3 JUNE 1955

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FOOTPLATE FOLLY

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N O doubt ASLEF hoped the Government would give way again; but the Government, for all its precarious eve-of-election position, was aware that its reputa- tion this time would...

ESTABLISHED 1828

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No. 6623 FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1955 PRICE 7d.

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Portrait of the Week

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T HE election is over. The tumult and the shouting have died. The captains and the kings (some of them) have departed, and, if rumours about the future of the Labour Party have...

T HE Conservative victory is not dimmed by second thoughts. The

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solid fact that, in four years of Conserva- tive rule, it is the Opposition and not the Government that has lost ground cannot be argued away. The most that can be said by way...

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them; they have finally smashed the polite anti-Partition nationalists who

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had run ward-politics in the Catholic sectors of the North. Only a fraction of their supporters in the election are really Sinn Fein sympathisers; most of them voted as they...

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Political Commentary ' BY HENRY FAIRLIE M R. R. B. McCALLUM, the

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first of the psephologists, who predicted a Conservative majority but did not publicly forecast how large it would be, has now, after the election, confessed that he 'had in...

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Psephological Intelligence

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'WHILE the Gallop Poll overestimated the Tory and Labour votes, it underestimated the Liberals.'—Ne►vs Chronicle, May 28. 'THE NEWS CHRONICLE Gallup Poll was shown to have been...

A Spectator's Notebook

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a doze to find that the car was moving and that the driver's seat was empty. The engine was not running and the ignition key was not in the car. He grabbed the steering wheel...

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The Middle Road in India BY FRANCIS WATSON M ORE than

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a decade ago, in a conversation with the late Lord Wavell, I ventured the not very startling suggestion that in the post-war world China and India would be the leading powers in...

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Church and State in the Soviet Union

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BY JOHN LAWRENCE " 0 NE evening about the end of 1942 an elderly bearded Russian called at the British Embassy in Kuibyshev and asked to see the Ambassador. In the Ambassador's...

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Zuleika Returns

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BY EDMUND IONS (Merton College. Oxford) S HE arrived in the early afternoon and moved on to the Randolph Hotel in a swift, sleek car. This was not the traditional arrival, but...

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City and Suburban

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By JOHN BETJEMAN I F a candidate lives in his constituency, does he vote for himself? If he does, is that quite a gentlemanly thing to do? Do candidates make a sporting...

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How reptilian is an unfeathered bird! Crossing the moorland slope

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on \ my way to the road I came to one of the pools of a stream and lying among the boulders, a foot or so beneath the surface, was a grey object which I took to be a dead frog....

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'Oddly enough, I read your note on black snails and

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the cure for warts only half an hour or so after hearing of a parallel experience,' says a reader who lives in Fordingbridge. 'This came from an old Wiltshire man whom I...

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Strix

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I ' T'S CHAOS EVERYWHERE,' said the headline on the lunch-time edition. Nobody (for some extraordinary reason) likes to be told that they live in a world of their own; and,...

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DEFENCE AND DETERRENTS

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SIR,—Professor Gibbs's contribution in your April 15 issue seems to me to be open to the criticism that it leaves unanswered these perti- nent questions : (1) Seeing that, as he...

99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1

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Euston 3221

Letters to .the Editor

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The Hydrogen Bomb Defence and Deterrents Racial Prejudice The Two Roses Language and Colour The Grapevine The Investigation Piscatorial Potency The Dog It Was The Attack on...

SIR,—In his admirable article of May 27, entitled 'Racial Prejudice,'

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Mr. Michael Crowder drew attention to the need for greater efforts in schools to teach the similarities be- tween all the various human races and to explain the relative...

THE TWO ROSES is with some trepidation that I cross

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swords with Mr. K. B. McFarlane, upon whose article dealing with the first battle of St. Albans and the Wars of the Roses I wish to comment. My trepidation is all the greater...

RACIAL PREJUDICE

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SIR,-1 hope Mr. Crowder will not assume that I disagree with the sentiments expressed in his challenging article, 'Racial Prejudice' (Spectator, May 27) if I suggest that one of...

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PISCATORIAL POTENCY

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SH2,—The valuable contribution from the Director of the Institute of Piscatorial Propa- gation widens the scope of this inquiry. We were discussing the effect on the procreative...

THE DOG IT WAS At what interval of time should

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what is dismissed by Mr. &me of Sydney as 'an old chestnut' be revived to amuse the next gencration?—Yours faithfully,

THE 'ATTACK ON BAHAI

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SIR,---Thc partial destruction (as reported in The Times. of May 24) of the Baha'i head- quarters in Teheran by order of the authorities and executed by the Persian army, in the...

THE GRAPEVINE

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SIR,—Mr. John Betjeman's story about the sinister garage and the substitution of engines is remarkable if only on the score of its ubiquity. I first heard it some three years...

LANGUAGE AND COLOUR

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SIR,—May I, even at this late date, comment on the very fair article by Penry Williams in your issue of March 11? The word apartheid has become so firmly attached to the...

Sin,—In John Irwin's review of television and radio, April 22,

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he says that 'There has been a considerable black market for the records of The Investigator.' This gives an impression which I think should be corrected. The Investigator is...

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MUSIC

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THE main interest of London music during the past few weeks has been two extended series of performances, both now completed—The Ring at Covent Garden and the BBC Sym- phony...

THEATRE

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THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE. By William Douglas Home. (Cambridge.) To perpetuate the rites and ceremonies of any particular culture is generally ,held to be a worthy and a pious...

Contemporary Arts

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DANISH FESTIVAL UNLIKE most other festivals, no guest artists were invited to the Danish festival of music and ballet that ended on Tuesday, thereby giving visitors an...

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TELEVISION AND RADIO

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COLIN MASON SITUATION normal, as they say in the US Army. After distinguishing itself with What Every Woman Knows, The River Line and Romeo and Juliet, the drama department...

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CINEMA

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MARTY. (Odeon.) GIRDED with praise and garlanded with prizes, Marty is, inevitably enough. a slight dis- appointment, for it is not, as we were led to expect, the very best film...

Tly eopettator

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JUNE 5, 1830 THE gaieties of Paris suffer no pause in con- sequence of the political disputes and financial embarrassments of the country. A splendid fete was given on the 31st...

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BOOKS

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Old Intellectuals Never Die . . BY HENRY FAIRLIE I T is often said that the Labour movement in this country owes more to Methodism than to Marxism, and a few days ago the...

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THE EARTH BENEATH US. By H. H. Swinnerton. (Muller, 21s.)

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THE INEXHAUSTIBLE SBA. By H. Daniel and F. Minot. (Macdonald, 16s.) THE MOVING WATERS. By John Stewart Collis. (Hart-Davis, 15s.) THOUGH differing notably both in , style and in...

Clarity of Vision

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MISS REBECCA WEST was an observer at the Nuremburg trials and saw at first-hand the broken Berlin and Western Germany of 1 , 946. She subsequently explored the recovering...

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Views of War

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DocroR AT WAR. By Ion Ferguson. (Johnson, 15s.) VERY many of the brave men who have lived since Agamemnon, lacking a poet, have still contrived to be remembered by publishing...

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Eight-Thousanders

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K2—THE SAVAGE MOUNTAIN. By Charles Houston and Robert Bates. (Collins, 25s.) I owN I had tended to regard the 1953 American expedition to K2, second highest mountain in the...

Nor so very long ago the gulf between those who

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had rockeries and those who possessed an Alpine garden was almost as clear- cut as the division between coup / and commonalty. But now, When the private gardener is becoming...

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New Novels •

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THE BEGGARS IN THE . SUN. By Paul Darcy Boles. (Jonathan Cape, 12s. 6d.) SILAS TIMBERMAN. By Howard Fast. (The Bodley Head, 12s. 6d.) YOUNG ToRLESS. By Robert Musil. (Secker and...

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COMPANY NOTES

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By CUSTOS THESE have been exciting days in the stock markets. On the election news industrial shares broke through their February index high of 1971 with a jump to 199.4, thus...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT As everyone knowi, the trade boom, which almost every country seems to be enjoying, can be stopped dead in Great Britain by prolonged industrial disputes....

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SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 277 Set by Tom Bowling An electronic

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brain has written a love letter, beginning, 'Dearest Sweetheart : You are my avid fellow being. My affection curiously clings to your passionate wish,' and ending 'Yours...

Baedeker with the Lid Of

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SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 274 Report by Allan 0. Waith The atmosphere of Boston was neatly summed up in the well-known verse : 'I come from the city of Boston. The home of the...

SPECTATOR CROSSWORD No. 837

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1 First turning to the east (6). 4 It's all very mysterious (8). 10 The way in which to sing a canon? (7), 11 Stormy night for a character on Egdon Heath (7). 12, 13 Old...