ALMOST A MONTH after the British seamen's strike began, the court of inquiry into the dis- pute offered an interim compromise proposal on Wednesday; this the strikers instantly...

back in the United States, the first Negro to enrol at the Mississippi university, James Meredith, was wounded in a shotgun attack. The Germans were worried about the well-being...

OUND at its lowest ebb since 1964: Impact of India's devaluation' ran the headlines on the new front page of The Times. So it goes on. As corrective budget follows corrective...

Friday June 10 1966

The Future of Parliamentary Reform By ALAN WATKINS A FEW years ago Mr Enoch Powell tried to revive the Victorian word 'hum.' A hum, so Mr Powell told us, was a popular...

M Bublens, a French civil servant, is suing the state for injury to his health caused by its refusal to give him enough work to do. While other workers vainly seek To be...

Dr Kaunda's Case From HARRY FRANKLIN LUSAKA 4 - 1 - HAVE been accused,' said President Kaunda the other day in some critical comments on sections of the British press, 'of...

Pre-Empting the General From MALCOLM R UTHER FOR D BRUSSELS I HE major foreign ministers came to Brussels to talk about Western security in the face of the French defection...

Stop-Go a la Mode By WILFRED BECKERMAN AT a time when the economy has had to face potentially one of the most crippling strikes in its history rather than accede to the...

June 9,1866 The proceedings in the "Princess Olive" case . . . have incidentally disposed of a story our grandmothers cordially believed—the marriage of George HI. to the...

A I write, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Stewart, is in Brussels piously expounding Britain's devotion to Western European unity and expres- sing his horror at General de Gaulle's...

In his article on parliamentary reform in this week's issue Alan Watkins suggests that if back- benchers wish to regain their lost power ind in- fluence the remedy lies not in...

London last week en route to South Africa, is, I suppose, the outstanding non-governmental personality in world politics today. How much his undoubted personal magnetism owes to...

Meanwhile. Kennedy—who seems to have made an admirable start to his South African tour- - is engaged in the most extensive and long- range presidential campaign of any non-...

I'm pleased to see that the Ministry of Trans- port's report on car safety has poured a douche of cold water on much of the fashionable criticism of British car design, and...

Ballade of a Jaded Reader By JOHN WELLS When I was at a soft and tender age I read the public prints with wild delight; I beamed with glee or started up in rage To see, set...

A Gamble on God By ALAN BRIEN AMONG all the holy anglers who have ever fished for eggheads, Blaise Pascal must own the all - time record. Almost all of his catch has been made...

The Betrayal of the Women From MURRAY KEMPTON NEW YORK G OVERNOR ROCKEFELLER'S campaign for re- election is keyed to his notion that no prob- lem is insoluble and no mind...

SIR,-1 cannot think that the cause of press freedom is well-served by the extraordinary personal attack on my friend Lord Goodman in your latest 'Note- book.' Nor is it clear to...

SIR,—I, am interested to learn from 'Spectator's Notebook' (June 3) that yet another busy journalist has decided not to fly again, if he can help it: by BEA (The Line that...

From: J. W. Hornby, Professor L. C. B. Gower, Graham Greene, Cyril Ray, Mike Williams- Thompson, A. North, J. R. de S. Honey, Claire Rayner, Tibor Szantuely, Susan Farrow....

SIR,—The contemporary journalist has an odd distaste for the word 'I' which sometimes is the cause of a grammatical error, sometimes of a more dubious confusion. Mr Wells's fear...

substitute for normal sexual intercourse. Well, yes, it's safer—no unwanted pregnancies or infections--but there is something he has forgotten or more probably never knew. For...

Stn.--I fear Dr Bryan Wilson (June 3) is getting himself very confused between advertising, gimmicks and what is regarded as perfectly legitimate means of helping the press to...

G. Wilson's letter, but I wonder whether courage and honesty do' not force one to go even further than he does. He would want to convey to a daughter his own deep conviction...

Sta,--As a daughter who received little positive sex education I should like to say how much I appreciated John Rowan Wilson's article, 'What Should I Tell My Daughter?' (May...

SIR, ---Mr Pat Sloan sees no need to withdraw any- thing he has written on the USSR (June 3). That is his affair. One would think, however, that his stubborn refusal to retract...

Sig.---Ever since Lord Silkin began to try to put through his abortion law reform Bill. there has been a stream of articles and discussions on the evils of the present system....

SIR,—Let me point out that in the kind mention of me in Hilary Spurling's article 'Bristol Cream' (May 27), one or two mistakes have been made. I. My appearance there was in...

SIR.—It is a young man's privilege to refuse to ack- nowledge debts. Mr Gerald Scarfe has extended his privilege to an abuse of his spiritual progenitor. While placing me in the...

SIR,—In his review (SPECTATOR, May 27) of The Pocket Venus: A Victorian Scandal, Mr Robert Blake, before proceeding to reprimand the author for being 'not always accurate' in...

THEATRE Vaut le Voyage? By JOHN HIGGINS I nnChichester Festival Theatre was born five years ago with a silver spoon in its mouth in the shape of Sir Laurence Olivier. When...

no UT what, pray , is this? At Glyndebourne -Dthe Werther of Massenet has been received on the whole with respect. I do not pretend that many forelocks have been touched. But...

Contradictions Khartoum. (Casino Cinerama Theatre, 'U' cer- tificate.)—The Exterminating Angel. (Aca- demy, 'X' certificate.) Y ou could hardly make a dull film out of the end...

Satisfaction HE Balthus retrospective at the Musce des I Arts Decoratifs in Paris is one of ti me revelatory occasions which may make history. 'Ile is the only artist alive, in...

A Very Tragic Business By ANTHONY BURGESS ' New want comfort, says the Savage in Brave 'New World. '1 want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, 1 want freedom, I want...

The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Edited by C. T. Onions, with the assistanc e of G. W. S. Friedrichsen and R. W. Burch- field. (O.U.P., 70s.) DR C. T. ONIONS joined...

0 smear my face with strawberry jam And tell me lies about Vietnam! O tell us lies about Vietnam And blame it all on Uncle Sam . I followed Stalin like a lamb; So tell me lies...

Studies in Landscape Design. Vol. 2. By G. A. Jellicoe. (O.U.P., 50s.) MR MALINS quotes Horace Walpole as, saying that Milton was the inspiration of English land- scape gardens...

FABIAN VON SCHLABRENDORFF began fighting Nazism as a legal student at the universities oF Halle and Berlin. During the war he took an intimate part in the plans to assassinate...

AN intellectual spy story poses some nice problems. Is it simply another version of the traditional genre titivated up for the benefit of those accustomed to thinking seriously...

HIGHAMS LIMITED A SUCCESSFUL YEAR The 58th Annual Ordinary General Meeting of Highams Limited will be held on July 1 in London. The following is an extract from the statement...

Thomas Traherne: Poems, Centuries and Three Thanksgivings. Edited by Anne Ridler. (O.U.P., 30s.) OF all the seventeenth-century mystical Poets, Thomas Traherne is the most...

The Unit Trust Elan By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT R ETURNING from the treeless island of Malta to the luxuriant leafy lanes of England, I was struck by the extraordinary contrast...

By CUSTOS HE overdue correction of what many pro- fessional investors regard as a false bull market is now taking place. The prolongation of the seamen's strike, the weakness...

shares and are not rushing in to sell on the Indian rupee affair. Although the tea pro- ducers will have to pay a new export tax of Rs 2 per kilogram, the higher value in rupees...

By JOHN BULL us-RoYcE and Bristol Aeroplane have de- cided to begin the reorganisation of the British aircraft industry. And in so doing they upset two commonly held notions:...

N N • N • • AMMENNAR WERNME • NNEMN• • AMU= MEIMMIERM M MI • • • • Mail= MEMEMMMEM • M M • WMEMWMMEM UMEMW • • • MI • • M AMMEMMEMM QMPAIEM • ••• •MEM WEE.= WIMEMEM • • • • •...

ACROSS.-1 Governess earl. 9 Boanerges, 10 Rouse. II Taint. 12 Icelandic. 13 Requite. 15 Spinney. 17 Acetous. 19 Manatee. 21 Culcannon. 23 Fleas. 24 Don ah. 25 Pr,,p.t- gate. 26...

messy, beautiful summer plaything on the market. It is always the foreigners who think up these ideas. The impatient Americans want their photos right away. The French seem fond...

now being distributed in Bognor Regis that the bog part of this royal resort's double- barrelled name is no joke. Not since Butlin's arrived four years ago with some 70,000...

Snap, Crackle, Plop By LESLIE ADRIAN That said, the Swinger looks like a winner, designed in such a way that it is almost im- possible to make a mistake. Even the view- finder...

W. MEREDITH itst Prize, Dubuque Chess journal, 1889) vimm to play and mate in two moves ; solution next week. Solution to No. 285 Moravec) : Q— K 3 !, no threat. 8 ) . 1 ....

Billy Graham Examined Revival in a Secular Society BRYAN WILSON One year's subscription to the 'Spectator: Li I 5s. (including postage) in the United Kingdom and Eire. By...

Whitsun Wager: The Results By STRIX FIRST, the answers. 1. There is an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter,...

against anybody answering all four questions correctly; the stake was one shilling, and for every correct entry I undertook to send £5 to Oxfam. I reckoned that if anything...