11 NOVEMBER 1949

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GERMANY AND THE WEST

The Spectator

T HE Foreign Ministers of Britain, the United States and France, at their meetings in Paris this week, have been dealing with questions whose issue may have far-reaching effects...

Mr. Attlee and the Industrial Effort

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The Prime Minister's appeal for unity in effort at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on Wednesday was more impressive than his claim that his economy cuts were adequate was convincing....

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Strasbourg Divergences

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The meetings of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and of the standing committee of the European Consultative Assembly at Paris this week indicate that there is...

Building on Brussels

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The search for solid ground among the shifting mass of inter- national conferences in Paris at this season is most notably rewarded in the case of the meeting of the five...

Russian Leadership

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The address delivered by Mr. G. M. Malenkov in Moscow, at the main celebration of the 32nd anniversary of the October Revolu- tion, was rigidly orthodox in tstructure and tone....

What Mr. Hoffman Wants

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It would easily be possible, by reading the American Press, to gain the impression that Mr. Paul Hoffman, during . his recent visit to Paris, had insisted upon the immediate...

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AT WESTMINSTER

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M ONDAY be g an somewhat explosively. Two national news- papers had carried a report of stran g e happenin g s at a works in Walsall. It was not surprisin g that Mr Wells, the...

Heavy Weather for Trade Unions

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Ever since the pound was devalued, seven weeks a g o, a succession of g uarded and uninformative communi q ués from Transport House has borne witness to the efforts of the...

Mr. Morrison's Good Advice

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Havin g g iven some sound advice to housewives a week a g o Mr. Herbert Morrison on Sunday widened the scope of his admonitions. After the inevitable tilts at the Press and the...

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MR. RANK'S CRISIS

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N OT so very many years ago British films were regarded by the public in this country as a joke (and a bad one at that) and were not seen at all by the inhabitants of other...

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Mr. J. B. Priestley made a full-tongued attack on the

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British theatre on Tuesday. Reporting it, The Daily Telegraph, getting off to a good start, began: "Mr. J. B. Priestley, whose play, ' Summer's Day Dream,' came off at the St....

Professor A. L. Goodhart is not getting as much support

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as he probably hoped for his suggestion that the very lengthy Long Vaca- tion at British universities should be substantially abbreviated. There is a good deal to be said on...

It is a curious fact that though the population is

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duly divided into male and female citizens nothing definite is known of the sex of Parliamentary electors. The reason also is rather curious. Till 1935 electors were...

Professor Eternal's comments on the decision of the Council of

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the British Association that he should no longer be a member of the Council shows how useless it would be to try to bridge the gulf in mental outlook which separates him from...

* * * * I was discussing some weeks ago

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the possibility of M. Clementis, the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, who is now heading the Czech delegation at the United Nations Assembly at Lake Success, deciding not to...

I gave with all reserve last week some statistics of

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the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church in Great Britain. One figure was quoted in a Times article from the Catholic Directory, the other taken from a well - known...

• * * a This story is belated, but it

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is true, and it ought to be told. When the King was visiting South Africa he had a long talk with a Basuto Chief. At the end the Chief said: " When a South African comes to talk...

Dr. Albert Peel was a considerable literary figure in Congregational

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circles. Though he was a preacher of marked distinction he will be best remembered for his editorship of the Congregational Quarterly, which he founded in 5922 on retiring from...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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W HEN the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs was questioned about the document, purporting to be a private memorandum by Mr. Bevin on Anglo- Italian relations, published by the...

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Europe's Last Chance

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By ROBERT WAITHMAN Washington p AUL HOFFMAN, the Marshall Plan administrator, is a man o many accomplishments, the most notable of which probably is his capacity for talking...

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Lysenko Once More

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By DR. JULIAN HUXLEY, F.R.S. AC ADEMICIAN GLUSHCHENKO is Lysenko's chief scientific helper. He is a member of the small group of cultural representatives from Soviet Russia at...

The Pond

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Below the water in another world Move the swift creatures I delight to see, Tadpole and beetle and the armoured newt ; The sliding weed over the pebble curled, The dappled water...

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Timeless Touraine

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By JOHN KITTESFORD T was a wonderful summer in Touraine. You could see / that from the burnt-up pastures, from the brilliant dahlias and zinnias, from the morning glory...

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Dean Mil man

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By CANON CHARLES SMYTH HEN, in November, 1849, the Rev. Henry Hart Milman, Rector of St. Margaret's and Canon of Westminster, received from the Prime Minister a letter offering...

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The Florentine Cat

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By NAN WISHART T the street corner Jacopo paused, tail whisking, a creature of impulse, a cat without an idea in his head. The slow water flowed far down beneath the walls...

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UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

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Inverness Invasion By JOHN FRIPP (Merton College, Oxford) I NVERNESS has been monopolised by industrial England. Since the end of May, it has daily been invaded by the bus...

NEXT WEEK— NOVEMBER 16 —

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SPECTATOR CHRISTMAS NUMBER 72 pages and cover—at usual price 6d. ORDER YOUR COPY NOW. Postage on this issue : Inland & Overseas I id.; Can.ulA ((.inadian nigArtne Post) Id.

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MARGINAL COMMENT

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By HAROLD NICOLSON I N a bookshop the other day I cane across an enormous album bound in pink morocco and enlivened with a pretty little pattern of watercress in gold. The...

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MUSIC

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ON November 4th the Society for Cultural Relations with the U.S.S.R. invited a representative group of music critics and musicologists to meet the Russian composer Dmitri...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS

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THE THEATRE "Queen Elizabeth Slept Here." By)Talbot*Rothwell. Adapted from a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. (Strand.) I WAS brought up to believe that it was...

THE CINEMA

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" Prince of Foxes." (Odeon, Marble Arch.)—L'Aigle a Deux l'ites. (Studio One.)—.. White Heat." (Warner.) HOLLYWOOD has recently become consumed with love for the late Caesar...

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The Microphone in 1666

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When Mr. Val Gielgud this summer produced his play on the death of Caesar as it would have been recorded on radio by a con- temporary Roman Broadcasting System, the idea was...

Half-hour Talks On the Third, there have been eminent talks-

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by Mr. Michael Holroyd and Professor Adcock in Four Roman Portraits. I missed the first, but Mr. Holroyd was brilliant on Julius Caesar, and Pro. fessor Adcock on Anthony and...

RADIO Tins, I hope, will not be misunderstood. I felt

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that it was wrong of the B.B.C., in the programmes that went to make up H.M.S. Amethyst Returns, to join in something that grew last week to look more and more like a national...

Parlour Game

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Another programme, of a lighter kind, which has been wearing its way rather into my affection is Talk Yourself Out of This. It will not please those who dislike, or despise, all...

Unhappy Families

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The B.B.C. is causing me serious disquiet about myself. I have had great good fortune in my own family life ; why, then, am I over- come with the bitterest dislike whenever the...

ART THE exhibition of modern German graphic art, which has

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been assembled at the headquarters of the Arts Council by the Council and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, is representative and varied. It does not dwell unduly upon the...

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Germans and Dismantling

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am grateful to Mr. Bender for commenting on my remarks. May I answer some of his points ? 1. I have, several times, seen the plants in question and can vouch for their damage....

The Indolent Farmer

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Sist,—It may be of some interest to point out the effects of spoon-feeding on another branch of agriculture. In my own industry, apple-growing, controlled prices have had...

SIR, —Although, in all the circumstances, I would be glad if

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dismantling were abandoned, Mr. Albert B. Newman, in common with many other Americans, appears to be unaware that the plan was as much American as British, and that he is quite...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Groundnuts Gloom Sig,—The many explanations which your article Groundnuts Gloom tries to give for the catastrophic failure of the at the time much advertised scheme may be...

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Kuhlmann and the Foreign Office

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SIR, —On my return from abroad I have read Mr. Harold Nicolson's comments in the Spectator of June 24th last on the memoirs of the late Ttichard von Kuhlmann. As I was the "...

Spain in Morocco

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Stn,—The article on ,Spain in Morocco gives an entirely false impression of the Spanish zone of Morocco. In fact it contains so many assertions completely at variance with...

India and the Security Council

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SIR.—It is a good thing that an Indian national should put forth his country's claim to be a permanent member of the Security Council. It shows how keen and watchful...

Post Office and Public

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SIR,—It is indeed a scandal that one cannot be certain of the first post being delivered before leaving for business in the morning. (In my case the variations in the times of...

The Blot in the Scutcheon

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SIR.—From the Spectator I derive much pleasure. With one exception nothing offends. In a colony with a poor press and narrow editorial comments in the daily papers, it is a...

Portrait of' Lita

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SIR,—Since much of the world's great literature is concerned with por- traying human frailty, surely Messrs. Gordon Samuels and Burns arc unreasonable in asking a literary paper...

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Late Butterflies Accounts continue to reach me of the scarcity

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of butterflies (which is my experience) in some places and the multitude in others. The only common experience is that Clouded Yellows made a late but general and generous...

In the Garden A gardener, proud of his skill in

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successional growths, has two rows of peas that flowered too late to bear fruit. He has cut them down and confidently expects that they will produce earliest possible Peas next...

Domestic Tits Tits, blue and great, have of late been

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much in the news, owing to their development of pernicious habits. Here is a new example of the worst of the habits. The scene is the interior of the dome of Haileybury Chapel....

A Drug and the Law Courts

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' all administration of a recently-discovered drug which destroys is sexual feeling is being ordered by courts up and down the country as a punishment in homosexual cases....

In Defence of L.S.E.

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SIR,—In his review of Mrs. Margaret Cole's symposium on the Webb& your reviewer seems to imply that the London School of Economics is no longer the home purely of " facts and...

COUNTRY LIFE

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SOME odd contrasts are to be seen this November. We have had with at least their normal severity the first stiff frosts, that have blackened and wilted the vegetable marrows,...

New Bad Habits The degeneration of tits in their dealings

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with man seems to be general. Here is another lamentation (from York) for the losses they inflict: "For about six weeks blue tits have been coming into the children's bedroom...

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Unmasking Yeats

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Yeats: The Man and the Masks. By Richard Ellmann. (Macmillan 21s.) THE portrait of Yeats painted in this book by Professor Ellmann is one which will scarcely be recognised by...

BOOKS OF THE DAY

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Cosmo Cantuar: " REMEMBER always," said Mrs. Randall Davidson when the Arch- bishop of York one day at Lambeth had been talking intimately about religion, " remember always...

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The Press and the People

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THE purpose of this Mass Observation Survey is succinctly described as that of " discovering just why people read newspapers, how far they are influenced by them and exactly...

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A Legal Puritan

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Henry Ireton. By Robert W. Ramsey. (Longmans, Green. 15s.) IT is appropriate that a biography of Henry Ireton should appear in this, the tercentenary, year of the execution of...

An Italian Diplomat

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The Two Impostors. By Daniele Vare. (John Murray. 18s.) THE two impostors arc Triumph and Disaster, but they seem far away from this charming yet singularly shapeless book. It...

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Zeal with Liveliness

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A Religious Rebel. Edited by Logan Pearsall Smith. (Nisbet. 10s. od THE rebel is Logan Pearsall Smith's mother, about whom those wh, have read his Unforgotten Years know a good...

Picture Books

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Draynflete Revealed. By Osbert Lancaster. (Murray. 8s. 6d.) THESE ingenious books all depend largely on illustrations for their success, and they have in common the wish to...

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SOLUTION TO CSOSSWORD No. 553

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ta h n - c 3 c 'E lt Ei n i ll a ri F fl 61 Fl e4 8 1 1 ° 6 13 F i d irlEIBLICISEICIO 11191300 E 'ari'gail66 cn moan V1E3MII3 VIIMEE111120 91111 13 n rigraincia.E SOLUTION ON...

THE " SPECTATOR " CROSSWORD No. 555

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[.4 Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct wiution of this week's crossword to be opened after noon on Tuesday week, Notember 22nd....

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Fiction

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A Fearful Joy. By Joyce Cary. (Michael Joseph. 12s. 6d.) 8s. 64.1.) Time is so Short. By Parr Cooper. (Peter Davies. 8s. 6d.) MR. JOYCE CARY goes from strength to strength, and...

Ghosts Today

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FOR hundreds of years " true " ghost stories have been part of the underworld or demi-monde of religious literature ; today they have prudently attached themselves to the...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By CUSTOS THE Stock Exchange has a habit of looking well ahead, and in its assessment of the position of Mr. J. Arthur Rank's Odeon group of companies it has clearly...