A CCORDING to Mr. Stokes and Mr. Harriman, the oil talks in Tehran are suspended. Dr. Mossadaq's version is " It is finished." Finished it undoubtedly is for the moment. So far...

The interruption of the Kaesong talks by the Communists owing to an alleged violation of the demilitarised area by a United Nations' aircraft is the most serious break so far....

In an endeavour to find answers to some of the questions raised in a leading article in last week's SPECTATOR on the recent Youth 'Rally in Berlin, a short series of...

The political tension at Bonn serves to demonstrate once more both the indispensability of Dr. Adenauer, and the complexity of the problems he has to handle. Some of them are...

The despatch of a military mission to Spain by the United States is a piece of realism which so far from' being deprecated. as it was by a British Cabinet nervous of the...

The culmination and closing days of the Communist Youth Rally in Berlin did nothing to dispel the impression of the apparently inseparable association of good and bad elements...

The three British observers commissioned by .Mr. Gordon- Walker, Secretary for Commonwealth Relations, to visit Bechuanaland, investigate the affairs of the Bamangwato people...

T HERE is nothing heroic about the statement in which the General Council of the Trades Union Congress has given its blessing to the new campaign for wage increases. It...

0 F all the numerous and variegated accounts of how Princess Margaret spent her birthday, I prefer that in the Court Circular, which I quote in extenso: "Today is the...

be done but that it should appear to be done, so in the reviewing of books it is not enough for bias or preconception to be absent ; there must be no excuse for any suspicion of...

British Railways when both the Railway Executive and the National Union of Railway- men are definitely -against it is as surprising as it is deplorable, It can spring only from...

links with the musical life of the 'twenties, the years when his own outstanding talents and Diaghileffs patronage brought him early fame. His musical tastes, his sense of...

to Bechuanaland appointed by Mr. Gordon Walker, the most deplorable has been the conduct of the trade union member of the mission, Mr. H. L. Bullock. According to reports from...

By VERNON BARTLETT E all know all about Spain, but it is odd how our know- ledge varies. The Spanish tragedy is that the civil war began so shortly after Hitler had reinforced...

By A VISITOR-TO BERLIN 64 REUNDSCHAFT " — " Freundschaft " — " Amitie " Friendship—wherever you went, whatever you did, these were the key words of the World Festival of Youth...

By SYDNEY D. BAILEY T HE Mayor of Pingshan was a ruthlesS old despot with two wives. Old Number One, as he called her, was a tooth- less hag with a pock-marked face. For forty...

By J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. T should have been the Oval, or the village green or, best of all, Bramall Lane, for the sky was almost cloudless and the grass was green. Tom...

Public Relations By J. B. -BROADBENT (University of Edinburgh) W E are told the novel is in a decline and the poetic drima not yet out of its second childhood. For...

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold...

By HAROLD NICOLSON I HAVE always been interested in means and habits of loco- motion. I should even today be prepared to put myself to inconvenience in order to sample some new...

THIS new comedy is a protest in the form .of a parable. Mr. Webber imagines a whimsical, tree-dwelling boy-saint who falls among spivs and is threatened by them. From sleeping...

"People Will Talk." (Odeon.) a Tale of Siberia." (Berkeley.) WRITTEN and directed by Mr. Joseph Mankiewicz, whose All About Eve brought us to such close grips with the eternal...

"The Biggest Thief in Town." By Dalton Trumbo. (Duchess.) LI% Mr. George Shiels's The Passing Day, The Biggest Thief in Town is a long joke about avarice,- hinging on the death...

fairy forgotten at Sir Thomas Beecham's christening-party—who prompted his revival of Balfe's Bohemian Girl at Covent Garden. Balfe's connection with the Great Exhibition of...

for the close of the Industrial Exhibition on the 11th of October. Thus die away; like smoke in the transparent air, any hopes That may have been cherished by speculators, of...

THE fifth Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama has opened in an atmosphere of mild crisis, for all that the streets are crowded with guests bringing pounds and...

Report by Colin Shaw A prize of £5 was offered for an extract from a discussion between King Lear and Lady Capulet on the problems of female education. There was only a small...

Set by Richard Usborne "They make a very good dry Martini at the Palace Hotel in Guatemala City . . ." says the " I" character in The Man with a Scar, one of the stories in...

thing. You cannot distribute evenly the wealth of a community. As soon as you try to do so it decreases and eventually disappears. On the other hand, you can distribute poverty....

with social justice, that is tantamount to saying that social justice cannot exist apart from individual slavery. Of course, both statements are absurd, unless it is....

and freedom is a lost cause. But is it ? `Only if people can never be brought to realise, that there can be no social justice without freedom. That this is the case is certain ;...

Conservatism and Liberty SIR,—Colonel H. R. Pelly writes that ".individual freedom has proved to be incompatible with social justice.". That remark is just about a hundred...

SIR,—The final Test Match at the Oval was a test of nerves—at least for those who listened to the commentators in the Light and Television programmes. .I find myself engaged in...

SIR, —You do well to emphasise the dangerous foil!, of under-estimating the significance and possible consequences of the Communist Youth Rally recently held in East Berlin ;...

to the Youth Festival in East Berlin is unsatisfactory in many respects. In the first place the reference to attempts to dissuade these people from going is unpleasantly...

havo just read Command Paper 8318 on Control of,Dividends, and find in it grounds for pity _for a Chancellor who knowi better but who has not got the backbone to resist ignorant...

was delighted to read last week the rebuke administered by Mr. McBain to Mr. Murphy for his belittling comments. Yet the personal remarks made by Janus regard- ing Mr. Isaat...

Gothic in eleva- tion, an odd example of the blend of two styles in total opposition. But a good limestone like the oolite will reconcile extremities of contrast, and the...

Sut,—On page 210 (last paragraph) Mr. Nicolson suggests leaving the -receiver off to obtain quiet. Let him try ! The post-office people connect what they call a " howler" to his...

SIR,—Canon Roger Lloyd's article, Church and Welfare State, contains two warnings and one fallacy. Is he sure that a Welfare State which fails will be succeeded by a...

SIR, —In the interesting article Shooting It Out in your issue of August 17th ,the writer says: " In 1871 the British Army adopted the Martini-Henry, its first breech-loading...

MY reference to Great Tew a Week ago reminds me of how little known is its countryside and yet full . of interesting mementoes, l hardly any of which appear in guide books. It...

SIR,—In your last issue Mr. C. H. Butler asked you if he might " gild the lily with a simple saw." You did your best to comply with this most extraordinary request. Without a...

The breaking of the weather has been like an electric shock to the kitchen garden. To stand in it is to hear and see and smell the process of growth. And at last-my melons have...

11 - ALF-A-DOZEN years ago an American lady and her son published a book about the TroIlOpe family, the salient feature of which was a sustained and acrimonious attack on the...

Bad PoO : Good Friend Blake's Hayley. By Morchard Bishop. (Collancz. :Ss.) WILLIAM HAYLEY has long been regarded as a figure of fun, a poetaster, a dilettante, a busybody, and...

Education and Leadership. By Eric James. (Harrap. La.) " THE world grows Lilliput, the great men go." Thus Richard La Gallienne opened his sonnet on Mr. Gladstone's retirement....

Tudor Renaissance. James Lees-Milne. (Batsford. 2 i s.) IN The Age of Adam Mr. James Lees-Milne gave us a study of architecture and decoration during the English High...

The History of Underclothes. By C. Willett and Phillis Cunnington. (Michael Joseph. 3os.) THE Doctors Cunnington are firmly established as the historians of British clothes, and...

Where - You Are Old. By Gwendolen Freeman. (Allen & Unwin. 95. 6d.) " •SYMPATHY " is a much-misused word ; like " charity " it has come dOWn in the world, even if not quite so...

To. Seize a Dream. By Virginia Hersch. (Hutchinson. t HOVERING obscurely between the worlds of history and imagination, the historical novel risks everything if it comes too...

IA Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, September 4th, addressed Crossword, 99 Gower Street,...

The winner of Crossword No. 638 is S. WooD-Hill., ESQ., 7, Rectory Road, Beckenham.

By CUSTOS AFTER their remarkable rebound to the pre- dividend freeze level, stock markets appear to have reached a new equilibrium. Clearly, from a buyer's point of view, there...