ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6700 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1956 PRICE Is. 6d.

T HE tremblings and eruptions which have been cracking the hard crust of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe continue. The agreement with Poland on the presence of Soviet troops...

A FORTNIGHT ago we wrote that 'the original unworthy suspicion . . . that the ultimatum to Egypt was a product of Anglo-French-Israeli collusion' could be banished. We said this...

S INCE the Government now estimates that the United Kingdom will be deprived of a quarter of its normal oil supplies, the decision to ration petrol was inevitable, as were the...

By DARSIE GILLIE W HEN M. Mollet told the French Assembly of the ultimatum that Britain and France had jointly sent to rel-Aviv and Cairo he paid a warm tribute to Israel's...

WHILE BRITAIN FIDDLES, Bums roams.—Observer, November 18.

T HE past week has constituted something of a lull at the centre of the Suez storm. The arrival of United Nations forces on the Canal and the talks of Mr. Hammarskjold with...

BY CHARLES CURRAN I N Trafalgar Square the other day, Suez demonstrators shouted 'Law, not war'—then obstructed and booed the police. In Cairo this week, Nasser has been...

last week; the price of a loaf of white bread is going up shortly. Why all these fluctuations, at a time when the price of wheat has been reason- ably stable? Sceptical of the...

ANGUS MCDONALD came round to the Spectator office three weeks ago with an introduction from a mutual friend, to ask if we would like articles from Cyprus and the Middle East. He...

that he should surrender his seat for supporting Sir Anthony Eden over Suez shows that the Socialists are even more intolerant of deviations within their party than the Tories....

Tye IMPORTANT fact is that there is no decisive swing against the G overnment.—Daily Mail, November 16. THE SWING is bigger and much quicker than expected. News Chronicle,...

case from Cyprus: even after the start of the EOKA crisis the information office continued to close at noon. They record also the FO's response to Colonel Nasser's appointment...

On the shunning of the Russian athletes by the Hungarians , Lord Aberdare, a member of the International Olympic Colnn mittee, commented, 'That was a tragedy but very...

another piece of advice that I once heard given to young officers. A senior officer ended an eloquent lecture on correct behaviour in the postwar age with this useful rule of...

tions in the Notebook is traditionally made for the UNICEF Greeting Card, in aid of the United Nations Children's Fund. The aim of the fund is to raise the standard of health...

the Daily Mirror 'Spotlight' series, is that it does not go for enough—possibly because the Mirror's foreign correspon- dence is so slight that it has relatively little...

p OLITICS are about power. What should distinguish the House of Commons from the Oxford Union is not that its debates should be better but that something may happen as a result...

BY WILLIAM DOUGLAS HOME I ARRIVED on Broadway, or on West 43rd Street. to be exact, for rehearsals 'of The Reluctant Debutante with Cassandra-like warnings ringing in my , ears....

BY ROBERT HANCOCK ' M 1SS NANCY SPAIN has just written a 264-page . book explaining Wiry I'm Not a Millionaire. One of the causes of this misfortune, overlooked in the book, is,...

BY ELIZABETH JENNINGS I T was the Informal Occasion, and the other Guest Writers and I were asked to move from table to table and answer questions. The people at the tables had...

BY MICHAEL ASTOR T O what extent is a man justified now, or ever, in criticising the Government of his country, or the leader- ship of his party? This is a question that many of...

BY JOHN BETJEMAN I T is maddening the way people corner one and make one discuss politics at the moment. I should think these last two weeks have seen the severance of many a...

T HE fall of Crete had been admitted by the BBC that morning. We were in a bad way in the Western Desert. The whole country was acutely aware of disaster. A number of ensigns...

United States policy, anti-Russian in Europe and the Far East, on the sea flanks of America, is anti-British everywhere else? What is the good of talking of 'a closer alignment...

readers of many years are cancelling their orders for the paper, but I suppose they ▪ learn to aecept that. All men do not think alike and men of strong feeling will act...

The Suez Crisis R. Kennard Davis, T. Anderson, Rev. A. J. McMullen, Donald Dey, Donald Southgate, Robert Turrall Clarke, T. P. Williams, Donald M. O'Connor Hungary Michael:...

word 'imperialist' as a term of opprobrium ceased? The exercise of empire devolves inescapably upon nations which recognise a duty of leadership in the face of stagnation and...

the British Government, as he sug- gests, insists on remaining in Egypt, in defiance of the United Nations, and this leads to war with the Arab States, what nations are bound,...

of the many benefits which demo- cracy confers upon a society—namely, a genuine difference of opinion. Yet, although everyone may voice an opinion upon the Government's decision...

Euston 3221

SIR,-1 have just returned from Budapest and am horrified by the complacency with which our country views its failure to help the Hun- garians in their fight for liberty. They...

touched by Mr. Toynbee's proposal for a march, accompanied by non-resistance, into our lines. I am to add that a sincere welcome awaits any pilgrims who present themselves for...

in your issue of November 16 are so contrary to the facts that one feels one must protest. 'Encouraged by the overwhelming support his [Nasser's] cause has received at the UN...

of their intention.' Is Professor Driver sufficiently expert in military matters to state with authority that it was physically possible 'for Egypt, had she been willing, to...

SIR,—I would like to correct the assumption in Miss Maurice's letter (in your issue of November 16) that the War Office document containing supplementary figures was dis-...

appeal, at some time when the weather is warmer, for • a youth- march on Hungary, may I make a plea (since • I infer that he will be piping us himself) for the inclusion of a...

SIR,—Surely your ME correspondent meant to compare Ben-Gurion to Joshua, rather than to Joseph? ('Israel's Joseph,' Spectator, Novem - ber 16).—Yours faithfully, JOSEF AARON...

SIR,—In a letter published in your issue tir, November 2 Mr. R. L. Travers challenge d what I had said about Parliamentary govern - ment; and he quoted Keith as authority for...

Sta,—Miss Harvey's letter in the Spectator ( November 2) on comprehensive education goes to the heart of the controversy. The feeling of the public about the 11+ examination...

for irritating misusages of the language (Competition No. 350) I anticipated that the anticipators would be much in evidence. But never a sign. My great anticipations have...

SIR,—It is a pity, to my mind, that in his column last week Mr. Betjeman did not offer a more constructive criticism of the Church Assembly. No one, I think, would be more ready...

John Davenport, has given to my recent book. The chief fault that he finds with it is one which I would not dispute. I have indeed been too discreet. Mr. Claud Cockburn,...

the colour of a harvest moon and about the same size in the darkness, hung low on a wall just behind me at the press show of War and Peace, and it says something, I suppose,...

I must regretfully state that his play The Devil Was Sick (Fortune) is what is sometimes known as a stinkeroo—a cold collation of cuts from a number of creaky old joints. The...

Misanthrope LE CHIEN DU JARDINIER. By Georges Neveux after Lope de Vega.—LE MISANTHROPE. By Jean-Baptiste Poquelin-Moliere. (Palace.) I Am not going to talk too much about the...

GRAMOPHONE records as presents are now com- peting in the price-range of model trains and the more expensive varieties of artificial jewellery. Glitterdiimmerung (twelve sides)...

Giacomo MANZU, who is holding an exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, is known here best, perhaps, for his mitred Cardinals imprisoned in robes which hang from their necks like...

This Week and Panorama, particularly the latter, have made amender hottorahles for my complaints last week about the inadequacy of television's news coverage. Mr. Crawley being...

Pigs are highly intelligent creatures, but they are also vindictive and show a little of the devil, as a friend testified the other day. He had been walking along a footpath...

By IAN NIALL FASHION, in most things, radiates from towns, hence the long-haired youths with drain-pipe trousers seen in quite rural villages. Fashion in furnishings spreads in...

people bother about the life of ants in winter. It is rather out of season now to offer advice on dealing with invasions of ants but, to show that the trouble is not purely a...

A prize of six guineas is offered for a set of three mottoes or .couplets suitable for - the crackers at a literary, 'U,' Anglo-American, Third Programme, 'olde- fashioned,' or...

Competitors were invited to devise suitable code words for any six of the following : the opening of the Walsingham tomb, the Russian athletes' departure, the framing of an...

Chicken-pie comme a Oxford Glyn E. Daniel Wines for Christmas S. F. Hallgarten Father's Christmas Kate O'Brien Thirst Rouser Compton Mackenzie Good Cooking Kellow Chesney...

I dined at the Chaplain's tdhle with Pickering and Waring, upon a roasted Tongue and Udder, and we went on each of us for it 0.1.8. N.B. 1 shall not dine on roasted Tongue and...

By KATE O'BRIEN B REAKFAST on Christmas morning was a very fine feast in the house when I was a child—and very interesting too. But it had to be worked for; the build-up was so...

Well, first we had a pig crowned with a wine-cup, garnished with honey-cakes, and liver very well done, and beetroot of course, and pure whole-meal bread. . . . The next dish...

By KELLOW CHESNEY E NGLISH interest in food has been growing for - years. For a man to say that he doesn't notice what he puts inside himself is no longer a boast but a con-...

By S. F. HALLGARTEN 14RISTMAS is an expansive season, and everything takes on a greater amplitude : colours are brighter, hearts are warmer, food is richer and wine comes into...

By COMPTON MACKENZIE W E are already indebted to Miss McNeill for much valuable explora- tion of the background of Scottish life, and her latest book makes us more deeply...

By TONI ADRIAN N EW vistas of wine-drinking ar e opened up by a simple device I saw demonstrated the other day. It is a gadge which preserves wine in the cask for any thing up...

To the Trinity House, where a very good dinner among the old soakers. Samuel Pepya's Diary, February 15, 1665.

By KINGSLEY AMIS OU free for a bit this afternoon, Jock?' Major Raleigh asked me in the Mess ante-room one lunch- time in 1944. `I think so, Major,' I said. 'Provided I can...

Colette at Home BY PETER QUENNELL V ' OUS verrez,' remarked my host as we awaited the famous novelist, 'que c'est une femme tres savoureuse: It was an adjective I had never...

BY ROBERT BLAKE M R. GEORGE KENNAN has had a distinguished career in the American Foreign Service, culminating in the post of Ambassador to the USSR in 1952-53. Since his...

BY IAIN HAMILTON ETWEEN the lines of Virginia Woolf's To th Lighthouse clumps the awkward figure of Charle Tansley. He is angry and angular. He sticks out lik a bunch of sore...

AN HISTORIAN'S APPROACH TO RELIGION. By Arnold Toynbee. (O.U.P., 21s.) REVIEWS of Professor Toynbee's new book have been polite but reserved. Its religious motive is heartfelt...

BLACK GOWN AND REDSKINS: Adventures and Travels of the Early Jesuit Missionaries in North America. With a new preface by David B. Quinn. Selected and edited by Edna Kenton....

GREEN WITH BEASTS. By W. S. Merwin. (Hart-Davis, 10s. 6d.) 'THE ideal poet is a self-pitying adolescent. The true poem expresses high-falutin emotionalism.' How often, if not...

WHAT a delight it is to settle down to a book of real scholarship in which the learning is lightly borne! Professor Halsband is thorough, most thorough. He has sought Lady Mary...

ATOMIC QUEST. By Arthur H. Comptpn. (O.U.P., 30s.) PROFESSOR 131-AcKETT, it seems, has emerged from political ignominy with time, credit and yesterday's heterodoxes on his...

THE CHATHAM ADMINISTRATION, 1766 - 1768. By John Brooke. (Macmillan, 36s.) WRITING history in modern times has become an activity in which a more or less familiar story is...

rid th th CLEARLY The Rolling Road is an important book; it deals W I a subject of general interest, the development of English roa d s t and their tra ffi c. That it is an...

S. JOHN'S GOSPEL: A Commentary. By R. H. Lightfoot. Edited by C. F. Evans. (O.U.P., 30s.) THE FOURTH GOSPEL: An Expositionary Commentary. By J. Alexander Finlay. (Epworth, 12s....

PETER NOBLE has attempted bravely, and on the whole suc - cessfully, to compress Orson Welles within the covers of a book , which is much like trying to contain Niagara in a...

This book marks the triumphant conclusion of a long campaign. It should not have been a necessary campaign, but now that It has been won the Master of Jesus must look back over...

MONGASO. By John Alfred Jordan, as told to John Prebble. (Nicholas Kaye, 18s.) STILL they come, these books about Africa. It is, I suppose, a tribute to adventurous man as well...

FEAR GOD AND DREAD NOUGHT. The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone. Vol. II. Edited by Arthur J. Marder. (Cape, 35s.) LORD FISHER OF KILVERSTONE...

'WELLINGTON. By Sir Charles Petrie. (lathes Barrie, 25s.) THE CONVERSATIONS OF THE FIRST DUKE OF WELLINGTON WITH GEORGE WILLIAM CHAD. Edited by the 7th Duke of Welling- ton....

How much is 'adventure' something that happens to a person, and how much is it, of necessity, an occurrence which he controls or manages? Perhaps too many people assess as...

LEWIS MUMFORD is an admirable critic of modern architectu re and civic design, as everybody knows; but it seems that we °L c to take him as a sort of philosopher too. From the...

CARTOON TREASURY. Edited by Lucy Black Johnson and PY 131 Johnson, Jr. (Collins, 25s.) MERRY ENGLAND, ETC. By Ronald Searle. (Perpetua, 15s.) PRIVATE VIEWS. By Osbert Lancaster....

REFLECTIONS ON WOMAN. By Richard Curie. (Watts, 15s.) THE GIRL-WATCHERS' GUIDE. By Don Sauers and Nicolas Bentley. (Deutsch, 6s.) IT is one of the saddest ironies of life that...

1. %1E-PRODUCED fiction for the Christmas shopper is not yet 1 , 1 t wo conspicuous. From American consignments already to hand Z ° samples may be taken as representing what it...

B Y CUSTOS IT has not yet been possible in this crisis to buy 24 per cent. old Consols at under 50, but 34 per cent. War Loan has been down to 68} and at the moment yields £5...

BY NICHOLAS DAVENPORT BECAUSE exact calculations of loss and damage are still impossible there is a tendency to take an unduly complacent view of the economic consequences of...

BY PHILIDOR No. 77. J. HARTONG (Rotterdam) 2nd Prize, B.C.F. Tourney No. 80 . BLACK (8 men) Winirr to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. R-B 5). 1 R x KP; 2 Kt x...

NOVEMBER 26, 1831 WHAT IS MEANT BY LIVING WELL ?-By far the most popular recommendation as a safeguard against cholera, is "to live well;" by which most people understand...

ACROSS 1 The tail-end of the game provides a m , gratuity for Puss (6). Io Fought until worn ut (8). W an house physicia o n? He should go to. Sicily! (7) 1 1 T i ps emu for...