Portrait of the Week
THIS week has been notable for an especially resounding 'Nye' from M. Molotov, who, still under fire from Pravda, is evidently resuming his role as the hammer of the capitalist. However, it is widely felt that if he cannot do better than that, all is up with the Geneva conference on Ger- many,-if not necessarily with Geneva spirits, which will almost certainly remain an essential ingredient of a Molotov cocktail. The occasion of the Soviet Foreign Minister's unconditional negative was the Western proposal that free elections should be held throughout Germany by next September. and the substance of his remarks boiled down to the fact that the USSR would not allow free elections if this meant any change in the regime in Eastern Germany. However, it may well be that, in putting matters in this light, M. Molotov has been less adroit than in other recent Russian foreign policy moves. As it is, he has put the lid on any idea, which West German politicians may have entertained, of doing a separate deal with Russia in the old Rapallo manner. At the UN there is also deadlock over the election of a new member of the Security Council, the Philippines and Yugoslavia both having failed to get the two-thirds majority required. , As regards active mayhem it is still the Middle East that draws the attention of connoisseurs of international incidents. in the Gaza strip and the Auja demilitarised zone there have been clashes between Egyptian and Israeli forces. The most serious incident was the Auja one, where an Egyptian post was stormed by an Israeli raiding party with fifty Egyptian soldiers killed and many taken prisoner. In spite of a certain amount of diplomatic activity and comings and goings on the part of the UN Armistice Commission, no new developments have taken place during the last week in.the general situation in the Levant, which remains both actually and potentially bloody. The State Department is said to be 'more sanguine' about the general situation, but they must be the only people who are. In Cyprus there have been more raids by British troops on Eoka hide- outs, while there is also some evidence that the Government has seen the red light and may be prepared to grant the Greek demand for allowing the island self-determination. Some kind of announcement may well be made after Sir John Harding, the Governor of the island, has returned from his present visit to London.
In Morocco the chief news is the restoration of the Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Yussef, who has now arrived in Paris. There was a touching scene as he was reconciled to his old enemy El Glaoui, the Pasha of Marrakesh, who was more than Partly responsible for his exile. M. Andri:. Dubois, the Paris Prefect of Police, has been appointed Resident-General in Morocco, replacing General Boyer de Latour. Will it be too much to hope that, having stopped Parisian motorists from honking their horns, he will be equally successful in his efforts to restrain terrorists from throwing their bombs? Up to now they have been carrying on as usual.. The French are now to have elections in December, and everyone, including M. Mendes-France, is preparing for battle. However, the crucial point—what voting system is to be adopted—is not yet decided.
Other foreign news focuses attention on that romantic area the north-eastern frontier of India, where there has been a Chinese incursion on to Indian territory and the Indian Govern- ment has had to move, troops up to the border. The Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia has been complaining about the policy pursued by the Government of the Central African Federation, where, it seems, Sir Roy Welensky will shortly be taking over from Lord Malvern. Ex-President Peron has ar- rived in Colon, Panama, and is reliably reported to be suffering from a shortage of money. M. Kaganovich has stated, not alto- gether unexpectedly, that he believes in the triumph of world Communism. The USA are to relax their export and import restrictions to Iron Curtain countries. In Addis Ababa the silver jubilee of the Emperor Haile Selassie has been cele- brated with what is usually described as barbaric pomp and a curious mixture of Stone Age, medimval, and Second Empire costume.
On the home front the chief event has been the debate on the case of the missing diplomats, featuring Messrs. MacMillan and Morrison with an all-star Parliamentary cast. The occasion seems to have been notable for an intense- display of British fair play all round (with, unfortunately, one exception), but nothing very much emerged apart from a good deal of disorganised anxiety on the part of MPs. Mr. Butler's Budget keeps repercussing, what with Mr. Eric Fletcher, MP, resigning from the Local Government Loans Board, the FBI visiting Downing Street, and the AEU demanding a 10 per cent. rise in pay for all its members. Significantly enough, this came at a time when London Transport was murmuring that it would have to raise bus fares owing to its increased wage- packet bill. The Atomic Energy Commission in its annual report has been exercised about the lack of skilled men in this expanding industry. The Archbishop of York is to retire.
Sports news this week includes the usual victory for the USA over Great Britain by 8-4 in the Ryder Cup golf match and a victory for Wolves over Moscow Dynamo by 2-1. In Italy a football match between Bologna and Naples was marked by disorders which led the police to fire on the crowd in order to avert a determined attempt to do the referee with coca-cola bottles.
France has been celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the death of Montesquieu by the completion of a prodigi- ously learned edition of his works, while in America a leaf of a Bible from the Merovingian abbey of Luxeuil has proved to he the earliest known manuscript of Christian music. A halt has been called to the plan for establishing a motor- racing circuit in the Peak district of Derbyshire, and the Ford family are to give up control of their famous motor works. There have been floods in British Columbia. The deaths have been announced of Mr. William Whiteley, the ex-Chief Whip of the Labour Party, and of Maurice Utrillo, the justly renowned painter.
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