nai Sai...

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Int 6pertator," lebruarp 23rb. 1850

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NEW WORK BY THE AUTHOR OF "VANITY FAIR." On the 28th instant will be published, is. No. 14 of PENDENNIS. By W. M. Thackeray, author of The GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND, &c. With...

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THE SPECTATOR

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SUBSCRIPTION RATES '52 ORDINARY EDITION d by post to any part of the World 1 10 0 AIR MAIL (World-wide distribution by Air) To all countries in Europe except Poland ... 2 7 6...

UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

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Crisis Comments By JOHN DAVY (Trinity College, Cambridge) C RISES are all the rage just now ; and if we are to believe Sir Walter Moberly, there is one at the university today....

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MARGINAL COMMENT

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By HAROLD NICOLSON W HEN on Friday morning you open this benign and unsullied weekly, the General Election of 1950 will have come to an end. Some of the counts will have been...

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CONTEMPORARY ARTS

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CINEMA "Madeleine." (Leicester S q uare.)—“Morning Departure." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.)—“ Three Came Home." (Odeon, Marble Arch.) THE strange case of...

ART

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IF there are those to whom all abstract art looks the same, let them consider Messrs. Miro, Leger and Miss Barbara Hepworth. Miro you can see at the London Gallery. It is not a...

MUSIC

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RICHARD STRAUSS'S symphonic poem, Thus Spake Zarathustra, and lbert's opera-farce, Angelique, both of which have been given in London during this last week, represent two...

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In the Garden A very pleasing little pocket garden anthology,

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My Garden's Scrap Book, has been issued by the editors of My Garden (the most literary of the garden papers) who half suggest that such a book may at times be a "substitute for...

Vain Laws The year has opened with the birth of

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several agencies that are meant to benefit the country. The National Parks Bill has received the Royal Assent. The central idea is perhaps a good one ; but it is regarded with...

COUNTRY LIFE

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THE gales that February stole from March, that set our barometers jigging up and down, that disarranged our creepers and roared, with the noise of railway trains, in our elms,...

Un - castled Houses 1 hope the following incident is not characteristic.

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There is a little old house, almost a cottage, at the edge of a village-town. The garden is large and incidentally, as I well know, a peculiar favourite of birds and squirrels....

BALLET

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"Don Quixote." (Covent Garden.) A NEW ballet by Ninette de Valois invariably causes keen anticipa- tion. First, because choreographic works by this remarkable woman are...

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Spectator Competition No. 8

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Set by Richard Usborne The theory is that there are three stanzas missing between the sixth and seventh of Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." A prize of £5, which may be...

SPECTATOR COMPETITIONS—No. 6

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Report by Derek Hudson "The child is father of the man." To illustrate this, write a school report, not exceeding 200 words, for any one of the following between the ages of 6...

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Roman Catholic Schools

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SI11,—I do not seem to have made clear the poini which I wished to make in my last letter. In your editorial comment you quote the Ministry of Education's view to the effect...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Native Labour in South Africa SIR,—Your article on the recent riots in -Johannesburg has naturally attracted a good deal of attention here, and I should be glad of the...

General von Falkenhausen

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SIR,—May I enlarge on Janus's recent and welcome note on General von Falkenhausen? Falkenhausen has been in prison, in either German or Allied hands, since shortly after the...

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Proportional Representation

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SIR,—My delay in criticising your leading article, The Third Programme, of February 10th, is occasioned by my desire to raise this question after the general election is over....

SIR,—There is one important aspect of this controversy that has

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not yet been touched upon. It is a fundamental rule of the Roman Catholic Church that the child of a Protestant parent must be brought up as a Roman Catholic if the other of the...

SIR,—During the eleven years I have been a subscriber to

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the Spectator, I always valued your journal for its unvarying fair-mindedness. But now your persistent hostility against the Catholic schools, as evinced in editorial comment...

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Difficult Situation

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SIR.—In the last paragraph of Professor D. W. Brogan's excellent article The Dilemma of the French Left, the old gibe should have read: "The situation in Berlin is serious but...

Foreign Policy Between the Wars

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SIR,—I have read Mr. Harold Nicolson's interesting comment on Lord Vansittart's article The Decline of Diplomacy. As regards the period between the two wars there is a point...

SIR,—To retort to Mr. A. H. Brown " YZ5u're another

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! " would be neither dignified nor useful. I suggest to him that he makes a practice of scanning the correspondence columns of any daily paper favoured by the Left (e.g., Daily...

Russian Naval History

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Sia,—I am grateful to Mr. Chancellor who reviewed my book, The Maritime History of Russia, 848-1948, for drawing attention to certain errors in this. There are, however, some...

SIR,—With much of what Mr. Lunt says I am in

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agreement, and I have yet to speak to a grammar-school master who is satisfied that present methods of selection for grammar schools are a complete success. There are admittedly...

• George Sampson

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Stit,—I was very glad to see your warm appreciation of George Sampson in the Spectator of February 10th. We readers owe him a great deal, if it were only for his Concise...

Middle-Class Argument

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SIR,—A. H. Brown's letter in the Spectator of February 17th has not had to wait long for an authoritative answer. According to the Observer of February 19th there appeared on...

The Rite' of Confirmation

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SIR,—" The second Prayer Book of Edward VI. . . did not contain the rite of confirmation, and made no reference to confirmation. . . . The rite of confirmation first appeared...

Thomas Hood '

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SIR,—I am writing the life of Thomas Hood (1799-1845), and should like to hear of any letters, in'public or private hands, to or from him or his wife, including those used by...

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Europe for Americans

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The State of Europe. By Howard K. Smith. (Cresset Press. Its.) WHEN bright young Romans inspected Greece at about the time of the incorporation of Hellas in the Roman Empire,...

BOOKS OF THE DAY

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Poet, Prophet and Playwright "Do not we English hear daily for the last twenty years that the Drama is dead ? " The question was Carlyle's. Today Peter Ustinov finds "the...

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Journey to the South

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Ilex and Olive. By Michael Swan. (Home & Van Thal. z6s.) As its title suggests, this book is an account of a journey to the South, through France and Italy—a record which...

Daisy and Her German Castles

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The Private Diaries of Daisy, Princess of Pless, 18)3-1914. Edited by D. Chapman-Huston. (Murray. los. 6d.) THE glamour that invests great ladies in hoops or crinolines has not...

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Understanding the Victorians

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Nineteenth Century Studies: Coleridge to Matthew Arnold. • By Basil Willey. (Chatto and Windus. ifs.) WHILE Lytton Strachey enjoyed the exhilarating task of unmasking...

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A Frenchman in Switzerland

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Switzerland. By Andre Siegfried. (Cape. 12s. 6d.) WHO has not sometimes felt with Gide that Switzerland is too tiresomely exemplary ? " Honnete peuple suisse ! Se porter bien...

Plumdew in the War Years

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Henry Plumdew: His Memoirs, Experiences and Opinions, 5938- 1948. By C. E. Vulliamy. (Michael Joseph. t 2s. 6d.) HE would be a dull or a lucky fellow who had no recollections...

I HEARD Mr. Arthur Koestler, at a conference of writers

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held in London during the wa,r, make a speech which stood out from all the rest by its sincerity, its imaginative energy and its realism. These qualities, manifest in everything...

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* * * A GOOD many readers of the Spectator

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will remember Michael Roberts, schoolmaster, philosopher, Alpinist, husband of Janet Adam Smith, who before his death in 1948, at the age of forty-six, was a fairly frequent...

English Picnics. By Georgina Battiscombe. (Harvill Press. 95. 6d.) WHEN

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the subject is picnics it is permissible to concoct a pie containing larks. Mrs. Battiscombe has evidentry revelled a little in her venture, but felt her obligations. The...

SHORTER NOTICES

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Designers in Britain is a "Biennial Review of Graphic and Industrial Design," and includes work not only by members of the society responsible - for the compilation, but also...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By CUSTOS As I suspected, the Stock Exchange has not indulged in any eve of election fireworks. There has been support for "Conservative victory" shares, such as Prudential...