25 FEBRUARY 1955

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ESTABLISHED 1828

The Spectator

No. 6609 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1955 PRICE 7d.

TOP HAT TRADITION

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'The banks in Britain have never been among the staunchest upholders of the human dignity of individuals; rather, they have assumed that the men and women who work for them are...

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Notes

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VITALISING WITH WORDS During the first session of the SEATO conference at Bangkok Mr. Dulles suggested that what he and the other Foreign Ministers had to do was `to vitalise...

DISARMING TALK

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Willingness to participate in discussions about disarmament has for some decades been recognised as one of the marks of the genus 'Peace-loving power,' and, in pursuit of its...

ON THE DEFENSIVE

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The Commons' wrangle on the respective merits of British and American night fighters was futile because it was irrele- vant. We are not going to defend Britain against bombers...

That M. Faure and his government have been accepted by

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the National Assembly would seem to end the political crisis in France for the minute. But a good many reefs remain to be navigated and it is not easy to see how the new Prime...

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sions involving considerable salary increases before work was resumed. Tpday,

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the Irish Association's members are again working restricted hours, on a claim 'for restoration of the pre- war position in relation to the rest of the community'; as a result,...

OIL RING

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When is a price loo high? When is a profit excessive? A suitable measuring rod has yet to be invented; in the mean- while a sensible answer is given in the report of the...

Jambo bwana nataka Kazi—'hello, Mister; can you give me some

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work?'—is the usual opening conversational gambit of the Kenya African. Kikuyuland, largely liberated from despotism, has been shackled to the plough. In a recent tour of...

TYRE RING

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The British Motor Trade Association has been able to put up a plausible defence of its price-maintenance policy at a press conference; but the truths which its representatives...

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HORROR COMICS

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The fears expressed by Mr. Joyce Cary in last • week's , Spectator have been echoed by a number of speakers in the Commons debate on horror comics, and by Mr. A. P. Herbert in a...

LANCASHIRE CRIES WOLF

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In spite of great activity in London and Manchester, nothing has been done this week to soothe the nerves of those Lanca- shire spinners and weavers who have been upset by...

Political Commentary

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THOSE (and they are many) who saw in the Queen's Speech last November indications of an early—by which they meant a February or March—general election can have little hope now...

IRON AND STEEL

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Apart from a query whether it is too cautious in its refer- ences to steel sheet production, the Iron and Steel Board's report on the industry's development to 1958 will arouse...

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THE QUARREL between the BBC and the British Transport Conrmission

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about the Special Inquiry television programme which was to have dealt with the railways has descended to the level where the representatives of both sides shout 'Yes, you did'...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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THERE is no doubt of the foolishness of the rule which the In the News panel complained of last Friday. This rule prohibits discussion on wireless or television of any subject...

A FRIEND who hunts with a pack of stag-hounds in

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the West Country reports an unusual incident which happened the other day. One farmer in the district has no use for the hunt and refuses to allow it on his land. It is an old...

ATTLEE recently proposed that Chiang Kai-shek should be exiled and

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a plebiscite held in Formosa to decide who was going to rule it. It is thought probable that this will become the official policy of the Labour Party. This seems to me admirable...

THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY Of the death of Gdrard de Nerval

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passed without much in the way of celebration here. Oblivion has swallowed so many of the eminent ministers, officials, economists, and other experts who peopled the nineteenth...

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By MAX BELOFF T HE traveller by train through the Rocky

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Mountains will find that the same canyon which provides his route also serves for the motor-road. Sometimes the two run close together—parallel ribbons—but sometimes the terrain...

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tEbe *prttator

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February 27, 1830 TURKISH CIVILIZATION.—The Sultan, according to the last ac- counts from Constantinople, is not marching, but galloping on the highway of improvement....

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TOP HAT AND MORTARBOARD

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When the standard of living is discussed, these times, it is usually considered only in terms of the purchasing power of wages and salaries. The once decisive influence of...

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The Donkey and the Mortarboard

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lly CLIFFORD COLLINS In the first place, teachers mind children, which, in spite of an all-prevailing sentimentality, is regarded as menial work. In the obvious material sense,...

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In the Formosa Strait

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By CYRIL FALLS C OMMENT on the offshore islands held by Nationalist China has not always distinguished between the Tachens on the one hand and the Matsus and Quemoys on the...

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City and Suburban

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me to the Surrey CC, but before admitting defeat I telephoned to the Estate Office of Dulwich College, which used to own a farm there, and said I wanted to send some sheep to...

A Kind of Folly

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By OWEN HOLDER p REVIOUSLY I had been pleased enough to act in other people's plays and to leave other people to act my own; last week, for the first time in London, I began to...

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Vermin Shooting It is some time since I last saw

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a gamekeeper's 'larder.' There are fewer keepers and fewer garlic preserves where vermin are killed and strung up, but, in the days when such things were common, the owners of...

Artichokes Artichokes are a useful vegetable to have in the

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garden. The Chinese should be planted in drills six inches deep, a foot between plants and two feet between rows. Jerusalem arti- chokes do better in light soil at a depth of...

Country Life

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By IAN NIALL C 4 AN you tell me who is responsible for the removal of the carcases of diseased and decaying rabbits now that myxomatosis has done its deadly work?' writes a...

Unusual Cures The other day a friend wrote to tell

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me about a man he knew who, when he was fishing in a remote part of Scotland, was accosted by a farmer with the request that he should provide him with a live trout to be used...

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Strix

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DEATH AND MRS. DALE / FIND it difficult to define the attitude which I adopt to- wards events which happen in my own country while I am out of it. It is, I fear, a...

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SIR,—On finishing Joyce Cary's article in the current Spectator, I

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was forced to the con- clusion that he could never have seen a horror comic. I agreed with most of his arguments, but felt they bore practically no relation to the serious...

SIR,—My heart lifted with joy to read Joyce Cary's article.

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I had the same sort of freedom, the same sort of parents, the same sort of pals; we also put our elders' gear to better service than they ever knew; we also waged our wars quite...

Letters to the Editor

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Horror Comics Howard Wyce, C. J. Hewart, Sheila Pt Pahner, Prejudiced Children The Bishop of Pontefract, Rupert Wilkinson, Judicial Barbarism A. N. Other Undergraduate Poll...

SIR. -7 Your article on 'Horror Comics' aroused considerable indignation in our

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school. Mr. Cary took great pains to convince us that he. an educated person, was not harmed by horror comics, and from this drew the conclusion that all children with- an...

99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1

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Euston 322J

SIR, — This week's article on horror comics surprisingly misses one of

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the important prob- lems that is so painfully obvious to anyone who has recently been in the Services. The reading matter of the ordinary soldier—and thus presumably his...

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SIR,—Is not Lord Hailsham mistaken in writing of the 'crazy

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defiance' of the Athenians at Marathon? The battle was a bold, well-found, justifiable and eminently successful military operation. Thermopyke would surely have provided a...

OUT COLD

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S1R,—Poor little Xanny Boy seems to have been frolicking with the pixies in the Cornish moonlight, and become a little pixilated. Give him the choicest Cornish pasty money can...

LITTLE SISTER

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SIR,—Time magazine quotes you (Time, January 31) on scientific humanists 'assuming there arc any,' etc. You speak of the 'barren- ness' of their beliefs. I thought Englishmen...

JUDICIAL BARBARISM

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SIR,—As one who has for some time opposed capital punishment on religious as well as practical grounds, I was interested to read your articles, 'Judicial Barbarism' and...

SIR,—Most of those who argue about this question seem to

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be unacquainted with murderers, and even less acquainted with the actual experience of guilt and penitence. Even Attorneys-General presumably have been on the side of the Crown,...

UNDERGRADUATE POLITICS

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SIR,—I hope you will allow me, as one who has a shrewd idea of how much Mr. Driver really knows of the working of Oxford political clubs, to interrupt the entertaining Christ...

ABSTRACT ART

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SIR,-1 really cannot allow Mr. Glynne-Mill• to portray me in an attitude I have never struck. It is true that on this occasion we have been talking about abstract art, but...

ANCHORS AWAY

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SIR,—I feel that the Navy suffered unduly in the leading article on Defence in last week's Spectator. It was stated that the Navy, 'in its offensive capacity, will be little...

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BEFORE Courbct's La Toilette de la Markle, which has been

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on view at the National Gallery, and the important exhibition of his work which has been on view at the Petit Palais in Paris, one was faced vet again by the gross imprecision...

gentleman of independent means, is said to be living apart

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from his wife and with his mistress, but it was surely a cherished conven- tion of Edwardian comedy that the marriage bond was sacred, if not inviolable. All the gay talk of...

TELEVISION AND RADIO

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WHAT is suspense? When a man hangs by his teeth on top of a circus pole, it is easily measured : you feel a small slug has slipped under your collar and is making its way slowly...

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CINEMA

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Seven Samurai. (Academy.)—Raising a Riot. (Plaza.)—Underwater. (Gaumont.) Seven Samurai is a magnificent, barbaric, Japanese picture maintaining a high level of technical and...

The Barnacle

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The barnacle who lifts his hat In welcome to the tide, Wholly committed to his rock. Let nobody deride For where he lands he takes his stand And has the strength to bide....

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BOOKS

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The Language of Criticism By JOHN WAIN T ECHNICAL terms, in any sphere, are a necessary evil; we can't keep on saying, 'That little container thing where the petrol gets mixed...

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Mild and Bitter

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The Mint. By T. E. Lawrence (352087 A/c Ross). (Cape, 17s. 6d.) A STRANGE and impressive catalogue might be made of things needed and things renounced by Lawrence in 1922. He...

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Jean Cocteau. By Margaret Crosland. (Nevi11, 15s.)

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journalism side of Coctcau's life is here: the opium, the great passions, the trompe-fail snooks of perpetual .adolescence at a bourgeois world. None of this is treated in a...

Picture Books

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The Herder Art Series. (Interbook, each volume 15s. or 6s. 6d.) THESE two series of picture-books stand near the extremes of oolour reproduction. The Gallery of Masterpieces,...

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The Party System

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British Political Parties. By R. T. McKenzie. (Heinemann, 30s.) To say that the argument of Mr. McKenzie's book can be stated in a single sentence might seem to be a not very...

People in Prison

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The blurb to Break Down the Walls declares that although the book is dealing with American prisons its arguments also apply to prisons throughout the world. In one respect at...

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New Novels

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The Figure in the Mist. By Elizabeth Coxhead. (Collins, 10s. 6d.) Night's Black Agent. By W. Townend. (Rich and Cowan, 9s. 6d.) As long as they remained poor, the young...

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THE career of Thomas Stamford Raffles has , attracted many

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biographers. Charles Wurtz- 'burg spent a lifetime preparing a book on Raffles and his times, and this long and careful study has many claims to be the definitive bio- graphy of...

IT must be difficult for anyone, however talented, to write

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a light essay about law which does not qualify for the comment that Sir Alan Herbert would have done it better. By aiming at his own favourite targets a special brand of gently...

The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages. By

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Walter Ullmann. (Methuen, 42s.) THE greatest success story of the early Middle . Ages is not that of any secular ruler; not of William the Conqueror or Pepin; not even o the...

British Railway History, 1830-1876. By Hamilton Ellis. .(Allen and Unwin,

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30s.) IT is a curious thought how much of the knotted tangle of the British railway system is due to the, ruthless and often dishonest self-seeking of a few men a century ago;...

SHORTER NOTICES THE history of M. Sartre's Kean is curious

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and important. The play is a rewriting by Sartre of a • play by Alexandre Dumas pert, in turn a re- writing of a play by Theaulon composed in 1836, and inspired by the career of...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT `HAVIN.; :1 ,:.litred on November 5 that the Stock Exchange boom would flatten out "from now on," I cannot pretend to have been astonished at the weakness...

COMPANY NOTES

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By CUSTOS FOR the past month I have been advising investors not to plunge into low-yielding industrial shares which seemed to me too high and I hope that some of my readers...

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SPECTATOR CROSSWORD No. 823

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SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 263 Set by J. P. Stevenson The

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usual prize (which may be divided) is offered for a sonnet containing the fol- lowing lines (not necessarily consecutively or in this order): To unknown lands across the...

To enhance the dignity of the West German Bundestag, its

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Speaker is to wear morning dress; members are to rise when he enters, and avoid the ostentatious reading of news- papers in the Chamber. A prize of £5 was ofiered for a...