the eight weeks since the two-tier gold ice system was instituted in an atmosphere financial panic and international mono- ry convulsion, the- money markets of the rid have...

Nowhere is the insidious advance toward the world of 1984 more starkly observed than in the techniques of diplomacy and war. No longer is war declared : we proceed instead by...

Negotiators led by Mr Averell Harriman, for the United States, and Mr Mai Van Bo, for North Vietnam, prepared for the long-awaited meeting in Paris at which terms for a peace...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH The objections to moving the Finance Bill into committee upstairs for its committee stage, in place of the traditional debate on the floor...

DEFENCE LAURENCE MARTIN The increase in the number of Soviet naval missions of an offensive nature.' become the focus of a service debate the out- fensive. navy, an...

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON New York—The announcement of Vice-Presi- dent Humphrey's candidacy was an entrance into history; the announcement of Governor Rockefeller's seemed only...

IMMIGRANTS STUART MACLURE It is not yet at all clear what Mr Wilson had in mind last weekend when he promised more help for areas with large immigrant popula- tions. He made...

DELINQUENTS GILES PLAYFAIR Home Office White Papers on penal policy are not ordinarily remarkable for clarity of thought or consistency of purpose, and the latest one— Children...

THE TORIES ANGUS MAUDE, MP Few people, even among those who most bitterly criticised the content or style of his speech, can doubt that the views on immigra- tion propounded by...

J. W. M. THOMPSON In a presidential election as unusual as the present contest nothing is certain : nevertheless, it begins to seem that after this week's Indiana primary...

ex- citement has been increasing all through the week. The reunited Liberals, warming to their work, have carried Mr. Gladstone's Resolutions, but the Government, though fully...

PERSONAL COLUMN HAROLD NICOLSON Sir Harold Nicolson, who died on I May at the age of eighty-one, for many years wrote a weekly essay in this journal under the heading 'Marginal...

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN Mlle Claude Bessy is not, and short of a terpsi- chorean holocaust will never be, the greatest ballerina in Europe. But she is an enchantingly...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Racial rioting Is disquieting And dockers Are shockers. The Black Alliance Proclaims defiance Against anyone who places Restrictions on the coloured races....

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY One of the more amusing, if macabre, inven- tions of the Goons was Capt Grittpype- Thynne, the noted amateur brain surgeon. One laughed because, according...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Princeton, Ni — One of the most characteristic and evocative American sounds is—or was— the long, melancholy moan of an American train crossing the lone...

BOOKS A. J. AYER The second volume of Lord Russell's auto- biography (The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1914-1944, Allen and Unwin 42s) takes him from the beginning of...

Waugh games siMON RAVEN The Marchioness James Broom Lynne (Mac- donald 21s) All The Little Animals Walker Hamilton (Gollancz 18s) Auberon Waugh, as readers of this journal will...

In lieu of the lyre MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore (Faber and Faber 42s) That Marianne Moore's intricate, gay, in- genious, learned and sweet-minded...

MALCOLM RUTHERFORD Ho CM Minh Jean Lacouture (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press 35s) The political aims of Ho Chi Minh are, and have been for almost the past fifty years, to unify...

KENNETH ALLSOP 'Martin Luther Coon, Traitor,' reads the ban- ner. It is 'Fire Your Nigger' Week. Across the amplifier system comes the catchy melody of a 45 rpm single by Odis...

STUART HOOD The illustrious House of Ramires Egli de Queiroz (Bodley Head 30s) It is an extraordinary fact that Portugal at the end of the nineteenth century, when it had...

JOHN HAYES The History of the Royal Academy, 1768-1968 Sidney C. Hutchison (Chapman and Hall 70s) William Shipley : Founder of the Royal Society of Arts D. G. C. Allan...

British Political Facts 1900-1967 David Butler and Jennie Freeman (Macmillan 63s). A second edition of this invaluable work of refer- ence. New material includes a list of...

FRANCES DONALDSON In the 1920s rich American women often settled in England because they found high society, which in New York was impregnable, a pushover in London. Mrs...

HILARY SPURLING Edward II opened at the National Theatre last week in a production which, for once, brings Brecht's brilliant, grotesque and gaudy world powerfully before us....

ART BRYAN ROBERTSON The austere new premises of the Rowan Gallery in Bruton Place present something of a challenge to the artists who show there. The sheer radiance and...

Watch this space PENELOPE HOUSTON Herosiratus (IcA Cinema, Nash House, 'X') The year 2001 perhaps looked just a little closer when Stanley Kubrick began his remarkable movie...

PAUL GRINKE The Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, cultural attaché of the international passport to smok- ing pleasure, has been fruitfully linked to the Whitechapel Gallery for...

Across 1 Flourishing music market? (6, 6) 9 Square-bashing order Jack's anxious to change! (5, 4) 10 I'm in cook's embrace, boss! (5) 11 She's within her rights to demand the...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES A development of the first importance to the City, and what may prove a major contribution to the finance of world trade, is imminent. The London market in...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT It is obvious that the equity market refuses to behave like a gentleman. When it is told by its elders and betters to keep quiet and lie down it cocks the...

ADVERTISING ROGER PEMBERTON The big advertisers are great bandwagoners. As soon as one of them hits on a demon- strably successful selling vehicle, his competi- tors will be...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL It is again time to provide an account of how my share recommendations have turned out. It is seven months since I began my first port- folio with £5,000....

BUSINESS VIEWPOINT DUNCAN DAVIES Duncan Davies is deputy chairman of Mond Division of Imperial Chemical Industries. • 'De minimis non curat lex' would have been the average...

CUSTOS Sir Brian Mountain, chairman of Eagle Star, forecasts continued growth—`our investment activities are particularly well founded and the Life Department represents a very...

Sir: In his article on 'Abortion ethics' (26 April), John Rowan Wilson points out that the BMA Council and the ma Representative Body often come to quite different conclusions....

Sir: In a recent letter to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Patrick Wall, MP, seemed to applaud Mr Enoch Powell's infamous speech as a clarion call to Britons who have a pride in their...

Sir: Sir Denis Brogan's 'Table Talk' will soon only be tolerated at the dinner tables of those leftist-liberals of your leading article. His arro- gance is beyond belief. He...

the NHS will operate on healthy girls or women to terminate a preg- nancy for social or environmental reasons. The new Act was designed to permit a doctor or nurse to opt out of...

LETTERS From the Rev G. V. R. Grant, Peter Moore, E. W. Swanton, Madeleine Simms, Professor H. C. McLaren, David Gullick, G. McQuade, Mrs Ronald Simms, Mervyn Samuel, Edward...

Sir: Your issue of 29 March has recently arrived in Argentina, allowing us here to read your leading article concerned chiefly with the future of the Falkland Islands. To read...

is not simple many commentators have failed to grasp the true significance of the decision of the BMA Council to recommend no change in the Association's ethical policy. I was...

Sir: Mr Tibor Szamuely's review of The Young Stalin in your 29 March issue has me engaged in 'a massive rewriting of history to prove that spies had actually been running the...

Sir: I have been interested in the disagreement in your columns (Letters, 19 April) over the origin of the slogan 'Life's better with the Conservatives : Don't let Labour ruin...

Sir : In his article on 'Shop floor directors' in the iron and steel industry (26 April), Lord Melchett expresses the hope that the employee directors will bring to the group...

Sir: The 'demented' thing was to refuse Russia's offers of alliance and then to guarantee Eastern European countries for which we could do nothing. It is Mr Rees who is...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS The Observer Magazine, incorporating Left- Wing Knitting and Liberal Muscle Man, has been taking a longer and longer look in recent weeks at the role of...

Sir: I was glad to read in your columns Dr P. J. Smith's article (3 May) on supersonic airliners, in which he soberly set out many cogent reasons against these projects. The...

PHILIDOR Anyone who runs a `mixed' chess column, i.e. one which attempts to cater for players and problemists, is aware from his correspondence of the mixture of bafflement and...

No. 500: Do it yourself To mark the occasion of the SPECTATOR'S five- hundredth competition, competitors are invited for a change to try their hand at setting one themselves....