15 APRIL 1960, Page 3

— Portrait of the Week-

13R. VERWOERD, who had been asking for it, got it —though not at the hands of the people he had been asking for it from. The Queen telegraphed that she was shocked and the Prime Minister that he was deeply grieved—both of them much more Promptly than they had expressed their. feelings Over Sharpeville. A Daily Herald correspondent in South Africa was arrested, along with other Journalists whose fate is as yet unknown; the foreign editor of the Toronto Daily Star was detained and his despatches interfered with; the editor of Africa South had to flee the country; no mention was permitted in the local press of the names of people arrested or of Dr. Verwoerd's assailant; and Mr Louw, Minister of External Affairs, said that there was complete' freedom for the press in South Africa. In Australia the big swing to Labour in a by-election was held to be largely because the Menzies Government had

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refused to join the rest of the Commonwealth n condemning South Africa's racial policies.

PRESIDENT DE GAULLE made friends in London: it remained to be seen whether he had influenced People. in Algeria he faced an intensified effort by the rebel government, which called for recruits to 4 Foreign Legion. Britain accepted an American- Canadian compromise on fishing limits—six miles territorial waters and a time-limit to foreign fishing 115 a further six—and aroused what fishermen described as 'intense resentment' in those who are used to fishing in the troubled waters three miles t'it the Icelandic coast. Also at Geneva, Britain rejected the latest Soviet plan for total disarm- Ment. It was announced that a NATO base is to be built in Crete, which is Greek; in Cyprus, where the same rrangetnent would have saved a lot of bloodshed, we went on haggling over British b_ases. Mr. Kou Teh Lou cooked breakfast for Mr. titian Hsiang, the Chinese charge d'affaires in London, and then sought political asylum. It was not revealed what he had given Mr. Huan Hsiang for breakfast. Ulanova, the Russian prima bailer- assoluta, went into semi-retirement with a Pension of a thousand more roubles a month than Marshal Bulganin, in very complete retire- ment as a former Prime Minisrer.

.I.HE GOVERNMENT accepted the Royal Commis- sion's recommendation of more pay for doctors. Death and disabletrient on the roads in February Were a third as high again as a year ago, and the Minister of Transport was chivvied in the House of Commons for doing nothing about it but talk. Due of the Liberal Party's honorary treasurers resigned, complaining that the party's standing committee had taken over his functions. There Was jockeying for the position of treasurer of the Labour Party, vacated by Mr. Bevan, and both the Labour and the Conservative Parties made a bid for 'the voice of youth' by making encouraging IMIses at the Young Socialists and the Young Conservatives, respectively.

PRINCE ANDREW was baptised, in Jordan water. Mr- Armstrong-Jones's best man withdrew, and the bridegroom selected a sec'ond best man, thus Providing a new subject for the suckers-up and showers-off to write about in the popular papers. Quite a lot of European royalties said they couldn't come to the wedding, and that was bliss to the gossip-writers, too.

PIE MOST REVEREND DR. JOOST DE BLANK, Arch- "'shoo of Cape Town, called on the Dutch Re- formed Church to repudiate apartheid, or to sever its connection with the World Council of Churches, pointing out that Churches through- out the world had uncompromisingly rejected racial discrimination in any form.