Portrait of the Week--
MR. IAN SMITH WAS HAPPY to be back in 'God's own country' after his confrontation with Mr. Wilson: but there was no happiness about Rho- desia elsewhere, and her problems overshadowed the scene. Mr. Wilson flew to see the Queen at Balmoral on Wednesday—not to ask for a general election, as galloping rumour had it, but (he ex- plained) to report on his talks with Mr. Smith; and the Tory conference had to be reshaped to permit a Rhodesian debate. At Brighton Mr. Heath faced his first conference as the Tory leader, joining in the proceedings as none of his predeces- sors had done. At least the Tories were hopeful of avoiding the kind of confusion which Sir William Carron brought to light this week, when he said that the Amalgamated Engineering Union's vote against the Government's incomes policy at Black- Pool was all a dreadful mistake. The union really supported the policy, he said, although perhaps the delegates had not understood this.
IN A WEEK when the Commonwealth could have used some such trouble-shooter on a bigger scale, the plan for a British Ombudsman was announced —a modest proposal, no more. Exports fell again, but not as much as imports, and Lord Brown was brought into the Government to try once again to make exports increase. At the same time, an inquiry into the future of the shipping industry was announced. The Prices and Incomes Board demanded that soap and detergent prices be Pegged for a spell, Mr. Charles Clore made a £55m. takeover bid for a chain of stores which includes Selfridges, and the United States arranged a 1,000 million dollar credit to Britain for aircraft pur- chases. The New York newspaper strike ended after twenty-four days, and a threat of a news- Paper strike in London was averted after anxious moments.
* ANGLICANS—including the Archbishop of Canter- horY—learned with surprise that a chaplain at Lambeth Palace had been received into the Roman Catholic Church. President Johnson was con- valescing, uncomfortably, after his gall-bladder operation. Mr. George Woodcock, general secre- tary of the Trades Union Congress, was seeking to become a freeman of the City of London, and the City announced that it was to have women traffic wardens. The strangest disagreement in a week of dissension arose over the publication by Yale of a mediaeval map which appeared to show that the Norsemen had forestalled Christopher Columbus by '500 years : this was described variously as 'a Communist plot' (hY an 'affronted American) and 'an incredibly bel- ligerent plan to pulverise the glory of Spain' (by a Madrid newspaper). Vikings, Go Home!
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