21 OCTOBER 1955

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SPECTATOR

The Spectator

ESTABLISHED 182 No. 6643 FRIDAY. OCTOBER 21. 1955 PRICE 7d.

PRINCESS MARGARET

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I T is now more than two years since into the world's press there began to trickle reports and speculations about the attachment, and the possible marriage, of Princess Margaret...

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M. FAURE'S STRUGGLE

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M FAURE has got his majority in the National Assem- bly for the vote of confidence on his Algerian policy. . As far as it goes this is a victory for statesmanship and good sense...

Another Saar Plebiscite

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BY ELIZABETH WISKEMANN A YEAR ago, on October 23, 1954, the French Prime Minister, M. Mendes - France, together with Dr. Adenauer, signed a statute for the Saar : M. Mendes-...

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Portrait of the Week

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T HIS week has seen the beginning of colder weather in this country and of the pre-Geneva cyclones in the international scene. The suggestion made in a Times leader that the...

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Political Commentary

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BY HENRY FAIRLIE p ARLIAMENT reassembles next week, and Mr. Alfred Robens (whom I have heard described as the Khrushchev of the Labour Party) has joined Mr. Trevor Evans (who is...

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PERHAPS THE Daily Express is cross because it doesn't have

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as finger in the commercial television pie. This is the only reason that I can imagine behind its pompous attitude towards those people who voted against Commercial TV but now...

IT SEEMS TO ME that people who carry democratic principles

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into the arts do neither democracy nor the arts any great service. The latest example was the attack by the organist and choirmaster of Derby Cathedral on the Arts Council, for...

THREE YEARS ago King George's Jubilee Trust undertook to make

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a study of the influences which affect young people in Britain. This was a question of co-ordinating work that was already being done rather than of initiating fresh lines of...

FOOTNOTE from Margate : A solitary ex-MP (suspected of fellow-travelling)

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was walking head down past a group seated at a table. One member of the group, a trade unionist famous for his sharp wit and determined to live up to it, said, as the lone wolf...

MY FRIEND told me that at one big sale at

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Paultons, in Hamp- shire, where the private 'knock' took place in a cricket pavilion, about 150 dealers were present; and whereas the total auction figures were given as...

A Spectator's Notebook

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AS A RESULT of my curiosity being aroused by correspondence in the Sunday Times about the strange practices of antique dealers at auction sales, I asked a dealer friend of mine...

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Oxford Divided

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BY ROBERT BLAKE* N OT since the heyday of the disputes provoked by the Tractarian Movement 120 years ago have passions raged more furiously in Oxford than they do today. But the...

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Earls Court and Exports

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BY GORDON WILKINS S OMEONE calls 'Action !' and the cameras whirr. Norman Wisdom, in his working clothes, looks disconsolately into the luggage trunk of an expensive limousine,...

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Nelson Did

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BY JOHN HILLS / T is just 150 years since Nelson conquered and died at Trafalgar, and there are still hundreds of Englishmen ready to echo Browning's 'Give me of Nelson only a...

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City and Suburban

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BY JOHN BETJEMAN T HERE are certain names which loom large in our lives in London, which we read more often than even that of Gilbert Harding, but with which no personality is...

BRECKNOC K Last week 1 visited what must be the

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nearest wholly un- spoiled country to London. This was the remote Welsh county of Brecknock, a kingdom in itself, of richly wooded valleys surrounded by mountains, and with the...

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Strix

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And We Are For The Dark F OR fifty-seven days in the spring of 1954 the eyes of the world were focused on Dien Bien Phu. This was a place where, for somewhat inscrutable...

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SIR,—Veracity does not appear to be the strong suit either

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of your columnist or of your sup' porters. Mr. Colm Brogan writes that he 'remember s a broadcast given by myself on the 'blind spot s shown in literary judgement by men she...

Letters to the Editor

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'The Establishment' Sir Robert Boothby, MP, Colm Brogan, Lady Violet Bonham Carter, Harold Sorel; Mary M. Devitt, Hon. David Astor, Henry Newnham, Hugh Trevor-Roper, P. H....

99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1

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Euston 3221

Sta,—In last week's issue of the Spectator I made a

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reference to a broadcast talk by Lady Violet Bonham Carter on lapses in literary taste. My recollection of that talk was seriously at fault. In that talk she did not, as I said...

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SIR,—I have read your correspondence on Mr' Maclean and 'the

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Establishment,' and you comments on it, with interest. Mfy I add soli further comments'? (1) It now seems probable that Mrs. Ma ( lean was a Communist. It also seems de o ttqt...

ST,—You aslc me and others to admit the authenticity of

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the newspaper interviews that Mrs. Maclean is supposed to have given on the eve of her departure from England. May we examine the evidence? The evidence that no reporter visited...

SIR,—I yield to nobody in my admiration lc Mr. Fairlie,

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but it is only fair to alio& brilliant writer to state that it was the la' Ford Madox Ford (formerly Hueffer) who it vented 'the. Establishment' in the secular sera I that now...

Stn,—Surely preoccupation with the niceties of protocol in the face

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of treason and sedition are not the monopoly of 'the Establishment' and its press. In those parts of the Common- wealth fully disestablished, similar circum- stances 'have...

SIR,-1 returned on Sunday from a three weeks' visit to

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Italy and have only just seen the corre- spondence about Melinda Maclean in your journal. I now hasten to reaffirm the statement I made in July, 1952, declaring that I' had...

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Sits,—May an uncstablished, simple soul com- ment on a controversy

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which' is as exciting as a Test match? Let your readers range the antagonists in two teams (easily done without reading the letters), and the Leg Theory Scan- dal at once...

Theatre

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Tan PAJAMA GAME. By George Abbott and Richard 'Bissell. (Coliseum.)----The WHOLE TRUTH. By Philip Mackie. (Aldwych.)— SMALL HOTEL. By Rex Frost. (St. Martin's.) THAT a musical...

Contemporary Arts

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Telev i s ion COMEETITION poked its alien and slightly raffish nose into television just four weeks ago. Gloomy or optimistic, we all of us, I think, ex • Pected rather too...

BALDWIN AND REARMAMENT

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Sta.—Mr. Gaitskell was certainly wrong about Baldwin, but so is Pharos. Baldwin was talk- ing about the situation reflected in the result of the Fulham by-election of 1933, but,...

Sul,—As a subscriber to your paper, I should like to

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place it on record that although I am the mildest of men, I find myself beginning to wish that Lady Violet Bonham Carter, Mr Randolph Churchill, Mr. David Astor, Mi.. Malcolm...

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Cinema

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TIGER IN THE SKY. (Warner.)-- -LA P . . RESPECTUEUSE. (Continentale.) COMMERCIALLY it has been proved that cinema audiences, like children, love being told the same story again...

Opera

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Otello is surely,, the grandest of grand operas. For his last fling at the genre — Falstaff is another matter entirely—Verdi's demands on each of the component parts that go to...

Orbe 'pettator

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OCTOBER 23, 1830 As to leading public opinion, we believe that the press—any press worthy of the name leads opinion everywhere. In one sense, it neither follows nor leads—it is...

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BOO

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The History of Man BY GLYN DANIEL T HIS* is a most remarkable work of synthesis and popularisation by a distinguished American scholar whose professional expert knowledge lies...

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A General History

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ENGLAND IN THE REIGNS OF JAMES II AND WILLIAM III. By 5- , ° Ogg. (O.U.P., 50s.) MR. OGG is a very brave man. In three massive volumes, of willch t England in the Reigns of...

The Oppenheimer Case

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WE ACCUSE! By Joseph and Stewart Alsop. (Gollancz, 13s. 6d.) THE past five years in American history have a sinister character. They are the years of McCarthyism, a form of...

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Amphibious Jeep

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HALF-SAFE. By Ben Carlin. (Andre Deutsch, 16s.) BEN CARLIN is an Australian and he writes in the way tha t Australians speak—out of the back of the mouth, without muc h emphasis...

Privateering Doctor

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DR. QUICKSILVER: LIFE AND TIMES OF THOMAS DOVER, M•D' 1660-1742. By L. A. G. Strong. (Melrose, 21s.) THIS grandson of Captain Robert Dover, founder of Olympic Games in the...

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The Everlasting Crisis

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I N the free society there is always a crisis in education. The Communists or the theocrats may know, with a shining, inner certainty, just 'why' and 'how' to educate. But we...

New Novels

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WHEN the quality of novels is poor, we console ourselves with facts. The plotless novel stands or falls on its intrinsic merits; if it has none, we wonder why it was written at...

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PITFALLS FOR THE CHANCELLOR

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IN the past so many of Mr. Butler's eagerly awaited statements of economic policy haVe turned out to be damp squibs. It is possible that the contents of...

COMPANY NOTES

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By CUSTOS • WAITING on Mr. Butler has been the un- happy lot of the industrial share market, but prices went better this week and if the Chancellor's medicine turns out to be...

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Solution on November 4. Solution to No. 855 on page

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ill The winners of Crossword No. 855 are: Ma. A. E. WooDwAsto-Norr, 9 Oakwood Avenue, Beckenham, Kent, and Miss KATHLEEN F. SWINDIV, 10 Norton Park Road, Norton, Sheffield 8.

A prize of f5, which may be divided, is offered

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for a translation into an equivalent English form of 'Le Vieillard,' by Henri de Regnier : J'ai fill les flots rnouvants pour ce calme vallon. !lest fertile. Un bois v est tout...

Alf the Bread Delivery Man

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1 /1 a recently published book, The Fire and the Fountain : an Essay on Poetry, Mr. John Press, to illustrate a theoretical point, perpetrated this parody of the opening lines...

SPECTATOR CROSSWORD No. 857

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ACROSS A planner more or less (7). S No graciousness when the gloves are (3-0, 9 'Ay, now am I in —; the more fool I' (Shakespeare) (5). ' t/ Where the inmates might be...

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Chess

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BY PHILIDOR No. 20. N. A. Bonavia Hun. III-ACK, 9 men. WHITE, 12 men. White to play an d mate in 2 moves: solution next week . Solution to las t week's probl eat by Erlin:...

THE GRAND CONTOUR We haven't lost our canals yet. The

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cam- paign to see that we don't goes on, and I, for one, am pleased that this is so. But recently I opened my paper to read that there is a plan to give the country another...

Other Recent Books

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THE HISTORY OF THE SALVATION ARMY, VOL. III. SOCIAL REFORM AND WELFARE WORK. By Colonel Robert Sandal'. (Nelson, 15s.) ALTHOUGH William Booth was always at pains to reject the...

THE MOBBERS Mobbing of cats and owls is a pastime

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with some birds, particularly blackbirds and sparrows, although stragglers of other kinds join in. The language that announces the presence of a victim is well understood, for 1...

Country Life

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BY IAN NIALL 'MY dog always knows when I am preparing to go out without her,' remarks a friend. 'and she knows when she is to accompany me. When my daughter comes home from...

POTATO HARVEST

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Lifting potatoes for storing is one of the autumn tasks before many gardeners. When the crop has been forked up it should be let t to dry for a couple of days, and if it is...