17 MAY 1957

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SECOND ACT

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D EBATE there was bound to be, as soon as the Govern- ment announced its decision to accept Nasser's terms. Not primarily on the decision itself, which has for so long been...

THE

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SPECTATOR ESTABLISHED 1828 - NUMBER 6725 - FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1957 - PRICE NI NEPENCE

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Schools Tomorrow

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W 1THIN the space of a few months—and in none too easy a time—Lord Hailsham has managed to restore Education to its rightful place as one of the significant ministries. A few of...

PENSIONS AND THE LEVIATHAN

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er HE Labour Party's document National Super- annuation is the most important policy state- ment in the social field since the Beveridge Report. It is no give-away show, but an...

Eugen Perianu Intelligence

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FIRST attache at the Rumanian Legation. Daily Mail, May 8. FIFTH attach.—Dail y Sketch, May 8. A CONVIVIAL figure at cocktail parties and receptions. Daily Herald, May 8....

trlhe Spectator

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MAY 19, 1832 Tilts has been a busy week throughout England — the busiest that has ever occurred in our memory and experience—perhaps the busiest that has ever occurred since the...

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M. MOLLET'S DILEMMA

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By DARSIE GILLIE Paris M MOLLET will have to jump the most • difficult hurdle of his Premiership now that Parliament is reassembled. He seeks new taxes to the tune of £150...

Turandot Intelligence

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IT cannot be said that the music lies comfortably within her voice.—T he Times, May 6. THE part certainly tics within her voice. . . . - • Daily Telegraph, May 6. , • . the...

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Portrait of the Week

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THE news of the week is cer- tainly the permission now granted to British shipping to use the Suez Canal, with the result that petrol rationing is now at an end. The 10 per...

Westminster Commentary

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SHIP me somewhere east of Suez, and as quickly as pos- sible. One more reference to the subject in the House of Commons after this week and I will have an attack of the...

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NO SOONER does the Independent TV Authority do something sensible—backing

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Associated Re- diffusion's broadcasts to schools—than it spoils the effect by doing something really silly in objecting to the proposed films on the achieve- ments of British...

DOUBT IF anyone who thought that Sir Anthony Eden's policy

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over Suez was wrong will be made to change their opinion materially by T. E. Utley's apologia Not Guilty (Macgibbon and Kee, 10s. 6d.). The first two-thirds of the book do not...

A Spectator's Notebook

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THE DECISION on the Newsweek case is significant, The fines imposed on the distributors of the magazine were nominal; but legal costs these days are not nominal, and in any case...

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I HAVE BEEN reading copies of the correspondence that has

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been passing between the citizens of Aylesbury and the authorities on the case of Aylesbury Grammar School; and my sympathies are with the citizens. Their grammar school has...

WHETHER IT IS because the actors have had too long

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to rehearse their parts, or whether it is because Lord Russell of Liverpool has joined in with one of his regular changes of party, or whether it is merely because of the...

A NUMBER OF READERS spotted an apparent dis- crepancy in

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the articles by St. John Ervine and Montgomery Hyde, in our Ulster number, con- cerning the date on which Ireland became a Republic. But in fact both were right. Mr. Ervine was...

SIR WILLIAM BEACH THOMAS died last Sunday at the age

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of eighty-nine. The Times in its obituary called him 'One of the most distinguished journal- ists of his generation,' and the epithet was well chosen. Fair, scrupulous,...

Tories and the Public Schools

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By ANGUS MAUDE, MP W H1LE the intellectuals of the Labour Party have for some years been producing plans for the socialisation of the public schools, the Con- servative Party...

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Is Latin Worth It?

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By A PUBLIC SCHOOL MASTER 'The father could not be persuaded to die on behalf of his son.' 'If the general had spared the soldiers, he would have been praised for his...

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Free and Unequal

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By STUART MACLURE I T is said that the sequence of events which Ifd to the Education Act of 1944 began some years before in a period of military disaster and par- liamentary...

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City and Suburban

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By JOHN BETJEMAN ARE you going to Albania for your summer holidays this year? Though my passport en- titles me to go to all countries in Europe, in- cluding the USSR, it does...

You Never Know

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By STRIX T NCH by inch the frontiers of knowledge are 'advanced, the dark clouds of ignorance dis- pelled, mankind's torturing uncertainties allayed. Last week, after four...

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Consuming Interest

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LESLIE ADRIAN T HE tailors of Savile Row, I understand, are looking for a new word to describe their Clothes. They no longer care to use the tradi- tional term 'bespoke' because...

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99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1

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Euston 3221

Letters to the Editor

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Battle of Jutland Sir Robert Boothby, MP Mr. Churchill and the Press Council Sir Linton Andrews Easter Morning Kenneth de Courcy The Partition of Ireland T. Feehan, Joan...

EASTER MORNING

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SIR,—Surgeon, in his latest letter, makes two rather sweeping statements for which he has produced no evidence at all—namely that St. Joseph of Arimatheea did not become a...

MR. CHURCHILL AND THE PRESS COUNCIL Si,—Mr. Randolph S. Churchill

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speaks of the Press Council as 'the body which arrogates to itself so much pretended power.' He speculates on whether 'the strangely assorted members' of the Council 'in- tend...

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CYPRUS

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SIR,—Speaking in the House of Lords on Cyprus last month, Lord Milverton said that a very generalised attitude towards the Cyprus problem may induce an atmosphere of unreality....

BOOKS FOR EASTERN EUROPE

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Sin—An International Committee of Writers and Publishers has just been set up in Paris with the object of sending books to Eastern Europe. Many of your readers may like to know...

SW! AND SW3

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SIR,—John Betjeman has graded the postal districts for those pebple who strive to live in the 'right' areas. But although those engaged in trade may be equally concerned to...

SIR,—I don't know whether Mr. Montgomery Hyde would subscribe to

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Mr. Ervine's 'two nation' theory —his interest in such 'non-Ulster' matters as the Lane pictures and the Casement diaries suggests that he takes a broader view of his...

RT. HON. W. M. HUGHES, PC

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SIR,—I am engaged, at the desire of Dame Mary Hughes and the trustees of the late Rt. Hon. W. M. Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, 1915-22, in collecting material for his...

SHOP TALK

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SIR,—I am fascinated by your revolutionary economic theory in 'Shop Talk' (April 26) that the way to keep prices down is to keep shops open longer! One could suggest, with equal...

THE PARTITION OF IRELAND

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SIR,—In the article 'A Sign of Strength' in your issue of May 3, you urge that the Border 'is Britain's re- sponsibility, too,' and you suggest that the British Government...

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Contemporary Arts

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The Ballerina and the Future The latest study of her career (My Years with Pay/ova, by H. Algeranoff : Heinemann, 25s.) re- focuses interest on the questions without coming any...

Visual Aids

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ON Monday afternoon the Vice- Chancellor of Reading, Sir John Wolfenden, appeared on ITV to introduce the schools broadcasting programme of Association Re- diffusion. 'It is,'...

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Not-so-New Music

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A CONCERT organised jointly by the BBC and the ICA last week brought us the first real oppor- tunity in this country to hear and compare the work of the three latest young...

Done by Mirrors

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Restless Heart. By Jean Anouilh. (St. James's.) Psi! Are we alone? You don't need to incriminate yourself but aren't you get- ting the least bit suspicious about M. Anouilh's...

Boy on a Dolphin. (Canton.)— Typhoon Over Nagasaki. (Curzon.) Boy

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on a Dolphin is slow, gor- geous to look at and phony in the sense that it is always an out- sider's, tourist's, propagandist's film that makes Mediterranean marine and...

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Poet in Winter

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A small room with one table and one chair, This man who writes, then cancels what he writes, Tears up the sheet, runs fingers through his hair; His violent longing makes a...

The Animals

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Old men in caps and waistcoats mumbling pipes Sit on the quay and stare at the empty streets; While dodging the ships across the oily water Goes the Saturday sunshine, in bright...

BOOKS

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The Accused By CHRISTOPHER SYKES T HE year 1815 bears a close and therefore somewhat misleading resemblance to 1919 and 1945. One important thing all three years had in common :...

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Sargent and the Bitch Goddess

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John Singer Sargent. By Charles Merrill Mount. (Cresset Press, 30s.) THIS detailed, 300-page biography was under- taken as a labour of love by Mr. Mount, a young American...

Pacific Pre-History

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Easter Island: A Stone-Age Civilisation of the Pacific. By Alfred Metraux. Translated by Michael Bullock. (Deutsch, 21s.) EASTER ISLAND was discovered by the Western European...

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Life among the Aborigines, by W. E. Harney (Hale, 18s.)

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: back to Australia and a solid, thoroughly informative account of the Aborigines' habits, beliefs and tribal customs today by a Self-educated man who has spent a hard-working...

Travel Miscellany

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Personal and Oriental, by Austin Coates (Hut- chinson, 25s.): this has roughly the form of a travel book, but is really a gathering together of twelve years' Asian experience by...

To the Polar Sunrise, by K. Westcott Jones (Museum Press,

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13s. 6d.): short account of an unusual trip to North Norway, making the dramatic sunrise that appears after two months' total winter darkness the excuse for a trip round the...

A French Doctor in the Yemen, by Claudia Fayein (Hale,

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21 s.) : just what the title says, the doctor being female and endowed with the yelp- ing sort of enthusiasm that is the French equiva- lent of St. Triniab's. The Queen of...

In Highest Nepal, by Norman Hardie (Allen and Unwin, 21s.)

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: here we get back to the general run of travel books. Serious, thoroughly pleasant and quietly interesting account of a trip through the valleys of Upper Nepal to a Sherpa...

Picture of Japan, by Cohn Simpson (Angus and Robertson, 2

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Is.): Australian professional writer goes to Japan to write a plain middlebrow guide to Japanese life today with an anti- Japanese audience in mind and Australian terms of...

Yugoslav Adventure, by William Woods (Deutsch, 15s.): American novelist goes

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off to Yugoslavia with his wife and three small daughters and potters-about, seeing a good deal and divin- ing even more with a bright, self-conscious eye. They meet Tito, who...

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Sahara Adventure, by J. Mortimer Sheppard (Jarrolds, 21s.): another professional

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American writer with another wife and three smallish children takes the family on a world trip. The title is grossly misleading, only forty-five of the 208 pages being devoted...

Hover-Birds

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The Helicopter. By Jacob Shapiro. (Muller, 21s.) WHATEVER happened to the helicopter anyway?- In the Thirties any schoolboy could have told you that by 1957 the sky would be...

The Sacraments

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The Theology of the Sacraments, and other papers. By D. M. Baillie. With a biographi- cal essay by John Baillie. (Faber, I 6s.) A DEVOUT upbringing in a country manse, a...

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New Novels

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The Sponger. By Jules Renard. (Longmans, 15s.) AN inspector of fiction recently estimated that sixty-four novels of school life have been offered for sale during the past ten...

Empress of Sorrow

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DURING the latter part of the nineteenth century there were several tragic empresses living in Europe, the Empress Eugenie for instance, the Empress Carlotta of Mexico, whose...

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Jazz

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THOSE who are uncertain as to the precise definition of what is jazz and what is not jazz can read several conflicting views on the subject in Concerning Jazz (Faber, 12s. 6d.)....

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Venice

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'THE spirit of enchantment under which Venice lies, pearly and roseate like the Sleeping Beauty, change- less throughout the centuries arrested, while the con- crete forest of...

SOWING AND PLANTING

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May is a month in which to sow such things as main-crop peas, French beans and scarlet runners, although some people plant the latter from boxes when frost danger is past. It is...

MOUSE MURDERER

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Although I might have had a better view of the nest by stepping on the bank, 1 didn't do so, because bird-nesting boys study the signs in the hedgerow grass as much.as anything...

Country Life

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By IAN NIALL READING further reports that the rabbit is changing its environment, by favouring open ground and scrapes and depressions rather than holes, makes me wonder if it...

Chess

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fly PHILIDOR No. 102. A. G. MESCH1CK BLACK (5 men) WII1TE (7 men) wurrE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. Solution to last week's problem by Baton: Q-B 4,'no...

KITTEN AND FLIES We were walking uphill when my companion

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paused as we came to three cottages with flagged forecourts and little flower beds beneath their win- dows. 'I have a relative who lives here,' he said. 'I'll just call and see...

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Sunt Lachrymcv Rerum

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SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 376 Report by J. M. Cohen The usual prize of six guineas was offered for a translation of the last section of Victor Hugo's poem Sunt Lachrymm Rerum...

Competitors are invited to submit either a poem on humans

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(one or several) or an extract from a book entitled The Training and Care of Human Beings written by a cat. Limit : fourteen lines or 150 words. Prize money: six guineas....

SPECTATOR CROSSWORD No. 940

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ACROSS 1 At the end of the row you need a sweater (8). 5 Arranged to show the M.O. as a mimic (6). 9 He produces a daily par (8). 10 The donkey gets only a crumb; it's a...

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OIL AND POLITICS AGAIN

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IT has been a part of my life's work to try to divorce oil from politics in the mind of the British public. In the late Twenties and in the late Forties I...

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COMPANY NOTES

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By CUSTOS THE high level of activity on the Stack Exchange points to the lusti- ness of the new bull market. After a hectic Monday prices became irreg lar except in oil shares...