PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
It was a good week for Ha Utu Nu Wu Mu Hwint, the Lord Mayor of London: he acquired the name, a feathered cape and head- dress, and a chieftainship of the Cheemchuevi Indians while in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where he was relaying the foundation stone of London Bridge.
Few such unalloyed successes were recorded; but hopes rose of a meeting between British and Rhodesian ministers, after the visit to Salisbury of Mr Bottomley (this time Mr James Bottomley) of the Commonwealth Office. The Rhodesian government dropped its law im- posing mandatory death sentences for 'terrorist' activities, and saw its stocks rise by 20 per cent on the London market. The MCC, though, con- firmed that its tour of South Africa was cancelled. In Czechoslovakia, the Russians secured the dismissal of the heads of radio and television broadcasting.
Guerrilla warfare in the motor trade was
succeeded, as unofficial strikes at Girling and Lucas ended, by another unofficial strike at Girling and an official strike at Lucas, called by the AEF. Leaders of the union refused to join talks called by Mrs Castle, Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity, plead- ing prior commitments. Forty-five workers walked out of Pressed Steel Fisher (car-body makers) complaining of the attentions of pigeons. The executive of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen broke off discussions with London Transport in protest at being housed in Merton College, Oxford, which they found musty : 'This is sup- posed to be one of the premier universities in the country. . . . The conditions are worse than we find in our lodging turns in railway hostels. We don't expect a carpet on the floor but we do have our dignity.'
The Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales expressed their view of the Pope's encyclical Humattae Vitae, which forbade con- traception. In a long and cautiously (some thought, inconsistently) worded statement they 'upheld the truth of the principles' that the Pope laid down but 'stressed that the primacy of conscience is not in dispute.' Much of the field of human sexuality, said the bishops, remained to be explored.
The last stronghold of resale price mainten- ance fell when the cigarette manufacturers, on advice that their case would fail in the courts, let their prices go. Small shopkeepers were pre- dictably dismayed and supermarkets cut prices by as much as sixpence on a packet of twenty.
Floods abated in south-east England, and the insurers' bill rose to £12 million. Mr C. J. P. Ionides, the great snake-catcher, died in Nairobi. The Greater London Council retrieved, restored and opened to the public Mrs Hester Thralc..;s summerhouse, once dignified by the affectionate regard of Dr Samuel Johnson.
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