There can have been few more uniformly delightful functions at
the House of Commons than the dinner given there by Sir Stanley Holmes, the leader of she National Liberals, to the South African cricket team last Monday It was one of those occasions when everything went exactly right. The tables were denoted not by numbers, but by the names of Government Departments— Exchequer, Home, Defence and st, on—and each was presided over by the appropriate Minister, Mr. Dalton, Mr. Chuter Ede, Mr. Alexander and the rest. The Prime Minister proposed the toast of the visitors in an exceptionally bright and witty speech, and was supported by Mr. Eden with a cordiality that would have scan- dalised any orthodox member of the Supreme Soviet. Mr. Alan Melville, the South African captain, showed that speeches were just as easy to him as centuries (he had made one of the latter that afternoon at the Oval), and Sir Pelham Warner, personifying every- thing there is in cricket, closed a unique evening with his memories of Test Matches he had played in from the seventeenth century or thereabouts. That no touch of the appropriate might be lacking, the gathering took place on the evening of the Royal Family's return, and the South Africans were able to add their authoritative voices to the universal testimony to the effects of a unique journey. Finally, as a prudent antidote to any tendency to exalted spirits, the visitors were. taken into the Gallery to watch weary Members struggling through the technicalities of the Town and Country Planning Bill. * *
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