28 APRIL 1950

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The Allies and Bonn

The Spectator

Nothing could be more unfortunate than the tension that for various reasons has been created in recent weeks between the West German Government and the High Commissioners,...

THE DOCKER'S SPANNER

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HE London dockers have struck so often, and almost always for reasons so inadequate, that any comment on their behaviour must sound repetitive. Condenination of their disregard...

Page 2

Atlantic Reality

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No detailed public statements can be expected from the British, American and French representatives now meeting in London to prepare the ground for the Three-Power and Atlantic...

' Greater Jordan

The Spectator

The decision of King Abdullah and the Parliament of Jordan to incorporate the remnants of Arab Palestine within the boundaries of the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan is a logical...

Fiasco on Hainan

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In order to be defeated in war it is necessary to obtain the use of a - battlefield ; and for this reason the Chinese Nationalists may not have many more opportunities of...

Principle in Trieste

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The Western Powers have one incomparable advantage in the Trieste question. They really want a stable and peaceful settle- ment. Now that feeling in Italy and Yugoslavia has...

Dr. Malan and Apartheid

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The Union of South Africa is completely self-governing, and since this country cannot if it would interfere in the Union's internal, or for that matter its external, affairs the...

Page 3

Delhi and Karachi .

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The systematic progress of the talks between India and Pakistan, and the presence of Pandit Nehru in Karachi, on the first visit he has paid to Pakistan, is reassuring. That the...

* * * *

The Spectator

To adapt Dr. Johnson's words on Goldsmith, Mr. Churchill touches no debate that he does not transform. His meditations, inconclusive though they were, on the possibility—or...

* * * * The speech stimulated discussion on another

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head. During his criticism of the detailed proposals of the Budget Mr. Churchill recalled asking Lord Keynes what he thought was Labour's attitude to wealth. In one word Lord...

One's own impression, gained from Mr. Churchill's manner and treatment

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of the matter, was that he was very skilfully avoiding saying anything that could be construed as even an approach to a positive proposal. He had captured the close attention of...

AT WESTMINSTER

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T HE Labour Members roared their relief when the result of the first division on the Budget resolutions was announced at the table. Relief was understandable ; but there is no...

The Covenanters' Campaign

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The meeting on Scottish self-government at Edinburgh last Saturday gave the movement a status it had not hitherto enjoyed. The number of the delegates—close on a thousand—the...

Page 4

PARLIAMENT UNDER TEST

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T HE Government fortunately escaped defeat on Wednesday, though only by a hairbreadth—fortunately, because no man in any party could desire to see the country plunged into...

Page 5

From my self-typing correspondent: " I am stying down here

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for the next two weeka." Pigging it ? JANus.

More Versatility "Late in life I have begun to keep

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a herd of Churchill in the House of Commons on Monday. cows."—Mr.

If the Grocers' Hall had been blown up on Monday

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while the luncheon in honour of the new Chambers' Encyclopaedia was in progress there, half the universities in the country would have had to close their doors for lack of...

A rather strange question was included in an examination paper

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set last week to persons taking the Colonial Course at Cambridge : " Do you consider Islam or Christianity the more suitable religion for an African community which finds its...

Wordsworth country, on which an Archbishop and two Bishops (I

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doubt whether the poet was really episcopophile), Lord Beveridge and Professor Basil Willey and Dr. Helen Darbishire descended at the week-end, may claim to have provided the...

Up till last week Mr. W. W. Hadley, then 84,

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and still occupying the editorial chair of 'the Sunday Times, must have been easily the oldest active editor of an important journal ; even Mr. Robertson Scott put his...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

T HE problem of the Dean of Canterbury becomes in- creasingly acute. A Dean is commonly assumed to have decant duties of some consequence to occupy him. They do • not seem to...

Someone, I feel sure, can solve for me the mystery

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of Dumbarton and Dunbarton. In the newspaper reports of the recent by-election the two forms seem to have been used indiscriminately, but there is no doubt some distinction...

Page 6

Policy for Africa

The Spectator

By SIR STEWART GORE-BROWNE• T HAT the question of race relations in Africa has become one of the major problems of the day is now generally recognised. The problem is not the...

Page 7

The Basking Shark ,

The Spectator

By Professor C. M. YONGE, F.R.S. T HE second largest of existing fishes, the basking shark, Cetorhinus maximus, is frequently to be seen during the summer months off the...

Page 8

Fair Shares

The Spectator

By SIR HARRY GILPIN * T HE first industrial revolution gave to a minority power, wealth and all the kingdoms of the earth. The second, in which we are now living, has behind it...

Page 9

The Hungry People

The Spectator

By IVANROE Calabria, April T HE Italians are practised imbroglioni, and tell many funny stories to advertise the fact. . Even the land-occupation in the South has provided an...

Page 10

In the Donbas

The Spectator

By JEAN ROUNAULT Y visit to the U.S.S.R. - was not clandestine ; it was organised for me by the N.K.V.D. In January, 1945, six months after the liberation of Rumania and its...

Page 11

Stumps Pitched

The Spectator

By NEVILLE CARDUS p REPARATIONS for the 'cricket season are going busily forward up and down the land. Groundsmen are again at their fell work. Bats are being oiled, and...

Page 12

MARGINAL COMMENT

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By HAROLD NICOLSON I HAVE been scanning the tributes paid to Lord Berners with that grim repugnance with which one reads the obituaries of a friend for more than forty years....

Page 13

COMMUNICATION

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The "Cocktail Party" Stit,—In his appreciation of Mr. T. S> Elies new play (Spectator, April 21st) Professor Dobrde said of the language: "Now, we feel secure, Mr. Eliot has...

Page 14

CONTEMPORARY ARTS

The Spectator

THEATRE g1Cry Liberty." By Esther McCracken. (Vaudeville.) Cry Liberty is a play about the cold war between the British and their bureaucrats. This bitter and unequal struggle...

The Green Bay Tree." By Mordaunt Shairp. (Playhouse.) I SEEM

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to remember a time when to call a play " well-made " was a term, if not of reproach, at least of condescension. But how pleasant it is to see such a piece upon the stage. After...

CINEMA

The Spectator

"Retour a la Vie." (Academy.)—“ State Secret." (Plaza.)— ,, Chance of a Lifetime." (Leicester Square.) FIVE episodes, unrelated to one another save in their common plea for...

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MUSIC

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SIR ADRIAN BOULT'S farewell concert with the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra (which will surely be no more of a farewell than that of many a beloved singer) allowed him to revel in...

ART

The Spectator

WHAT constitutes a mural painter ? In this country, it must be admitted, mostly the wish to be one. In the absence of the sensible provision that operates in so many other...

" Tbe 6pettator," april 27th, 1850

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THE death of a poet creates an official vacancy—the Laureate Wordsworth has departed. It is an histOrical fact, but not more ; for he had long been withdrawn from the world of...

Page 16

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 15

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Report by Peter . Flemin g The Order of Merit is bestowed on British citizens by the King for " especial distinction in any field." There are at present two vacancies in the...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 17

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Set by Hilary Brett Smith The following have been tried out for the Third Programme. A prize of £5, which may be divided, is o f fered for extracts (not more than 200 words)...

Page 17

Mr. Moore and Dr. Sitwell

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Sta,—I-Iaving just seen for the first time the full text of Miss Edith Sitwell's letter (Spectator, March 31st), I should like to answer some of her factual " points" I was not...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Mr. Stassen's Granny SIR,-- - The March 17th issue of the Spectator carried an item by Sir Heneage Ogilvie attacking a series of articles which I wrote for the Reader's Digest...

The Left "

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Sitt.--Mr. Ronald Chamberlain, like Mr. Herbert Morrison, casts covetous eyes on the " middle-class " vote, recognising rightly that the future of State Socialism is dependent...

Page 18

SIR,—It may be relevant to retail a statement made by

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Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., to the Rev. E. L. Macassey, D.D.: " As . is lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the...

SIR.-1 was leaving for Italy when the Spectator, containing Mr.

The Spectator

Rice's letter, reached me. Unfortunately I left the paper behind, so must answer his letter from memory. It made me very sad. Mr. Rice is obviously a very nice person. But he is...

Deserters

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SIR,—It was my duly, during the last war as well as in the previous one, to question many hundreds of deserters, who passed through my hands to " durance vile." I have no...

The Message of Easter SIR,—Janus has raised a question of

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vital interest to all Christians. Surely Mr. H. W. Pearson is right in saying that the primary evidence of the Resurrection is not in the Gospel narratives, transparently honest...

SIR,—Can it be that Mr. H F. Blair, writing from

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H.M.S. ' New- foundland,' does so with his tongue in his cheek? Wilfred Granville, in his recently published Sea Slang of the Twentieth Century, defines a " King's 'aard bargain...

Russia's Pre-war Foreign Policy

The Spectator

SIR.—I am sorry to have been so slow (thanks to illness and absence) to 'reply to Mr. Max Belofi's letter published in your issue of March 31st. But I am more than sorry—I am...

D. H. Lawrence

The Spectator

SIR,—I cannot refrain from expressing my feelings of surprise that a writer of Mr. Hesketh Pearson's attainments should be so misled by prejudice as to sign the article on D. H....

Arabs and the West

The Spectator

SIR,—Professor Gibb thinks that we in Western Europe are disqualified from offering criticism and advice on Arab affairs, because we have not been conspicuously successful in...

Page 20

The Upkeep of Cathedrals

The Spectator

Si .estate aid means State control. Witness the fate of the schools, the hospitals and, alas! the noble medical profession. The Dean of Winchester is somewhat optimistic if he...

SIR,—It was, I think, in the early 'nineties that a

The Spectator

very promising young Cambridge man, " dowered with the scorn of scorn," composed, and published in the ephemeral Press, under the title Oxide of Milton, some rather cruel...

Greek Easter Greeting

The Spectator

SIR,—I was much interested in Mr. Renford Bambrough's article, Easter in Athens: 1949, in the" Spectator of April 7th. There is just one point in it which seems to me to call...

University Slang

The Spectator

Sul,-An the Spectator of April 14th two correspondents draw attention to minor errors in Dr. H. W. Garrod's review, of March 31st, of Mr. Marpks's University Slang. Partly...

TO ENSURE REGULAR RECEIPT OF THE SPECTATOR

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readers are urged to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold copies are...

Custos Enlarged

The Spectator

Sut,—May I join with those of your readers"Who welcome your decision to give additional space to your financial contributor, Custos 7 If it gives any emphasis to the expression,...

The Right to Die

The Spectator

SIR,—I have read with interest Mr. Bavin's letter in reply to mine which appeared in the . Spectator of April 14th. I must still insist that it is utterly wrong for a minister...

Bishop Henson's Autobiography - .

The Spectator

is much to be hoped that no one will be deterred from reading the third volume of Bishop Hensley Henson's Retrospect of an Unimportant Life, or be guided in his estimate of the...

An Encyclopaedia in Error

The Spectator

SIR,—J. M. Dent's Everyman's Encyclopaedia may be, as Mr. Wilson Harris finds it, concit clear and accurate on the whole, but " on the whole " must be emphasised. In Vol. 7, on...

SIR,—In the early 'nineties at Oxford everyone, blood or smug,

The Spectator

prided himself on inventing a fresh diminutive on the basis of "rugger," and a new spoonerism. A German baron of my acquaintance, an under- graduate at Trinity reading for Mods,...

Page 22

Tennyson's Natural History

The Spectator

Tennyson really was quite a good poet! This profound dictum follows the search for a quotation that had baffled the memory of a correspondent, to wit: " The music of the moon -...

In the Garden

The Spectator

The effects of a continuous downpour have been almost startling. Green lines appeared suddenly in our potagers, the grass began 'almost to wave, birds united in song, rabbits...

Inter-Shire Visits

The Spectator

A properly constituted trust has this advantage over a more loosely defined society, that it can keep mopping up desirable sites, as the Norfolk example triumphantly proves....

• They have since shown themselves equal to the occasion.—Eotroa.

The Spectator

Spectator.: •

Punctual Birds

The Spectator

Is it an early spring? Most of the migrant birds, swallow, cuckoo and nightingale at any rate, have turned up pat to the standard dates. The few unduly early appearances, as of...

COUNTRY LIFE .

The Spectator

THE shires (how many deserve to be called counties?) begin to follow the inspiring lead of Norfolk in the formation of Naturalists' Trusts. The Yorkshire Trust is celebrating a...

Page 23

BOOKS AND WRITERS .

The Spectator

I N a country villa a government clerk who lectures on the Apocalypse is entertaining visitors. They have come to see his guest, an epileptic Prince, who in face and character...

Page 24

Reviews of the Week

The Spectator

The Young Wordsworth LET no one call this book well-timed. That its appearance synchronises with the centenary of Wordsworth's death is accident. It is much too good a book to...

Ideals in the Theatre

The Spectator

THIS book presumably completes the publication of the material left by Stanislaysky at his death. It consists of a course of lectures on his " system " of acting, delivered to...

Page 26

Arranging an Invasion

The Spectator

Overture to Overlord. By Lt.-Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan, K.C.B. (Hodder and Stoughton. zos.) THE glamour of action in the field is easy to convey in the reminiscences of...

Rackrent To Barchester

The Spectator

AMONG the literary superstitions of this country is the superstition that there has always been something which can be described as the English novel," the assumption being that...

Page 28

Hogarth and the Writers

The Spectator

OSCAR WILDE!. divided books into three classes—books to read, books to re-read and boolr.s not to read at all. In the third class he included " all argumentative books, and all...

Knowledge for All

The Spectator

Chambers's Encyclopaedia. New Edition. 15 vols., (Newnes. los.) AN encyclopaedia is one of the pleasantest works to fall (meta- phorically speaking, of course) into the lap of...

Page 30

The New Gnosticism

The Spectator

THERE must be a great many people to whom the names of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky summon up merely some such random recollection as that it was at the former's...

Page 32

A Tour of Wessex MR. DurroKs Wessex is rather oddly

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defined. It comprises three entire counties, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset, parts of Berkshire and Somerset, and a corner of Devon. But it is a strange Wessex that excludes...

Fiction

The Spectator

The Hollow of - the 'Wave. By Edward Newhouse. (Reinhardt and Evans. 8s. 6d.) The Hollow of the Wave is an interesting American novel, a very readable novel and probably a...

Page 34

SHORTER NOTICES

The Spectator

Two social workers have analysed here the conditions under which children live in dockland. Stories of individual families are inter- spersed with a general survey and...

THIS is a successor to the Old English Farming Books

The Spectator

from FitzHerbert to Tull, 1523-1730. Mr. Fussell gives a list in alpha- betical order of 456 books, pamphlets and periodicals, and the libraries where they can be found, and 'a...

Page 35

" THE SPECTATOR " CROSSWORD No. 579

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[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, May 9th. Envelopes...

SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD No. 577

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.1 ,! E , C I i . F1 i C A Rittill_l_ U ' i = itAOLK:EIRiS 1 . is, Pa S:S1 14 Ll .co P . E'S t4101P a A.111E_ o Li °IA' e ' 4 . : i ii i i_el T 0 E tc 'i istIPIS SOLUTION ON...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By CUSTOS DISPLAYING his now familiar stoicism, that essentially patient and long-suffering animal, the average investor, seems to have already gone part of the way towards...

THE SPECTATOR

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SUBSCRIPTION RATES ORDINARY EDITION by post to any part of the World ... AIR MAIL (World-wide distribution by Air) To all countries in Europe except Poland .— . 2 7 6 Aden,...