M. Mendes-France has been waiting for many years for the c h ance to show what he could do for his country. He came within an ace of getting that chance just after the...

Andrei Vyshinsky belonged to the age of Stalin and has not long survived it. To describe him, ,correctly enough, as an executant rather than an originator of Soviet policy has...

No. 6 5 9 6 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1954 PRICE 7d.

The world seems to be an unconscionably long time waking up to the fact that the dispute between Mr. Onassis and the Peruvian Government is about the freedom of the seas. No...

Dr. Malan's successor is not yet chosen, but some light has been thrown on the obscurity of South African political affairs by the endorsement of Mr. Strauss as leader of the...

The chief virtue of President Eisenhower's ` atoms for peace' plan lay precisely in the fact that it could be discussed and worked out without reference to the world-dividing...

T HE third session of this Parliament ended on Thursday with the Tories almost certain that they are within sight of the Promised Land—an. ample Tory majority in the House of...

F ROM the Government's point of view, the Parliamentary session which ended on Thursday has gone out with a flourish. The political news of the last week or so has read like the...

I am only an intermittent listener to The Archers, the 1,000th instalment of whose kersey saga was broadcast this week, but I am not in the least surprised to hear that a...

Government's proposal to make the spreading of myxomatosis an offence. It is arguable that, if the entire rabbit population is doomed to the disease, it is better from their and...

Those who have suffered from them will, I believe, agree, that the pangs of authorship are described- with accuracy 8 0 feeling in the following morceau, the end-product of a...

HERE was one great gain from the censure debate on pensions,' wrote, last week, a young Socialist Member of Parliament, whys describes the goings-on at West- minster in one of...

A. Sofronov, recently returned from a trip round Britain, emphasised the great interest and tireless attention with which every word uttered by Soviet writers is greeted.' A....

Among the statesmen of his time Churchill was, in genius, the first. His intellect was fertile, daring and capacious. His careful and animated eloquence, set off by the defiant...

for jest that I should come here this afternoon to honour the descendant of a Whig. He was, I would remind you, no common Whig, if there were ever such a creature. No other...

There were other days when England forsook the cause of freedom, when the eyes of the oppressed and the humbled were turned in vain to this favourite, this darling home of so...

The Earl of Chatham There are gentlemen who bring forward their accusations of inconsistency against this man. Let us talk not of consistency as if it were a virtue. I boast a...

We have heard the grievance that this man has not loved G ant'. A grievance—as though it were a fault in him ! racious God, Sir, is honour now a crime ? Is courage to be counted...

By STEPHEN TOULMIN - ' It is, obviously, becoming less and less possible to accept the human situation, which is so full of misery and tragedy.' Thus an anonymous reviewer in...

By JACK WHITE Dublin. RIVE ENGLAND OUT : —It was an army of soldiers that England first sent over to conquer our Nation. It is with an army of soldiers that England today...

Magazine Post) Id.

Management and Higher Pioductivity By MARK ABRAMS I N the six years between 1948 and 1954 Britain's index of industrial production (which relates to the output of roughly half...

T the moment that you are reading this, if it is not too late at night, the Minister of Transport will probably be considering schemes for dealing with London traffic., The A '...

WILL Television kill Variety? Or will Variety kill TV? If the offerings of Messrs. Ralph Reader and Vic Oliver. on Saturday and Monday respectively are anything to go by, it...

ART THE London Group has claimed for itself an unusual generosity this year, in allotting two- thirds of the hanging-space at the Nor Burlington Galleries to non-members. In...

Garden of Evil. (Odeon, Marble Arch.)---- The Great Adventure. (Academy.)----- The Sheep Has Five Legs. (Cameo-Poly.) THE Western is perfect food for Cinema- Scope. Inside its...

Caligula knows how to entertain. Nothing can compare with his gladiatorial Shows; with his games in a circus all strewn With purple and panthers and Aethiopians Who box and act...

of their books, Wander through haunted gardens of dark ink, Till all the might-have beens, the dashinglooks, Young blue and gold fade into dusty grey, Flowers pressed between...

The book lay on the marble steps, bound In the silence of the newly dead. The Chian sea was feasting beyond the tranquil urns. Facing this wine-blue water, I cannot see you,...

Greece and Rome II' your troop-ship is sailing in fine Weather from Port Said to Gibraltar, And you sense behind the hard sky-line Athens and Rome—temple, dome and altar Rising...

The Talk of the Town. (Adelphi.) THE word review' covers a multitude of sins. It can mean something performed in a cellar and depending for its effect on jokes about existenti....

THE WRITING OF HISTORY SIR,—Mr. Henry Fairlic's strictures on the scheme devised for the sixteen projected volumes of the new Oxford History, of Modern Europe seem to me to go...

SIR,—Although Lord Hailsham is quite right in feeling irritated at sentimental arguments based on the hydrogen bomb, he seems rather to have missed the point. It is reasonably...

SIR,—Your correspondent Dorothy Smith is sceptical about the value and practicability of dental assistants. But these are not, .as she ry seems to imply, an untried theory....

In Europe (Spectator, November 19) raises some interesting points of historical interpretation. He attacks the general editors for their choice of dates for The Oxford History...

SIR, — Mr. Bctjeman is not alone in wondering if some British books do not fall short of perfection. Unfortunately, his supporters are scattered. if you would allow us to meet ,...

SIR,—It was a pleasure to read the well- balanced review of Lord M. by the winner of your second competition. Has Mr. Watson, howcycr, done justice to the artistic achieve* ment...

SIR,—Thc spate of amplified canned music of Waterloo Station, of which Mr. Cole so feelingly complains, is trying indeed for passengers, but must surely be maddening fer . the...

SIR,—I notice your front page article in your issue of October 29 re the dock strike says: Dockers cannot reasonably expect such rejularity of hours as bank clerks enjoy.' From...

SIR.—The advice of ' Strix ' to stick the flap down and post unwanted circulars back un- stamped is exactly what I have done fa yeah; usually with good results. But whenever I...

Sta.—As a schoolboy over 60 years ago I went to see a Lancashire v. Gloucester cricket match at Old Trafford with Dr. W. G. Grace captaining the visiting team. One of his side...

doubt if many of 'your readers will have disagreed with Mr. John Wain's assess- ment of Mr. Lawrence Brander's book, George Orwell; or with his remarks about Orwell. But surely...

SIR, — Pleasc allow me to correct a misappre- hension about the policy of Pick on the part of your reviewer, and to apologise if this seems to arise from some ambiguity of my...

So many people try to keep apples without considering when they should be used or hoW they should be stored. - There are long keepers and others that will not keep beyond...

Old W. stopped and watched me working with , a pair of garden shears. He was interested not in what I was doing but in the working of the shears. Could he see them he asked. I...

of will be awarded for a motto for a Christmas cracker, in not more than six lines of verse. It should be light, but need not be so silly as most cracker mottoes. Entries,...

to the fish they catch or lose. One suspects an ulterior motive in this talk of educated fish. Indeed, in the case of pike I have become convinced that they are short-sighted,...

for, like summer, it takes no account of the calendar, but most people consider autumn to be the fall of the leaf. Strictly. speaking, this is anywhere from August to well into...

The month of November is generally assumed to have the least to recommend it of any month In the year—hence Torn Hood's well-known No' verses. But has November no good side?...

Compton Mackenzie A LETTER to The Times about the recent prosecutions of books for obscenity, signed by Lord Russell, Harold Nicolson, J. B. Priestley, H. E. Bates, W. S....

. • By C. B. FRY H OW answer an enterprising road-operative who in a traffic-jam abandons his drill and enquires through a slit in the window, ' What abaht them there down...

Caught in the centre of a soundless field While hot inexplicable hours go by What trap is this? How were its teeth concealed? You seem to ask. I make a brief reply, Then...

Russia's Beginnings and Russian History By JULES MENKEN T HERE can be few readers of Russian history who have not been struck by its extraordinary mixture of tragedy and...

The Complete Plain Words. By Sir Ernest Gowers. (HMSO. 5s.) THIS IS Sir Ernest Gowers's re-arrangement and revision of his previous guides to good official English, Plain Words...

'IT is the habit of my imagination,' wrote George Eliot, 'to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself.' Such a vision of...

The Unwritten Law in Albania. By Margaret Hasluck. (C.U.P. 30s.) To those who are tired of sheikhs who ride in Cadillacs, or of eastern kings who prefer the rite of television...

everybody's Christmas spirit. Of course Victorian Vista, handsomely produced and illustrated, is meant to be more than fleeting enter- tainment. Mr. Laver presents his subject...

Groucho. By Arthur Marx. (Gollancz. 16s.) This Is on Me. By Bob Hope. (Frederick Muller. 10s. 6d.) ACCORDING to one incorrigible American statistician, journalists and comedians...

Men Against Everest. By Howard Marshall. (Country Life. 9s. 6d.) Himalayan Journal, Vol. XVIII. (Oxford. 21s.) STILL they come, the high-altitude climbing books; and if,...

REVIEWERS of novels have 'recently had a salutary experience. Tossed to us in the week's batch, clad in new jackets as if appearing for the first time, have come, works by...

Three Sea Books Captain James Cook. By John Merrett. Illustrated by F. Stocks May. (Frederick Muller. 6s.) Dr. Bombard Goes to Sea. By Alain Bombard. Translated by Joan...

Babar , at Home. By Jean de Brunhoff. (Methuen. 6s.) Babar and Father Christmas. By Jean de Brunhoff. (Methuen. 6s.) Ethelbert. By Rosemary Hoyland. (Collins. 7s.) in a...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT We are all trying to build up a new industrial democracy in which the workers can have confidence. If we succeed, the national productivity will increase,...

' By CUSTOS BUSINESS in Throgmorton Street this week has been concentrated on the DORMAN LONG issue which has gone to Is. 3d. premium. There has been a good deal of switching...

Imre!. / ropy of the I), Luse edition of Chanthers'l Twentieth Cen- tury 1)1etionaty and a book token for one g u nen. These will be a warded its she arndcrs tli she first 010...

ACROSS: I Saline. 4 Rantpicks. it Encamped. 10 Gnomes. Baste. 13 Barcelona. 14 Tints. 16 Nonentity. 17 Liverpool. 19 Cleft. 21 D'Artagnan. 22 Nurse. 24 Ice-men. 25 Osier-bed....