F OR some time now Soviet leaders and Communists all over Europe have been grinding out siren songs for the benefit of Western Socialists. At the recent party congress I n ....

ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6672 FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1956 PRICE 9d.

A PARADOX of social policy is that the Beveridge A report was so simple in its intention and the National Insurance Acts are so complicated in their administra- tion. The...

to Volume 195 of the Spectator (July-December, 1955) is now available. Orders, and a remittance for 2s. 8d. per copy, should be sent to The Sales Manager, Spectator, 99 Gower...

1 0 sa3 the dele Possible fo rward extend e xcePtioi tuent Ag velop gr Shelving i s, laced h on of ti haPpene l general Tvereigi the start lo o k s as h ard to future is a...

N ot' for the fi rst time, events in Cyprus provide the week's saddest story; with the Executive Council's decision that the two Cypriots under sentence of death for terrorist...

can cause lung cancer . . . that is the verdict which Mr. urton, the Minister of Health, will give to the nation today. ketch, May 7. ISTER OF HEALTH'S statement . . . is...

been necessary to take the Daily Herald's pro- ements seriously since it became the weak left arm of Pie; but its silences are sometimes significant, and its to pontificate...

BY HENRY FAIRLIE rrHE activities of Mr. Robert Turton are becoming almost 1 as alarming to the student of politics as they are obvi- ously intended to be to the more...

f c . . . THE EVENT of the week was undoubtedly the publication c ki d first volume of Sir Winston Churchill's History of the English - Sp e y Peoples.—Spectator, April 27, p....

the Royal Society's conversazione, so once again I shall miss an occasion which always offers many strange glimpses up the side-alleys of scientific research. As usual there...

but they do not necessarily command the public purse. A gala charity performance of one of the films of Miss Gina Lollo- brigida, attended by the young lady herself, was...

()N T UESDAY MORNING the Cyprus Executive Council decided th at Michael Karaolis and Andreas Demetriou, sentenced to death for terrorist activities in Cyprus, must be hanged;...

Casement diaries was, even by Home Office standards, a classic of misinformed evasiveness. Mr. Montgomery Hyde had asked for an investigation by experts into the diaries'...

4b„„ UNDERSTAND why the London critics were so cool 13::_"' P eter Ustinov's The Empty Chair, which I saw at the i4'ss1.01 Old Vic. It has some characteristic Ustinovian...

a the b butz on the Gaza strip. The land of the kibbutz runs along fr ontier, and its buildings ate only 600 yards away from it. afore only two years ago, Nahal Oz has a long...

BY CHARLES CURRAN T HERE are three words that no British politician ever dares to use in public; the 'words 'the lower classes.' A taboo of terrifying strength surrounds them...

ty BASIL TAYLOR HE opening last week of the Council of Industrial Design's new exhibition centre in the Haymarket is an occasion as significant as the establishment of the rts...

BY CLIFFORD COLLINS OW that a teacher with a good degree can C O 11.1. Nfortably earn a thousand a year—with correspond in g increases all round-.–public opinion will...

BY M. R. J. ANDERSON HE Credit Squeeze' has had a great conquest as a catch phrase; it peppers us daily from The Times and the tabloids, from the Third and Workers' Playtime....

BY CYRIL RAY I T's something like Lord's for the Eton-Harrow match : at least as many people have come to look at each other, and be looked at, as have come to see what's going...

BY JOHN BETJEMAN I WAS very surprised to find I could easily get in ° Marlborough House, which is open until the end of this month. Like most people, I had never seen file...

the part of England where I live, and when I was a boy I regretted this very much. I was keen on snakes. In retrospect it seems likely that my choice of this aberrant hobby was...

The Politics of Inflation The Problem of Bigness Dylan Thomas in America Capricorn Africa 'Politics Without Prejudice' Marriage and Divorce 'Down the Corridors' P. R. Lane Roy...

SIR,—I notice Mr. Hunter's suggestion that I had not read Mr. Brinnin's book and had, therefore, failed to notice his reference to Dylan Thomas having 'finished' Under Milk...

6 ° letter by Mr. Fox Pitt. He states that Africans with whom he has discussed th e Society's policy consider that it is design ed to preserve European domination. Mr.R ic it...

Euston 3221

SIR,—On reading my article in your issue of May 4 on The Problem of Bigness I find that I have inadvertently omitted to mention the name of Mr. T. V. Fyvel, who is responsible...

Sta,—I was grateful to your reviewer, Mr. Daniel George, for his polite allusion to Down the Corridors by Fielden Hughes, but I was somewhat astonished to find the book men-...

resent my recently published political a Ppreciation of R. A. Butler. After all, it Was not so long ago that your lofty commen- tator looked down from his great eminence to...

that gave evidence before the Royal Commission ' 11 Marriage and Divorce, I wish to record our P rofound disappointment that its report, which took five years to compile and...

THE latest symphony by Vaughan Williams, No. 8, in D minor, played for the first time at a Halle concert in Manchester last week, shows the composer once again larking about...

Limited Gift THE incomplete career of Nicholas de Stael, who died last year at the age of forty-one and who is the subject of a memorial exhibition at the Whitechapel Art...

HOTEL PARADISO. By Georges Feydeau and Maurice Desvallieres. (Winter Garden.) IT was an excellent idea to revive a French farce of the turn of the century for the benefit of...

THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. (Plaza.) HITCHCOCK'S latest film to reach us, The Trouble with Harry, is not a thriller, though it has all the trappings of one; it is an eerie,...

The Sadler's Wells Ballet celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with a species of gala performance : two solid old-time successes , The Rake's Progress and Facade framing Ash'...

MAY 14, 1831 NEARLY half, we believe, of the existing Peerages were conferred during the last fifty years. How many of these were bestowed b); the free pleasure of a King'?...

Formidable Blue-Stocking By ROBERT BLAKE B EATRICE WEBB was one of the most formidable blue-stockings that ever lived. She and her husband, Sidney, formed a celebrated...

ESSAYS PRESENTED TO SIR LEWIS NAMIER. Edited by Richard Pares and A. J. P. Taylor. (Macmillan, 36s.) Tuts . collection of essays is a fitting tribute to the distinguished work...

KAZAK EXODUS. By Godfrey Lias. (Evans, 15s.) THE sadness with which some of us contemplate the changes 11 °,', v taking place in Central Asia is not based upon sentimentall!i...

KBE LOVE AND HEAVENLY SINNERS. By Robert Shaplen. (Andre Deutsch, 15s.) 'e night in Brooklyn, New York, in 1870, a devout and rct lady called Elizabeth Tilton confessed to...

M. Forster. (Arnold, 21s.) MARIANNE THORNTON: A Domestic Biography. By E. M. Forster. (Arnold, 21s.) M ARIANNE -IANN E THORNTON was Mr. Forster's great-aunt, and she lived :"...

THE Petrovs' book would be very interesting for its information alone—on the inner working of the MVD, the Australian spy operations, Burgess and Maclean, and many other...

ALONG with Dietrich and Garbo and General Franco and Sir Anthony Eden, the Professor is one of the very few of the pre-war internationally famous to have successfully ignored...

UNPROFESSIONAL EssAYs. By .1. Middleton Murry. (Cape, 15s.) THEse four essays—on Fielding, Clare, Whitman, and the plays of Mr. Eliot—are labelled 'unprofessional' by Mr....

FICTION broadens the mind. In a fortuitous pile of a dozen new novels are pressing invitations to share the economic, domestic and erotic difficulties of Chinese, Africans,...

last issue, the price was given as 20s. h should have read 12s. 6d.

By CUSTOS AFTER a further recovery the market in industrial equities has boiled over. Throg- morton Street has become, like Wall Street, 'selectively' inflation-minded, that is...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT 'Tile Ch'ancellor was not at all bullish in his address to the National Production Advisory Council last week. In spite of cuts, restrictions and...

The early days of May are, for me, some of the most precious of the year, not simply because trout rise eagerly to a fly, but because the hedge comes into leaf, the swallows are...

BY IAN NIALL POTATOES seem to have come into their own at last. As an article of diet they seem hitherto to have been an also ran. We ate them in their various forms but paid...

and a good source of blooms for the house. While plants from pots must be kept under cover in the greenhouse until June, tubers can be planted out this month. Th el , should be...

BY PHILIDOR No. 49. G. GUIDELLI WHITE (9 men) t ion to problem by Sheppard: K–K 1° „'' threat P–K8 1 . . Kt–B 1 c h; 2P x K–B2;2P–K8 ° K; I . . K–K 3 ;, A P u...

A friend' asked me last week how I thought he might protect a partridge's nest to which his attention had been called by the presence of a rat. The rat was in the act of taking...

ACROSS 6 s hoemaker from Spain (10). , Te„„ "”Ys ss4 on who takes to cricket with k, (4). II .et her's almost beautiful, she says (5). 13 13 1I 'vo it the works! (9)...

words recently about the Burns Federa- tion's 'mummification' of the national poet as an appendage to the tourist drive. 'Of course,' he said, 'we are not unique; Eng- land has...

672 The winners of Crossword No, 885 arc: Mrs. A. Thymic. Ponstowa, 'Judy. Cornwall, and Mrs. Michael loscoh. Brown's Fan", Old Hula& U

Pri ze of six guineas was offered for a foreign correspondent's despatch (informed "informed) on a rumour that Stalin is not dead, and may be expected to reappear at any moment...