T HE debate on the Middle East in the House of Commons can hardly be said to have added much in the way of solutions to a singularly tangled situation. The Foreign Secretary, in...

IATOR ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6651 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1955 PRICE 7d.

Our German Correspondent writes : T HE prodigal Dr. John has returned to Western Germany. No feast will be prepared for him, and he will have to suffer the due processes of...

B RITAIN'S overseas trade made disappointing' progress in November..The trade deficit worsened appreciably, under- lining the regrettable fact that the authorities are trying to...

JACK 'SPOT' COMER walked into the Old Bailey at 4.3 p.m. Daily Mail, December S. . at 4.54 Jack Spot bounded up the Old Bailey marble steps. Daily Express, December 8....

C ONSIDERING the overcrowding in classrooms and the 1 4.,../accretion of administrative duties, teachers are over- worked; considering their great responsibilities, they are...

F OREIGN news this week is united by no common thread. Even MM. Bulganin and Khrushchev have become side- tracked into the Pakistan-Indian row over Kashmir. Russia has evidently...

Our Industrial Correspondent writes : T HE case that the tyre manufacturers have made before the Monopolies Commission* is undoubtedly plausible. They claim, and there is no...

The Young Man Arrives BY HENRY FAIRLIE The explanation is that Mr. Gait- skell's public character is the same as his private character, and his private character is a rare...

transport undertaking would be to provide the road service in the right place at the right time. But some people in outlying parts of the great area served by London Transport...

Trade said he had been asked to excise parts of the Monopolies Commission repdrt on the tyre industry, on the grounds that publication of them would be 'contrary to the national...

I HAVE. HEARD from a friend in. Windsor a story of remarkable muddle. The Council have a sluni-clearance plan based on a leapfrog principle. They have taken the town's blackest...

to look for a wife. She must apparently be young, attractive, educated, intelligent and of good family. All this is reasonable enough, but when the Prince goes on to observe...

BY PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR T HE sudden irruption of the Turks into the Anglo-Greek deadlock gave matters an unexpected and ugly turn. Soon, for different reasons, the British and...

the University of Oxford runs out in a few months. Two or three weeks ago Mr. W. H. Auden took the trouble to take his M.A. Is there any connection? * * *

ALL NANNIES and many governesses, when pouring out tea, put the milk in first. . . . Sharp children notice that this is not normally done in the drawing-room. To some this...

(Collins, 12s. 6d.) is that while all the pieces are equal in their excellence, some are more equal than others. But some people are foolish enough to keep on supposing that...

BY HUGH FRASER D OWN the Persian Gulf in late autumn blows the Shamal, a cold, ill wind from Russian Central Asia. People in Basra town search out their winter things. But in...

By WILLIAM DOUGLAS HOME S OME months ago I wrote a piece in the Spectator about Mr. Russell Spurr. the Daily Express Foreign Correspon- dent. In it I described his harrowing...

BY JOHN BETJEMAN S this is Advpnt there are certain signs of hope worth considering. One of them is the Ministry of Works, whose present able Minister, Mr. Nigel Birch, is a man...

Thunder in the Thirties T HE publication of Sir Evelyn Wrench's life of Geoffrey Dawson* has revived, and seems to have strengthened, the popular belief that, under Dawson's...

way' through Kim and Puck of Pook's Hill through 'an habitation enforced' and `friendly brook.' I wonder what Mr. Wain does call good stories. He is shocked by the protection of...

add a new word to our political vocabulary, the use of which may be illustrated by the follow- ing conjugation : 1 am an Astorite, Thou art a Witch Hunter, He, she or it is...

SIR, — Mr. Chappelow's wide-ranging attack merits a reply on the two points where it makes some contact with the review that provoked it. Soviet food statistics are a very...

SIR,—Many of your readers will wish that Mr. John Wain, in his article, 'A Bruising Ex- perience,' had said more about Kipling's poetry. He mentioned the 'jingles' interspersed...

Cyprus Lord Stanley of Alderley The Russian Visit E. F. G. Haig `Russian Holiday' J. E. M. Arden Kipling Adm. Sir W M. James, H. S. W. Edwards Political Definitions David...

your view that the invitation to the Russian leaders to visit Britain in April should stand. Since these leaders have gone out of their way to slander the dead as well as the...

my book on Charlotte Brontë, Passionate Search. On one point I feel that 1 have been misunderstood. In writing of Emily's 'coming to terms' with life I meant this as applying...

of Mr•. Gorley Putt's View from Atlantis your contributor writes: 'Mr. Gorley Putt's twenty years' acquaintance with America has softened the piercing visitor's- squint that...

SIR,—We were extremely interested in Pharos's remarks (November 18) on the recent letter of Admiral Sir William James in The Times touching on the crypto-censorship of books...

SIR,—The reference in 'A Spectator's Note- 'book' to the current Sunday Pictorial sensa- tion, 'Virgin Births,' prompts me to wonder how so egregious a newspaper as the...

Theatre HAMLES. By William Shakespeare. (Phoenix.) HAMLET without the Prince of Denmark is notoriously an empty play. Peter Brook's new production returning with snow on its...

of the Brenner the Military Authorities for the Defence of the Brenner Pass Zone [sic] have erected a very conspicuous notice board which proclaims: IT IS FORBIDDEN TO EFFECT...

SIR,—Italian ecclesiastical authorities are sometimes funny even when they use their own language. About twenty-five years ago, I saw in the porch of a church at Parma a notice,...

RICHARD III. (Leicester Square.) WHEN a film is long awaited, much Talked of, and the appetite for it is whetted by snippets in the papers, it is apt to prove disappointing. Not...

OF the rival viewer-research systems that have been contradicting each other lately, one relies on teams of questioners who go round to ask the TV owner what programmes he has...

(RECORDING COMPANIES: A, Argo; B, Bruns- wick; C, Capitol; Col, Columbia; D, Decca; DT, Ducretet-Thomson; F, Felsted; LI, Lon- don International; OL, Oiseau Lyre; T, Tele-...

"THANK God," exclaimed Lord ALTHORP in the debate of Monday last, "the time at which this country could be governed by patronage is past!" 7 --If we believed the fact, we should...

Aristocrats and Mechanics By HENRY FAMLIE W . HEN I reviewed Mr. Frank Owen's life of Lloyd George I said that it was clear that Lord Beaver- brook had planned his biography in...

THURBER'S DOGS. By James Thurber. (Hamish Hamilton, 12s. 6d.) WHAT dog-dislikers most dislike about dogs is not their readiness to lick the hand that strikes, nor even their...

INSIDE AFRICA. By John Gunther. (Hamish Hamilton, 30s.) MR. LAURENS VAN DER POST'S small book could well be slipped into the Christmas stocking of your metaphysically-minded...

by the charge that economics was not a science, and ought N. therefore, to be introduced into curricula, economists have 'Pent much of their time in the past century on an...

MAIORET AND THE BURGLAR'S WIFE. By Simenon. (Hamish ton, 9s. 6d.) A SENSE OF GUILT. By Simenon. (Hamish Hamilton, 12s. 6d.) SINCERELY, WILLIS WAYDE. By John P. Marquand. (Hale,...

Kerryman, 21s.) IT is a little difficult to understand why this history, which adds little to what was already known of the RDS, should have been con- sidered necessary: and...

has turned aside from the study of art and ornament to give an excellent account of one of the greatest names in paper. Of very great interest is the account of the early years...

By IAN NIALL IF anything ever happens to the woodpigeon there will be rejoicing among farmers and dis- may among the makers of shotguns and shot- gun cartridges, for the pigeon...

Like all good storytellers, E. knows that emotion and sentiment are great helps, and when he talks of his boyhood he is never a mere boy or a youth but 'a little lad.' It...

Could a teacher of elocution bear to listen to the patter of the auctioneer? It is a running brook, an urgent injunction that time is money, and the speeding minute leaves us to...

NONO GOKALVES. With an Introduction by Reynaldo dos Santos. (Phaidon Press, 42s.) The majority of Phaidon books give us a better illustrated or less usual presentation of the...

6s.) A HARE ABOUT THE House. By Cecil S. Webb. (Hutchinson, 6s.) A LEVERET is a creature singularly unamenable to house training—in fact probably only a pro- fessional could...

We are, most of us, inclined to leave the lawn to itself in winter when it needs aerating and brushing, even although growth has stopped. Removing worm-casts and giving the turf...

B y NICHOLAS DAVENPORT AGAINST the strongly rising trend of indus- trial investment, which the Chancellor him- self had encouraged with his investment allowances of 1954 and his...

By CUSTOS IT was to be expected that after its recent sizable recovery (seven points in ten days) the equity share market would sell off to- wards the end of the Stock Exchange...

BY PHILIDOR No. 28. W. A. EHINKMAN (2nd Prize. Montreal Spectator, 1880). WHITE, meu. mate in 2 moves: solution next week. THE LUNATIC FRINGE Assuming one is foolish...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 302 Report by Angela Kent A prize of £5 was offered for a message of good will (not more than one hundred words of prose or twelve lines of verse)...

THOMAS, 48 Manor Road North, Edgbaston, Birmingham 16, and MISS PENNETHORNB, The Hill House, Liadfield, Sussex.

habit of under- statement prompts me to offer the £5 prize this week for brief (and imaginary) under- statet'nents from any three of the following eminent Victorians : Dr....

ACROSS I He gets doubled up in a scrum (6). 4 'Sent back Unity, —, Assyrian, ( S g t) ). rmcock and Golden Gain' (Kipling) 10 The Scotsman claims his seat on the beach (7)....