Books Wanted

LIFE AT FONTHILL by William Beckford. (Hart Davis, 1957) Write Spectator Box No. 760.

MANSFIELD PARK, PERSUASION. Jane Austen. Dent edition Col. Illus. by Charles E. Brock. Write Adam Legg, High Brunner„ Mayfield, Sussex.

CLASSICAL TB's. Operatic and instrumental purchased also operatic photos, prints, books and old programmes. J. Waters, 41 Midholm, London NW11 6LL.

GONCOURT JOURNALS complete. Early Inge. Johnson Lives of the Poets. Maughann Writer's Notebook RS only. Write Spec

tator Box No. 761.

CROQUET TODAY by Maurice B. Reckitt. J. R. Douglas,

Delamas, Fryerning, Ingatestone, Essex.

ANYTHING on Philately. OUP History of England, OUP Anthology of English Literature. Kilvert's Diary, Detective novels by R. Austin, Freeman, Lyan Brock, Henry Wade. Write Spectator Box No, 762.

THORNE SMITH books wanted. Turnabout, The Night Life of the Gods; The Stray Lamb; The Jovial Ghosts; The Glorious Pool; Rain in the Doorway and Did She Fall. Write Spectator Box No. 763, THE WORLD OF THE SHINING PRINCE by Ivan Morris. OUP. Write, Tampa, Home Farm, Culham, Oxford.

scorrise AND ENGUSH SCHOOLS by G. S. Osborne rl9fflans '66); Sickheart River by John Buchan; Good Behaviour by Harold Nicolson. Stiven, 154 Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh.

LOEB CLASSICS especially Greek. E. T. Widdup, 16 Oakley Gardens, London SW3. Tel 01-352 3864.

HAMPSHIRE DAYS by W. H. Hudson. Write Spectator Box No, 732.

A DR. FELL OMNIBUS by John Dickson Carr (HH1959) Write Spectator Box No. 751 WEBSTER'S Third New International Dictionary; Oxford English Dictionary —S/H urgently required. Write Spectator Box No. 752 or telephone (01) 582 2691.

0 THESE MEN by Angela Thirkell. 18, Central Drive, Elmer, Bognor Regis. Middleton 3513 AN IRISH BEAUTY OF THE REGENCY by Mrs Warenne Blake. pub 1911 by John Lane, The Bodley Head. JOURNALS & CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR HARRY CAL VERT pub 1853 by Hurst & Blacken. Grove, 30 Farringdon Street, London EC4. Tel 01-236 3011 AN AIRMAN MARCHES by Harold H. Balfour and ABOVE THE BRIGHT BLUE SKY by Elliott White Springs. Any edition in any condition. Write Spectator Box No. 753 BABABUKRA by Imre Hofbauer (London 1947). Write Spectator Box No. 754 ANY HENRY WILLIAMSON, Folio Society. C. F. Tunnicliffe, King Penguins, tore 1900 illustrated. Write Spectator Box No. 755 VATICAN COUNCIL Sessions 1, 3 and 4 by X. Rynne. Faber 19605. Write Spectator Box No. 756 BROADLEY AND BARTLETT 'The Three Dorset Captains at Tratalgar' and 'Nelson's Hardy'; his life, letters and 'Mends. Write Spectator Box No. 757 THE RECKONING, pert 3 of autobiography by Lord Avon (Anthony Eden) pub..Cassells. Write Spectator Box 729. INNOCENTS by A. L. Barker. Write Spectator Box 730. END QUIET WAR (NEL 1988); THE OUTPOST (Kimber) by Hedger Wallace. Write Spectator Box 731.

TEACH YOURSELF MALAY by Lewis. Write, C. Meikielohn,

31 Broadmead, Broadmayne, Dorchester, Dorset,

A SHEPHERD'S LIFE and HAMPSHIRE DAYS by W. H. Hudson. Also interested in his other works. Write Spectator Boa 732.

SATURDAY BOOKS: please state volume numbers. Write Spectator Box 733.

SCHUBERT. String Ouintet Op. 163. Philips recording with Stern, Schneider, Kasims, Canals, Tortelier. Write, Watson,

32 Riverview Grove, London W4.

CHUMS, bound volumes pre-1910 warded by Richard Osborne. Fenton House. Windmill Hill, London NW3. Tel: 01-435 3471.

BEN TRAVERS, any plays -except Rookery Nook, Think, Cuckoo. Also American cast MUSICAL recordings since COMPANY. S. Surrey, 14 Church Lane, Southampton. TROLLOPE in O.U.P. World's Classics Nos. 140, 352, 272, 279, 305, 341, 391, 444, 475, 505, 507, in good condition. James Patrick, Blackmill, Kilsyth, Glasgow,

FASCISM INSIDE ENGLAND by Fred Mullally. Claud . Morris Rooks 1946. Write Spectator Box 734.

CHUMS ANNUAL, early to middle 'thirties. Jackson, 61 Spring Park Road, Shirley, Croydon, CRO 5EL. Tel 01-656 3189.

READERS DIGEST pre 1939 issues wanted. Write Spectator Box 728

OMAN—The Art Cti War in the Middle Ages. Miss Cullingtord, 23, Lower Road, West Malvern. Please suggest price.

HORIZON March 1947: Good price offered, John Jollitle. Potticks House, Bradlord-on-Avon, Wilts.

because he detests the IRA as because of the praise now heaped on him by the English Tory newspapers – such a change from the obloquy he endured for his role in the Congo crisis.

The victory of the Fianna Fail, although largely attributable to economic matters, may represent a return to Irishry. The result was a huge personal triumph for Jack Lynch, the Fianna Fail leader, whose folksy campaign tour was almost Hollywood Irish. In his constituency in Cork, where he won a record majority, the small boys fought for his autograph and an old dear was produced who could 'remember him in his pram, chained on to the railing outside their front door, the dummy on the ground, and his mouth open back to his ears, bawling. But he's a gorgeous man now. They were the loveliest family in Cork, and he was the loveliest of them all. He's my favourite'.

The blarney survives but Fianna Fail has dropped or rejected the higher ideals of republican nationalism. Gong is de Valera's vision of an austere, Irish-speaking nation scholars and saints. Indeed it was Fianna Fail during the 1960s who set the country on to the reckless road of greedy materialism, comparable to our own search for the Affluent Society. In order to pay for the cars, the TV sets and the washing machines, Lynch sold Ireland's off-shore oil for a song and welcomed foreign plunderers of her minerals. Some Fianna Fail leaders, notably Haughey, were very rich, and the party became the spokesman of Ireland's aggressive new capitalism.

Entry into the Common Market increased Ireland's already soaring inflation, which now exceeds even Britain's. But whereas our politicians now seem to have some comprehension of what causes inflation and why it is deadly, the Irish are still possessed by a Gadarene folly. The outgoing coalition government opposed

further borrowing but when the Foreign Minister Garret Fitzgerald was asked if this meant opposition in principle to more deficit budgets, he answered: 'Not at all. It just means that no one will lend us any more money' (Spectator, 4 June 1977). As for Fianna Fail, its economic advisors believe in 'spending the way out of an economic crisis', a doctrine that might be described as Irish Keynesianism. There seems no way they can maintain even the present level of unemployment and inflation, let alone keep their election promises.

It is not for the British to lecture on prudence yet there are reasons to think that Ireland, unless she mends her ways, will move very much quicker to bankruptcy. As any lender or borrower knows, the bigger one's debt, the more chance there is of getting more credit. If a man owes you £100 it is worth making him bankrupt and getting a few pence in the pound. If he owes you a million pounds, it is worth lending him slightly more in the hope that his business recovers. And so big debtors like Britain and Italy can go on borrowing from the international bankers but small countries, like Ireland, will be allowed to go under. In Latin America for example it has always been small countries like Uruguay, Haiti and the Dominican Republic that went bust and were not helped out by their creditors– indeed sometimes physically occupied by those international bailiffs, the US Marines, Some Irish think that all will be well if they break loose from sterling and attach their currency to the EEC snake, meaning in fact the German Mark. But as the Italians know to their cost, the Germans demand harsh economies and concessions in return for their money. It was a German, Bismarck, who coined the brutal joke that the people of Holland and Ireland should change their countries so that the Dutch turned Ireland into the garden of Europe, while the Irish neglected the dykes and drowned.

If Ireland does lurch towards bankruptcy, her politics could turn very nasty. There might be attempts to nationalise foreign mines and oil-wells resulting in counterattacks from abroad like those that Kissinger launched against Chile. There would certainly be a growth of rivalry with the North and with Britain over jobs and perhaps even the off-shore oil rights.

When the news of the Fianna Fail victory came, I was having a drink with some journalist friends who would claim to be both left-wing and republican, certainly hostile to Britain's presence in Northern Ireland. They gloated over the coalition defeat, especialy over the individual defeats of Dr O'Brien and Justin Keating, the Labour Minister. Now to an outsider (admittedly an English outsider) it would seem that Dr, O'Brien and Mr Keating, who fought against foreign mining exploiters, were unusual for having brought some common sense to this myth-ridden, sentimental country. We could do with such politicians over in London.