4 MAY 1962

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THE INTELLECTUALS OF ENGLAND

The Spectator

by Anthony Hartley Arrangements for Testing John Maddox The Canadian Election Miriam Chapin Spectator's Notebook Starbuck

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—Portrait of the Week— THE NATO MINISTERIAL MEETING opened in

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Athens. The British and United States Defence Ministers had already conferred in London, and the United States Government said that the Athens meeting wasn't expected to reach a...

INDECISIONS IN NATO

The Spectator

For the moment these strains are most obvious in the field of nuclear deterrence. For although Great Britain may have an independent nuclear striking force, the alliance in...

The Spectator

The Spectator

No. 6984 abl fished FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1828 1962

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The Canadian Election

The Spectator

From MIRIAM CHAPIN F, as now seems likely, Prime Minister Diefen- I y baker wins the general election he can thank Red China, though he probably won't. For, look- ing across the...

A Matter of Form

The Spectator

T ag Prime Minister's talks with Mr. Diefen- baker are now concluded, and the inevitable pledge abounding in ambiguity has been given concerning Britain's care for Commonwealth...

Taxi!

The Spectator

T HE taxicab situation, particularly in London, is a mess. An uneasy truce reigns between the old-style taxis and the minicabs; these last—at any rate the principal firm—have...

Nebulosities

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T HE London meeting of the Central Treaty Organisation comes to remind us that Britain still has obligations in the Middle East, though these are of a consultative rather than...

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Limbering Up

The Spectator

From ANDREW BOYD BELFAST F the Irish Republicans had not ended their 'border bombing, the next general election for the Stormont Parliament—it will be in June— could have been...

The Arguments for Testing

The Spectator

By JOHN MADDOX B Y lighting up the Pacific sky with artificial auroral displays the American nuclear tests may turn out to be the most spectacular yet. True, the playworld of...

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Trade Union Trauma

The Spectator

By JOHN COLE T ins week has been one of traumatic experi- ence for the British trade union movement. Although the official result of the strike ballot in the shipbuilding and...

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What's the Percentage?

The Spectator

hear that the Liberals are at work on some really spectacular recruiting stunts. Certainly there are sonic smart operators among the leaders of the party. During one of the...

A. V. Cooknran Like so many of the best Times

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men A. V. Cookman was Guardian trained. He was one of the post-war young Turks who made Manchester such a distinguished place journalistically in the Twenties and early...

Spectator's Notebook

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A 111:1:1: or two ago the BBC ran a symposium A on anti-American attitudes. Some well- balanced diagnosticians like Denis Brogan, Kingsley Amis, Marcus Cunliffe, and Anthony...

A Village Elder The other night I was re-reading E.

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B. White's compact and evocative 'Here Is New York.' one of the best short pieces on that miraculous city. So strong is the sense of neighbourhood there, he says, that 'many a...

Holy Xenophobes Some characteristic qualities of the Irish are their

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harsh realism, their salty and unsentimental imagination, their unremitting wit, and their caballero-like handling of an English as lively as our own is jaded. But they still...

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Orwell and Leavis

The Spectator

The part played by Orwell is well known and I do not need to describe it here. It reposed O an honest common sense, which stripped off the cotton-wool of jargon to leave the...

THE INTELLECTUALS OF ENGLAND

The Spectator

By ANTHONY HARTLEY NY account of the activities of English in- tellectuals after 1945 should properly begin With some definition of their status in English society and some...

Against the Thirties

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For some time after the war the intellectuals, while reacting against the revolutionary roman- ticism of the Thirties, were prepared to recognise in the evolution of their...

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End of a Dream

The Spectator

Perhaps that was one reason why Suez raised such a storm of anger. For Suez, more foolish than wicked as it was, marked the end of a dream. Britain was no longer an imperial...

Declaration

The Spectator

In 1957 there appeared a collection of essays called Declaration, which included contributions from such writers as Lindsay Anderson, John Osborne, Kenneth Tynan, John Wain and...

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A Sense of Loss

The Spectator

This discussion of our cultural situation has taken two different directions: one symptomatic and the other analytical. Such recent books as Dennis Potter's The Glittering...

The Welfare State

The Spectator

Much of this disappointment has to do with the state of English culture. In the Thirties it had been widely expected that the attainment of a minimum of social justice would be...

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New Left and CND

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The nostalgia of Mr. Hoggart and the over- s implifications of Mr. Williams have contributed to develop a cultural populism among liberal in- tellectuals which is all the more...

Fashionable Revolt

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English intellectuals are still bewildered by the revolutionary changes which have overtaken their society since the war, and, in consequence, have failed to understand exactly...

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POLYMORPHS FOR PASSENGERS Sta,—Arising from Oliver Stewart's article 'Poly- morphs

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for Passengers,' it was in May, 1958, not 1952, that I first raised Dr. Barnes Wallis's 'Swallow' project in the House of Commons, though my in- terest had begun in the summer...

ALDERMASTON was interested in Starbuck's comments on the Easter March,

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which I watched in its entirety at Hammersmith and then joined as far as Sloane Square. Compared with two years ago, when 1 last wit- nessed this procession, the average age of...

The Alternative Vote Christopher Hollis Mexico: 1962 Antonio et rniendariz

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Aldermaston 'Liberal Christian' Polymorphs for Passengers Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, MP Trading with the Enemy Constantine Fitz Gibbon Window Boxes Ray Ellis Profits in the New...

MEXICO: 1962 SIR,—It was not without interest that 1 read

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the observant article 'Mexico: 1962"3y Mr. J. M. Cohen in your issue of April 20, and it seems to me a rather remarkable effort, not only because of the fever with which he...

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MARTIANS BEARING BURSARIES

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SIR, — Mr. Amis seems to have been so eager in 'the free pursuit of knowledge' as to have chased iL clean away. He should know, for example, that we do not need to choose...

LAST OF THE VICEROYS

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SIR, Of course I read pages 228-231 of Mr. Ma , ' ley's book. In my review I specifically referred to page 229 and looking at the pages again, I see that I corrected in pencil...

PROFITS IN THE NEW CAPITALISM SIR,—Mr. Davenport may be right

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when he says that company profits are the surplus left when ex- penses and depreciation are subtracted I rom gross revenue, but he is wrong in assuming that this surplus is in...

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY

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SIR,—Mr. David Kuhrt takes me to task for saying that 'our' morality is superior to that of the Com- munists. He says that any assumption that the English are more moral, as a...

SIR,—Like, I imagine, most of your readers, I en- joy

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Leslie Adrian's article each week and have found it on occasions very useful. I was, of course, much more interested in the piece on window boxes, as this is my business. I was...

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Theatre

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Unnientionabilia By BAMBER GASCOIGNE Lenny Bruce. (The Establish- ment.) — Photo Finish. (Saville.) JUDGED on their British ap- pearances alone Lenny Bruce proves himself a...

Cinema

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Man-Breaking By ISABEL QUIGLY Lonely are the Brave. (Leices- g ter Square Theatre.) THE title isn't encouraging, buf Lonely are the Brave (director: David Miller; 'A'...

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Television

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The Great Educator By CLIFFORD HANLEY IT'S probably just as well that television can only occasionally light on moments of total reality. Our nervous systems would fly apart if...

Records

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Visionary Gleams By DAVID CAIRNS It is not simply a congenital aversion to the Franken- stein values of hi-fi and the monsters it breeds, nor a scep- ticism about Sonicstage...

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SPRING BOOKS 2

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Agonies of Thought By FRANCIS HOPE L T A pens& console de tout."Penser, c'est souf Hr.' The dividing line between Cham- fort's judgment and Flaubert's is also one be- tween...

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The Albatross of Self Hear Us 0 Lord From Heaven

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Thy Dwelling Place. By Malcolm Lowry. (Cape, 18s.) 'Le style c'est l'homme. But who is this man? 'An Englishman who is a Scotchman who is Norwegian who is a Canadian who is a...

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The Evans Country

The Spectator

By KINGSLEY AMIS I Aberdarey : the Main Square By the new Boots', a tool-chest with flagpoles Glued on, and flanges, and a dirty great Baronial doorway, and things like...

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Before the Flood

The Spectator

High Dam over Nubia. By Leslie Greener. (Cassell, 25s.) MR. GREENER has been many things—an officer in the Indian Army, a deckhand on a blue-cod ketch in Australia, an art...

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Trigger Country

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Defence or Retaliation. By Helmut Schmidt. (Oliver and Boyd, 25s.) Defence or Retaliation. By Helmut Schmidt. (Oliver and Boyd, 25s.) WHEN the coolest Germanic eye regards the...

The Mark of Kane

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Citizen Hearst. By W. A. Swanberg. (Longmans, 42s.) THE camera tracks round the impossible Byzan- tine castle, through the wire, across the rolling park, over the battlements,...

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Love the Killer

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AT last! No longer need James collectors spend valuable time collating those maddeningly similar and scrappy selections of his tales which have appeared in recent years. We are...

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Gaudy Night

The Spectator

To write a full-length book about a single event is now a popular pursuit. Unfortunately Mr. Garrett Mattingley's Defeat of the Spanish Armada and Mme Pernoud's treatise on the...

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Coup de Theatre

The Spectator

Quick you say a live match to this hem and here they go Robe by robe his flash wardrobe red yellow ' flakes Drift like tropical hawks what a flower show So no flowers please for...

Great Yaroo

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IF George Orwell had lived to read this inno- cent testament, he would surely have sup- pressed or revised his 1939 essay on 'Boys' Weeklies,' reprinted in Critical Essays....

Passion and Reserve

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Between Mars and Venus. By Robert Conquest. (Hutchinson, 12s. 6d.) ROBERT CONQUEST has developed slowly as poet. His first collection appeared in 1955: his bent seemed to be...

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Outriders of the Apocalypse

The Spectator

he Spoilt City is the second volume of the alkan trilogy projected by Olivia Manning. The st volume, The Great Fortune, was set in the ucharest of late 1939: Miss Manning intro-...

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End This Fiscal Nonsense

The Spectator

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT There is certainly a strong case for taxing personal capital increment, for there is no doubt that it encourages and adds to personal spending. Moreover,...

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Investment Notes

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By CUSTOS HE confident cheerfulness of Mr. Lloyd, the I sharp turn-round in the motor trade and the signs of a recovery in exports have confirmed me in my opinion that we are...

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Company Notes

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B ROWN BAYLEY STEELS LTD. suffered as other companies in this field by a consider- able decline in orders; consequently the trading profit for 1961 fell to £702,131 against...

Roundabout

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Beauty Is As Beauty Does By KATHARINE WHITEHORN, I have a poor friend whose speciality is beauty, and she spends her whole life going round testing the various aids for the...

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Wine of the Week

The Spectator

IN the matter of food, diabetics are looked after rather well these days—jams, chocolates , biscuits and the rest of it. I have eaten and enjoyed a mar- malade for diabetics...

Consuming Interest

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Porpoise Chef By RAYMOND POSTGATE E. F. BENSON, in the most amusing of all Vic- torian memoirs, As We Were, writes about a Lady Dorothy Nevill, who had been born in the reign...