S UDDENLY the road clears. Almost overnight, the blocks left in Western Europe by the war, or set up after it, are bulldozed away. A formula is reached on the Saar: the Paris...

No. 6620 FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1955

I F the glowing prospect of economic progress of which Sir Anthony Eden spoke in the first of the BBC's election broadcasts is to be realised, and the very tangible disasters...

and polemic at home. In the international sphere last week's restoration of German sovereignty was followed last Tuesday by a simple ceremony in which the red. black and yellow...

BY HENRY FAIRLIE I DOUBT whether any reader of the Spectator \ has heard of Mr. Frank Allaun. But they are very likely to do so after May 26, because he has just been adopted as...

Shakespeare and Shaw), one was an adaptation of Zola's shocker, Therese Raquin, and two (of Anouilh and Wilder) might be called farcical comedies if it were not uncharitable to...

MR. ANEURIN BEVAN'S statement that Toryism and Christianity are inconsistent with each other has passed with less comment than the definition of a new dogma usually occasions,...

Road as it sped through this office on its way to a reviewer. Whether or not the publication in English of this rich picaresque narrative will make its Swedish author's name...

what you've done to my best rug," said Coward, stabbing the air with an angry finger. Retorted Fairbanks, brOnzed after three weeks in Rome: "Oh I didn't think you Were...

should we devote atomic energy solely to peaceful uses?' asks the News Chronicle Gallup Poll, which all too evidently has no use for fine distinctions about offensive and...

BY REGINALD MAUDLING* HE challenge that Britain has to face in the second half of the twentieth century is this : can a free society thrive and prosper in a small island under...

exponents of Lallans have by their efforts very nearly succeeded in bringing into ridicule the common speech of the Scottish Lowlands. Their attempts to weld archaisms,...

Mirror headline on Wednesday.) This is what is meant by 'government by consent.' PHAROS

had inconsiderately popped the completed manu- script of The French Revolution into the fife, said not a word, but sat down and started to write it all over again. Perhaps...

BY 15AV11) ORMSBY GORE , D R. JOHNSON once said that he would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rither than another, but of course he lived during a...

BY J. GRIMOND W HY should anyone vote Liberal? Because they like the Liberal way of looking at things and want a Liberal policy. Obvious as that is, it needs saying because so...

W HEN I first took the shoes from off my feet to enter the holy places of Washington, they were sad and empty faces. It was 1931. and many of the marble halls had been built as...

T HE word 'prone' used to mean 'lying face downwards,' just as 'supine! meant `lying face upwards.' (Why is there no similarly concise Latin-based word for the sideways or...

described in terms of buildings, Professor Dawkins was as important to Oxford as is the dome of the Radcliffe Camera to the skyline of the University. He was returning to Exeter...

Some time ago a friend in Canada sent me a sort of water scorpion made of rubber, one of the most life-like things I have ever seen equipped with a hook. When I received it I...

bedding plants to ensure a display later. Two disappointments can be in finding that, stocks are single and antirrhinums are suffering from rust. A good nurseryman will provide...

`You may like to know that another "cure" for warts is related to the snail, the black variety (if there is such a thing),' says a reader who lives in Birkenhead. 'A man whom I...

BY IAN NIALL T HE Ministry says it will prosecute anyone found intro- ducing a new stock of rabbits to land cleared of them by myxomatosis. I wonder if this means very much. It...

The Legion at War T HE British talent for describing land warfare is marked but limited. We are a maritime rather than a military race, with an atavistic prejudice against a...

SIR,—As a regular reader of your paper for over forty years I was surprised to find that you had exhumed an old chestnut that I remember going the rounds in this city over...

thoughtful people Professor Barra- clough's article on 'The Future of Germany' must strike an ominous note. One cannot dis- pute his conclusions—that German policy will pursue...

Barraciough G. W. Stecvens W. F. Lolthou.st The Dog It Was R. aye Seece 'SHE OPPENHEIMER CASE Sts,—lain Hamilton's article on the Oppen- heimer controversy appears to be based...

SIR,—Professor Brogan may be reassured. G. W. Stcevens went up to Balliol from the City of London School, with a scholarship, in the year , 1888. He was awarded a fellowship at...

of Dr. Oppenheimer. speaks of 'the underlying issue—which was, to put it crudely, whether a scientist should allow his moral sentiments to interfere with his duty towards the...

SIR,—As a Cambridge graduate and a Christian I was delighted by the series of articles you recently offered us. Mr. P. G. 3' Pulzer, to judge from his letter, was not so...

TIM BBC seemed to me guilty of over- estimating the public interest and even the significance of VE Day ten years after. But in spite of some inanities in stuffing the election...

CINEMA A KID FOR Two FARTHINGS. (Plan.)—THREE CASES OF MURDER. (Warner.)—UNTAMED. (Carlton.) LIFE is full of disappointments and it is foolish to expect too much from anyone,...

Emmer's Picasso, a forty-minute study of the artist's work made with intelligence, under- standing and considerable technical resource- ulness. As in Paul Haesert's Visite a...

MAY 15, 1830

(Arts.) — THE TENDER TRAP. By Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith. (Saville.) THERE is a type of French play, popular some years ago, which depends for its effect on the...

Afternoon World By KINGSLEY AMIS ITH the appearance of Mr. Anthony Powell's new volume!' we are back again in that shapeless and yet homogeneous world which lies somewhere be-...

THREE hundred years ago—or a little less—the first free burghers took their discharge from the Dutch East India Company's newly established provisioning station' under Table...

Tilts new collection of Sir Lewis Namier's occasional essays and reviews has all the q ualities which we have come to expect in his work—scholarship, wisdom and clarity. His...

IN SEARCH OF THEATER. By Eric Bentley. (Dennis Dobson, 35s.) IT is a pity that Eric Bentley could not have developed the theses contained in his latest book on the theatre in a...

MEDIEVAL CORNWALL. By L. E. Elliott-Binns. (Methuen, 35s.) IT is probably true to say—though only at the risk of inducing apoplexy all the way from Berwick to Brighton—that...

WILLIAM CONRAD. By Pierre Boulle. (Seeker and Warburg, 10s. 6d.) IT is difficult to describe the extraordinary power of Canal in Moonlight. Among the rest of the week's novels...

I We turn back to wave, and get the birdl (6). 4 What a heavenly fire there is here (8). 10 Trim Sal blown about in the wind (7). 11 'Come to my urms, my beamish boy' -and...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 271 Report by D. R. Peddy Competitors were invited to celebrate the tenth anniversary of VE Day by recalling the atmosphere of 1939-45 in twelve lines...

well-known verse : '1 come from the city of Boston, The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells speak only to Cabots And the Cabots speak only to God.' A prize of £5 is...

Ry NICHOLAS DAVENPORT ARE we paying too much for our oil and petrol? It was shreivd of Sir Frederick Godber, the chairman of the Shell Trans- port and Trading Company, in making...

By CUSTOS THE gilt-edged market has been a depress- ing influence on the Stock Exchange. There seems to be an increasing lack of har- mony between the Bank of England and the...