S OME hopes are being placed on the introduction of a compulsory secret ballot as an instrument of strike pre- vention—or of strike-breaking. They are destined to be...

A S the two great blocs of global power prepare to make contact at Geneva, talk of peace rises ever more insistently into the air of East and West. In Moscow, Marshal Bulganin...

Buganda now in this country to discuss the Kabaka's return and the new constitution which is to convert him into a constitu- tional monarch, should not return empty-handed....

T HE nationalist movement in Scotland is a weakly growth, but it has a root rather longer than is generally realised. Inspired by the Irish example, the first Scottish Home Rule...

area sounds the most promising that has yet been put forward. Earlier proposals have broken down for two main reasons: the Egyptians do not want to commit themselves to a...

THREE prizes of eight guineas each are offered for the three best original descriptive reports (between 500 words and 750 words) of any notable event occurring between July 1,...

W HAT Disraeli in fact said was that he was on the side of the angels. But one can forgive Sir Winston Churchill for assuming that he said that he was on the side of the...

TliE NATION HAS WON.—Daily Sketch. LOCOMEN'S vicrom—Daily Worker. 1N EFFECT, IT IS AN HONOURABLE DRAW.—Daily Mail. EVERYONE HAS BEEN SPLENDID.—New Statesman.

BY HENRY FAIRLIE T HE National Executive Committee of the Labour Party has just finished one of the more sensible meet- ings of its existence. It has appointed a sub-committee...

An American Correspondent writes : T HE speculation about whether Eisenhower will run again is intense. Partly this is because of the assumption, generally unchallenged and...

must be a magic garden to the statistically-minded. Even to me it offers much interest and information, especially when I compare this year's crop with those of the last two...

Daily Express that during May the Express had carried more adver- tising than any other paper, Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail boasted that that was only half the story, and that...

SOME YEARS AGO, when the omniscient Crawfie was about to unleash a fresh flood of detail about the private life of the Royal Family, the announcement boasted that 'only Crawfie...

present strike of seamen? Obviously none.'—Observer's Political Correspondent, June 19. A hornpipe any good, then? *

waiter brought me a tray of mustards. 'English mustard?' he inquired. and then corrected himself : 'British, I should say. One has to be careful these days.' But he looked at me...

Commentary, has caused a good deal of excitement. The Manchester Guardian devoted much of a leading article to it, commending in particular its attitude to nationalisation and...

as when he first bought I Tatti, his villa at Settignano, fifty years ago, and the routine of his well-ordered life has changed little. His correspondence with friends all over...

By ALLANMURRAY . E VENTS have still to prove that President Per6n's power is finally crumbling as the upshot of last week's attempt to overthrow him. I write on Wednesday, when...

BY T. K. DERRY K ING EDWARD VII paid a State visit to the Norwegian capital in March. 1908, two and a half years after his son-in-law's election to the throne. On the personal...

BY BERNARD FERGUSSON HAT I know about fluoridation could conveniently be written on a pin's head and still leave space over for advertising. But there is no doubt that we take...

A ST week I was in the sun-filled valley of the Trent, Derby- shire. The occasion was a fete for the restoration of Foremark Church, built in 1662, in a survival of the Gothic...

Meditations at Macbeth A T Stratford Miss Vivien Leigh's Lady Macbeth failed, signally, to please the first-night critics. I saw the play last week and thought her very good....

By Lord Dalkeith C HILDHOOD memories, though vivid and detailed, are often inaccurate. An immature judgement places too much emphasis on the trivial and a colourful imagina-....

By C. A. OAKLEY A N unemployment percentage that never falls much below 3 would not seem good to the industrial leaders of most parts of the United Kingdom. Those in the...

By COMPTON MACKENZIE LE T it be clearly stated before another sentence is written that the true whisky of Scotland is malt whisky distilled from a mash consisting entirely of...

By IAIN HAMILTON T , HROUGH the damp Sabbath calm the ancient tram- car pitched and rolled on its westward voyage along the glistening road to Yoker Ferry, and the native...

By SIR WILLIAM DARLING, MP B OUT fifty years ago it was the practice of young Scots to make their way to London. I myself took the high road. It didn't begin then. Dr. Johnson...

By The Very Rev. CHARLES L. WARR* O N October 2. 1929, after twenty years of conference, a union of the Established Church with the United Free Church of Scotland was solemnised...

By MORAY McLAREN L ITERATURE is the only form of . art in which, since her beginning as a nation, Scotland has consistently tried to express herself. Her men have painted...

By NEIL GUNN W HEN the press recently made a drama of a Highland snowstorm some of the older inhabitants were em- barrassed, for they could remember worse storms that were...

have given himself away so completely as Mr. Kingsley Amis did last week. After two columns of virulent sniping at the 'highbrow travel-book' (I bet he doesn't talk about...

the effrontery to invent two arguments and to attribute them to me, in order that he may denounce them as 'remarkably fallacious.' To call the PROs' influence pernicious, as I...

am quite amazed to find this ancient and temporarily successful hoax taken seriously at this date. It was originally con- cocted by the two ladies as a 'leg-pull' to see just...

Euston 3221 Letters to the Editor Is the Travel-Book Dead? John Davenport, Peter Green The Freedom of the Press Brian Inglis What Happened at Versailles? Walter M. Wigfield...

no indemnity has yet been paid to the British teachers, university lecturers and officials illegally dismissed without notice in December, 1951, by the Egyptian Govern- ment as...

SIR,—There is often something rather engag- ing about Mr. Amis's utilitarian approach. I quite like the cheerful crash of brass tacks as he goes mulling around. 'His distaste...

STR,—Mr. John Bctjeman is not strictly accurate when he states in 'City and Suburban' (June 10) that none of the nations who signed the convention to prohibit and control the...

Orr Sunday night the years of waiting were rewarded. The demolition by a collapsing ceil- ing of a panel in full panoply of tiaras and teeth represents one of the most magical...

(Odeon.) RICHARD TAUBER began his career as an opera singer, and having acquired a certain fame suddenly, and presumably profitably, turned his attention to operetta and the...

THEATRE AT first sight this notion of presenting not a straightforward adaptation of Moby Dick, but a...rehearsal for such an adaptation, seems only an ingenious device to...

Fr is clear that in its second year of life the Paris International Drama Festival has al- ready become something of an enfant terrible for its Director, M. A.-M. Julien....

paintings by Pissarro and Sisley, many of them from France and Switzerland. Behind the unassuming grace of impression- ists like these—second only to Monet and Alanet—there is...

HIS MAJES'TY'S sufferings are at length at an end; he died this morning, at a quarter Past three o'clock. The event, so long looked for, appears to have arrived at last with a...

BY JOHN WAIN A N YONE who tries to get a clear picture of Whitman as a poet—or as a man, for that matter—has to fight through a maze of contradictions. When we first open his...

GEORGE WASHINGTON. By Douglas Southall Freeman. Vols. V and VI. (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 37s. 6d. each.) DR. Freeman died before his vast biography of George Washing- ton could...

THIS admirable book suffers from an unfortunate title which mis- leads the reader, who is given a good deal more than the title implies. For by 'civic universities,' a useful...

MME. YOURCENAR'S recoastruction of an age and outlook in her Memoirs of Hadrian is ambitious enough to be judged by the severest standards. For it attempts that (in fiction)...

THE WAY TO ILALA : DAVID LIVINGSTONE'S PILGRIMAGE. By Frank • Debenham. (Longmans, 25s.) TiE WORLD OF ALBERT SCHWEITZER. A BOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHS. By Erica Anderson. (A. and C....

The great secret in keeping a garden free from weeds or any land clean is one that good gardeners and farmers know. The weeds must be taken before they get a chance to seed....

BY IAN NIALL 'I THOUGHT you might perhaps be interested in an extract from Sir Simonds d'Eurs's History of Parliament,' says Mrs. M. W. Acworth, of London, NW3. "On Thursday...

CLASSIC ANTHOLOGY DEFINED BY CONFUCIUS. Translated by Ezra Pound. (Faber, 30s.) THE first thing that is likely to strike any ana- lyst of the poetic style of Ezra Pound is that...

(Watts, 15s.) CENTENARIES bring out the worst in journal- i sts, which is understandable enough when Public taste draws so few distinctions between hero and villain, and Olive...

Where large areas have been planted with conifers, the bird and animal life that goes with these trees thrives. One of the hopeful things is that the red squirrel stands a...

There lurks in all of us a thought for the briefness of earthly life and a desire to leave something of ourselves for posterit?. A.B. carves on the tree the legend that he loves...

WHITE. 10 mon. WHITE to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to last week's problem: Q-B 2. Fine mu- tate, White aban- doning original 1 'battery' with...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Even so it would be difficult to account for the sensational rises which have just occurred in some of the 'blue chips' if American buying had not taken...

By CUSTOS A FURTHER sign that the bull market had come back to stay was given by the turn- over on Monday when the dealings marked rose to over 18,000 against 13,000 at the end...

ACROSS 1 Does the university athlete get a special summons? (8) 5 'All alone on Airly — With his baby ofi my knee' (Kingsley) (6). 9 A hundred go to the hill to get mixed gin...

conditions prevailing in the arith- metical problems of our schooldays, with their aircraft/train speeds, their men dig- ging trenches, and hens laying an egg-and- a-half in a...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 277 Report by Tom Bowling An electronic brain has written a love letter beginning, 'Dearest Sweetheart : You are my avid fellow being. My affection...