week has been the crisis in the Fourth Republic. (The cartoonist in the Daily Mail aPpears to • be under the impression that it is the Thud Republic.) And overshadowing the...

• D ESPITE the damping effect of General de Gaulle's press conference on a highly in- flammable situation, the French crisis still looks threatening and its issue obscure. It is...

By DARSIE GILLIE Tut Popular Front Chamber of 1936 began by putting M. Leon Blum in power at the head of a Socialist and Radical coalition with Communist support. It ended by...

As the London bus strike moves peacefully (more or less) towards its close, it had better be recorded that when I checked the cars of Members of Parliament in New Palace Yard...

B y MICHAEL ADAMS A A s the Lebanon is the one Arab country which accepted without equivocation the Eisen- hower Doctrine, it has come to be regarded by the Americans as the one...

the big increase in the pro-Communist party's vote in the Greek elections. Surely the explanation is simple : the Greeks were told all about the kindly treatment of their...

decision was taken that they should not be denied the benefits their fellow-countrymen from the Crimea had received. On June 14, 1949, the entire Greek population of the...

A VICTORY FOR COMMON SENSE-Or a surrender to expediency? The settle- ment of the rail dispute, with its implied promise of settlements on similar lines in other disputes to...

murdered three women was reprieved each time have had a lot of publicity, but so far as I can see there is no truth in them whatever. One man was three times convicted of...

cloak, made of Venetian cloth, sleeveless, lined with scarlet and having four gilt buttons and a neck fastening bearing the RAF badge has been introduced for optional wear by...

By D. W. BROGAN I T is just twenty-one years since the 'reform' or `packing' of the United States Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt became obviously a lost cause. Only a...

of the old-established BBC 'Critics,' sparring last Sunday with a newcomer to the panel—John Barber? Mr. Barber is the theatre critic of the Daily Express. It is only recently...

By DONAT O'DONNELL . SEE be the pa-apers,' said Mr. Dooley, 'that I me frind Gin'ral de Gaulle has spoken out.' 'An' what did he say?' said Mr. Hennessy. 'He said he wud be...

OR centuries enlightened and public-spirited men and women have fought for the liberty of the citizen against governments. The main battlefields for this continuing fight have...

By STRIX T RECOGNISED the writing as that of an old friend. 'The envelope contained a small, well-made luggage-label. It had a craftsmanlike, rather obsolete appearance and...

• MAY 25, 1833 Mr. HARVEY moved on Tuesday for certain returns to illustrate the secret history of the Pension-list. The names of the recipients of the public money are ,...

Dissenter IN PARIS the popular newspapers • with photographs of short-skirted, were still filling their front pages low-necklined vedettes—all white- As always in a crisis,...

Actors as Heroes By ALAN BRIEN WHAT happens off-stage at the Moscow Arts Theatre is sometimes even more astonishing than what happens on-stage. In Uncle Vanya „, there is a...

Attention to Detail By JOHN BR AINE TB is not hereditary. No doctor would refuse to let a husband beget a child by AIH because he had TB; and never under any circumstances...

Scottish Number Articles and reviews by D. W. BROGAN, GLYN DANIEL, JO GRIMOND, MP, latN HAMILTON, NORMAN MCCAIG, MORAY MCLAREN, GEORGE MIDDLETON, DAVID MURRAY, STUART PIGGOTT,...

Sophisticated Innocence By BASIL TAYLOR FOR 200 years or so artists have been seeking to discover or create emblems of innocence, of un- sophisticated responses, of the natural...

Textile Design By LESLIE ADRIAN The success of one old-established Scottish textile firm, who were prepared to scrap many of their old techniques and give more thought to good...

Broadway Waif By ISABEL QUIGLY Stage Struck. (Odeon, Leicester Square.) ANYONE who remembers the stark- I ness of Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, a film made without the smallest...

The Mesmerisers By .MILES HOWARD 'Tr HE other night at a party I heard a well- I known figure in industry described as a mesmeriser. The man who said this was himself doing...

the 'Suez venture' is not entitled to criticise other countries, employs the very argument used by the pro-Nazis in the Thirties. Nevertheless, many of us would agree with him...

to be Prime Minister; Taper, Chief Whip; and Bernard Levin, Lord Chief Justice. The tragedy is, of course, that not enough people know this. Cannot, then, this formidable...

Th e Failure of President Benes D. Sinor Brother Sava g e Rev. Herbert R. Barton, Peter Rawlinson, MP, Graham Greene The Golden Nazi Brian Glanville, Frances Blackett Privile...

SIR,—There is nothing remotely objective about Mr. Blackham's criticism of Isabel Quigly's attack on the film The Young Lions. So much is evident from his monstrous assertion...

Sin,—If it may well be concluded that the chief Moral function of the English man of letters is to deliver his fellows from barbarism, then Mr. Levin's d iscriminating analysis...

and after a good meal one has the desire to carry an idea a little farther. Mr. Levin's interesting article for me supported by implication the belief I have always , held—that...

S1R,—Mr. Cicero T. Ritchie really ought to brush up on his distinguished namesake. The old Republi - can (no elephant) may have been vain enough to fancy himself a second...

overlook the salient fact: that this book was published, and in three English-speaking countries at that. When I think of the torrential flood of titles un- leashed each year...

SIR, On behalf of Dr. H. W. Bahr (Editor of the Universitas, Tubingen) I am collecting English material for his sequel to his book, Kriegs•briefe gefalletter deutscher...

SLR,—Mr. Karl Miller objects to the Marlowe Society's use of 'the Dover Wilson edition, with its learned meddlings.' There are many readings in the New Shakespeare text which...

SIR,—You lead off in your article 'Privileged Classes' with the assertion that the Observer and the Man- chester Guardian seem to have misunderstood the Strauss privilege case....

SIR,—I feel impelled to thank you for giving pub - licity to Pharos's common-sense notes on the polio panic which has been so painstakingly inoculated into the minds of the...

A Sense of Movements BY THOM GUNN T HE British Council pamphlets range from serious and thorough critical essays to rather sweeping 'introductions' which sometimes appear...

(Marching Song for the Pilgrimage) Years when the struggle was decent, when the Individual, The Intellectual, talked continually like back-seat drivers, Expressed at conventions...

WHAT a subject! Human nature as putrescent as carrion! Generations of dons, either blinded with religious bigotry, corroded with envy, enraged by frustration or place-seeking,...

The Stories of Sean O'Fnolain. (Hart - Davis, 21s.) Exile and the Kingdom. Stories by Albert Camus. Translated from the French by Justin O'Brien. (Hamish Hamilton, 13s. 6d.) MR....

Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939. Edited by E. L. Woodward and Rohan Butler. Second Series. Vol. VII. 1929-1934. (H.M.S.O., 85s.) THis collection of Foreign Office...

My Brother's Keeper. By Stanislaus Joyce. Edited by Richard Ellmann, with a preface by T. S. Eliot. (Faber, 25s.) JAMES JOYCE'S relationship with his younger brother Stanislaus...

John Howard: Prison Reformer. By D. L. Howard. (Johnson, 18s.) Teach Them to Live. By Frances Banks. (Ma% Parrish,.30s.) 'WHOEVER thou art,' his tombstone inscription told the...

Arnhem. By Major-General R. E. Urquhart, with Wilfred Greatorex. (Cassell, 21s.) Zeebrugge. By Barrie Pitt. (Cassell, 18s.) THE action of General Urquhart's 1st Airborne...

All This Franticness On the Road. By Jack Kcrouac. (Andre Deutsch, 15s.) IN this country the received idea at present is that writers should stay at home and cultivate their...

Schubert: Memoirs by his Friends. Collected and edited by Otto Erich Deutsch. (Black, 70s.) MR. BROWN prefaces his book with a reproduction of Dialer's noble memorial bust of...

of Shakespeare in association witl the British Council, not the Arts Council as report(( in last week's Spectator.

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IN the Budget debate Mr. Heath- coat Amory probably raised a muffled cheer when he expressed his 'strong' opinion that the time had arrived for another...

By CUSTOS T HE faith of investors does not appear to be easily shaken. The alarming internatio n al news has, of course, depressed the security mar' kets, but continuing faith...

T E LEPHONE RENTALS are well known in factories and business houses for their inter- nal telephone installations and broadcasting !Ystems. The Company is also responsible for...

ACROSS. - 1 Ribston. 5 Seagull. 9 Glazing. 10 Agonist. 11 Take to task. 12 Wens. 13 Spa. 14 Emerald Isle. 17 Bell-founder. 19 Tot. 20 Rats. 22 Black- stone. 26 Embrace. 27...

ACROSS 1 How to preserve a literary traveller finally (6). 4 Let's have a round of cards played gradually (8). 9 Otherwise a friend gives the word (6). 10 Constance is a...

their history-as, for example: All you of Bath that hear me sound Thank Lady Hopton's hundred pound. Competitors are invited to suggest similar ye (couplets or quatrains)...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 429: Report by D. R. Peddy Competitors were invited to compose a Milk-Drinking Song for singing by an Englist Scottish, Welsh, Irish, American or...

By PHILIDOR No. 154. A. BOTTACCHI (2nd Prize, 'lllustrazione Italiana', 1921) BLACK (5 men) WIIITE (11 men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves: solution week. Solution to...