I T is clear from the nature of the new economic measures introduced last week that the new Chaticellor found him- self in a tight corner when he arrived at the Treasury. By...

ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6661 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1956 PRICE 7d.

W E should, as soon as possible,' wrote William Temple in the Spectator over twenty years ago, 'remove the death penalty for murder from the statute book.' We are still some way...

of, the Spectator arrive late. We regret any short- comings in this issue and also any inconveniences that may be caused by circumstances beyond our control.

nHE embarrassing but indisputable fact,' a Spectator leading 1 article complained twelve months ago, 'is that in spite of all the money and effort poured into the production of...

A sawrtey g o to press the Con g ress of the Soviet Communist P arty is not yet over. When the names of the new Central Committee and Party Praesidium are available its si g...

By our Industrial Correspondent Tan Government's Restrictive Trade Practices Bill has had 1 an almost suspiciously g ood reception : even the restrictive practitioners have not...

By Our German Correspondent Bonn THERE THERE comes a time in the life of every parliamentary when its members feel a chan g e of weather in their bones and start lookin g...

ONDAY'S effort by the Government to reassure the public about the g uided missile situation in this country received a singularly g ood press. Most papers carried reports of the...

I F Sir Anthony needed proof that Government activity of any kind, popular or unpopular, is better than hopeful inaction, the last few days should have shown him. Taken singly,...

BY HENRY FAIRLIE R. HAROLD MACMILLAN's success in the House of Commons on Monday should not be under- estimated but, even more important, the nature of it 4 , 110 111d be...

PHAROS

the British Broad- casting Corporation there is apparently nobody who can be trusted to argue its case on the air. For what other explanation can there be of the decision to put...

NOW THAT the House of Commons has voted for abolition of the death penalty, the Evans case can at last be isolated from that issue. In the debate Sir Lionel Heald, QC, who...

book pages this week, has had a stormy history. The Daily Express paid for the serial rights before the book was written, and when Mr. Driberg had finished it he flew off in...

THREE MEN in the condemned cells heard by radio last night that their lives are to be spared. Each sat with a single earphone to his ear and heard the Commons decision during...

tion of the death penalty as a triumph for 'the forces of enlightenment and civilisation.' The Daily Worker of May 7. 1954, quoted (presumably with approval) the decree of the...

BY J. GR1MOND, MP 0 N the first morning of my visit to Malta I stood in a swaying crowd, which chanted hymns and waved yellow and white Papal flags as it engulfed the Arch-...

BY RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL 0 N New Year's Day an ITV camera crew descended on my home in Suffolk, by appointment, to record a film of my views on the second report of the Press...

BY L. F. RUSHBROOK WILLIAMS H OW strong is the Communist movement in India, and what are the prospects of its steering the country into the Soviet orbit in the foreseeable...

By EVELYN WAUGH N investigation has lately been made in the book-trade A to determine which literary critics have most influence on sales. I remember the time when the Evening...

BY JOHN BETJEMAN T HIS month's casualty list of attractive English buildings to be destroyed is so long that I can only give a few examples, arranged alphabetically under...

I T is a well-established literary convention that the poacher is a sympathetic character. People who write about the country invest him with a raffish glamour and credit him...

The New Estate Merlyn Rees, John O'Leary, William Allan Pause War Correspondents Lord Burnham, R. A. J. Kirkby Burke or Gallup? L. R. England Free Elections Peregrine...

deeply engaged in their own battles, Fay's with the corps of correspondents and Ray's with Fay, to consider the purpose of war reporting which is to make the battle under-...

to whom Charles Curran refers in his article on the New Estate, be permitted to voice an opinion? His assertion that 'the North Country settler acts rather as a political...

am 'ashamed at the recollection of my extreme youth and inexperience, which were all I had to put at the service of seasoned war correspondents. Fortunately, in their un-...

SIR,—We would have been content to leave any discussion of 'Burke and Gallup' in the capable hands of Gallup. But your own foot- note to Mr. Gregory's letter provokes us to...

housing estates—he knows nothing about them. I make no claim to know the lot, but I know something concerning them. My letter, so far from being 'an irrelevant trumpet blast,'...

SIR,-1 read with much amusement Mr. Gerald Hamilton's witty book reviews in your paper, but why does he say that 'Minnie' is a 'repul- sive appellative'? Both my daughter and I...

SIR,—The foundation of the John Gordon Society strikes a welcome blow for purity in our national life. But why, in this respect, allow all the credit to Mr. Gordon? I should...

Spectator who knows that the Editor recently ran a grave risk of arrest and prosecu- tion under the Official Secrets Act. I only know of one man of letters who has been charged...

SIR,-1 am afraid Mr. Fairlie has still failed to grasp my point about free elections, although this is probably entirely due to my muddled arguments. May I make one more brief...

which we wish to apply for membership, we must point out that in our opinion the Society has based itself on too narrow a view of Mr. Gordon's work. The Society might well be...

his sentiments, and offering our wholehearted services to the Cause. We have -told him that Mr. John Gordon has long been our hero—in fact we have a signed photograph of him...

Sneezing Assassin MISALLIANCE. By Bernard Shaw. (Lyric, Hammersmith.) —RING FOR CATTY. By Patrick Cargill and Jack Beale. (Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue.) Jr is rather sad how...

Tnn present show at the Leicester Galleries offers a spectacular variety of artistic intention. Eliot Hodgkin is a most painstaking facsimilist in the tradition of old...

SUMMER SONG. Music of Dvorak; book by Eric Maschwitz and Hy Kraft. (Princes.)— DOCTOR Jo. By Joan Morgan. (Aldwych.) THE newest musical, about Dvorak gallivant- ing around...

THE intensely poetic subject of the legend of the peri has fascinated choreographers for a century past. The essence of the story is the attempt of Iskender to steal the Flower...

THE RAINS OF RANCHIPUR. (Carlf011.)—FROU- FROU. (Curzon.) The Rains of Ranchipur is another version of Louis Bromfield's novel The Rains Came, and of one thing it can surely...

FEBRUARY 26, 1831 CHANCERY REFORM. Lord BROUGHAM, on Tuesday, introduced his great plans for the reform of Chancery, in a powerful speech of nearly four hours. He commenced by...

of the acrimonious dispute between the BBC and the Musicians Union, it is just possible, one likes to think, that it may lead indirectly to a reassessment by programme-planners...

Claud in Clover BY GERALD HAMILTON 6 ISTORY,' Mr. Claud Cockburn reminds us (quoting Ernest Toiler), 'is the.propaganda of the victors.' This is no doubt why the rebel in this...

BEAVERBROOK : A Study in Power and Frustration. By Toni Driberg. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 21s.) THE cautionary tale used to be told of a penurious peer who made his living,...

THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE LADY: The Story of Fenelon and Madame Guyon. By Michael de la Bedoyere. (Collins, 16s.) THE duc de Saint-Simon, in his encyclopxdic memoirs, devotes some...

HOW CHARLES BRAVO DIED, By Yseult Bridges. (Jarrolds, 21s.) IN 1876, the high afternoon of the Victorian day (income tax, 2nd in the £; divorces, a few hundred in the year),...

Tuns is a well written and very well balanced book. While most recent works on Malaya have been either soldiers' reminiscences or politicians' manifestoes, Mr. Perry Robinson...

THE TOWN TRAVELLER. By George Gissing. (Methuen, 7s. 6d.) IN late-Victorian prose—Gissing's is a good example—the social channel is carefully marked by little winking signals :...

and C. Slaughter (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 25s.). The title of the book reviewed by the Rt. Hon. Emanuel Shinwell, MP, in last week's Spectator should read as above.

A WEEK of expectation and disappointment: Kate Christie's Harold in London (Collins, 12s. 6d.) brings the hero of Smith, her oddly-llavoured and rather more than promising first...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT As soon as a Chancellor of the Exchequer gets down to his job in the Treasury he seems to lose touch with the body economic outside. He becomes like a...

By CUSTOS THE trouble about a bear market is that it may take an unconscionable time in establishing itself. The present one started on July 22, 1955, after the Financial Times...

Preparatory work such as the making of a seed bed is advisable even when a gardener is mainly concerned with getting his plot dug unless, of course, everything to be planted is...

of nature's great mysteries, as great a one is the behaviour of migratory fish. There is nothing mysterious about the departure from the river of spent fish but the reason for...

I read not long ago of a squirrel being chased along the ground and up a tree by a stoat. The squirrel proved too good for the stoat in the tree but it was, of course, rather...

BY IAN MALL THERE are many winter occupations in the country that are carried on in the shelter of steading and barn and only a few that are plainly on view. Of these I have...

By PHILIDOR BLACK (10 men) WHITE (11 men) C. MANSFIELD (1st Pr Isl ize ° , 1 E 38 1 Ajedrea Argentina, 1926) WHITE to play and mate in 2 moves: solution next week. Solution to...

ACROSS I How William ioes to work in the scrum; see the point? (8 5 Overscrupulous with a smack (6). 9 City ruse to get safe (8). 19 Bowyer notoriously concealed in New York...

Bateman, The Cro sways, Macclesfield Road, Wilmslow, Cheshire, and Miss M, Taylor, 190 Greenmount Lane, Bolton, Lancs.

words of the first instalment of a sensational serial thriller. A prize of £5 (which may be divided) will be awarded to the competitor whose entry most artfully indicates what...

The usual prize was offered for the most interesting piece of narrative including all the following adjectives, in any order but in their correct sens'es : disingenuous,...

Enact. 11 Menet, 12 LairdshiP. 13 Stabbed, 15 Nuances. 17 Railing, 19 Cap; trio. 21 Castanets. 23 Bruin, 24 Pater. 27 Deadlocks, 26 Knuckle-duster. DOWN.-2 Lie in wait 3 Ingot....