Portrait of the Week
rilE CONFERENCE of Commonwealth Prime Ministers opened in London. The place of Mr. Verwoerd, South Africa's Prime Minister, was Liken by Mr. Louw, Minister of External Affairs, who had to listen to more than one of his prime ministerial colleagues commenting on South Africa's internal affairs. These included the depor- tation, against her will, of Miss Hannah Stanton, a British missionary, against whom no charges had been brought; the revelation, by white South African surgeons, that 70, per cent, of the police bullets that killed and wounded the Africans at Sharpeville had done so from the back; and the issue to the white men that had fired them of new and Improved pistols 'as accurate as Sten guns.' Some English sportsmen, nevertheless, at Arundel Castle and Worcester, found it agreeable to Play games with white South Africans.
11113 NEWSPAPERS and other media of mass communication communicated a certain amount Of mass hysteria over Princess Margaret's wed- ding, and gawpers around the Palace and the Abbey, and barriers along the processional route brought traffic to a peevish .near-standstill for some days beforehand. Other social notes about toppeople include the award of £7,000 damages against the Duchess of Argyll in an action for ci,efamation, and the award of the Lenin Peace prize to Mr. Cyrus Eaton, an American multi- millionaire. The Chancellor of the .Exchequer announced a pay rise for dons, •and the strike °I. engineering apprentices, also after more lolly, spread front Clydeside over the North of'Eng- lan..d. Mr. Reg Birch, the chief Communist in the AEU, was elected—whether regularly or irregu- ' i‘Early is not yet clear, and will presumably make no .difference—North London district organiser, Much removed him from the natic131 committee, b01 demonstrated the new. Communist technique Of shifting from national to local trade union in fluence.
IWIER APPEALS for a stay of execution had been rejected by the Californian Supreme Court (by four Notes to three) and a judge of the United States Supreme Court, Caryl Chessman's twelve- Year legal fight for life ended in the gas chamber of San Quentin Prison. The 'Daily Mail's front- Page story was 'I Saw Chessman Die,' and in the Oily netch the Chessman story shared the front Page with an advertisement offering 'well-paid. 'esPonsible and pensionable employment as Prison officers' in Her Majesty's Prison SerVice: 'ideal job for anyone with personality and a Sense of leadership.'.
1,,H11 UNITED STATES agreed to resume aid to South Korea, where 172 people were killed and 1.428 wounded, it was revealed, in the demonstrations 4Itainst the United States' ex-protege, Mr. ,Int>mtin Rhee. May Day was celebrated in moscow with a parade of rockets, atomic cannon :And slogans about disarmament; in Paris with a miles for tourists' campaign; in Nagpur with (71(;ls put down by rifle-fire; and in Istanbul 'Where the NATO conference opened with speeches about our common heritage, liberty, and Ine defence of free institutions) by police beating ,P students with rifle butts. At Geneva, the Soviet Union representative responded favour- ably to the Western plan for a moratorium on nuclear tests, and in New York air-raid sirens cleared the streets for civil defence exercises: "'en the television programmes were stilled.
thEt13 MORRISON OF LAMBETH, seventy-two, succeeded Sir Sidney Harris, eighty-four, as Presi- dent of the British Board of Film Censors.
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