T HE proposals put forward by Lord Radcliffe for a constitution in the island of Cyprus have at least the merit of showing that the Government has finally realised that it...

ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6705 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28 . , 1956 PRICE 9d.

By J. E. M. ARDEN A T the height of Communism's postwar victories, George Orwell wrote flatly that its system 'will either democratise itself or it will perish.' He admitted...

I T ought to be a relief that the Government has at last felt able to deny foreknowledge of Israel's attack on Egypt. But the Prime Minister went on to say : `There was...

Readers who used to take the Spectator before the war may remember the different format of those days. In our next issue we shall be going back to the larger size and, at the...

13v PAUL ANDERSON W HAT good. and how much of it, has come of this month's Paris meeting of the fifteen NATO powers? Well those of us who have learned not to expect too I rma...

as head of the BBC's topical talks unit, I can understand the irritation at Lime Grove and Muswell Hill over his appoint' ment as the new assistant head of the BBC's television...

Hungarian Tragedy (Dennis Dobson, 5s.), by Peter Fryer, late correspondent of the Daily Worker in Budapest, is a book which all woolly liberals with a penchant for...

and sportsmen of the year; I would hesitate to add to their number.were it not for their strange neglect of the figure who is certainly the politician of the year—if I may call...

the Irish far Ireland, all Ireland : it should not properly be applied to the twenty-six-county unit which comprises the Republic. But hog' many people, I wonder, outside...

captors cut across the Christmas news bulletins like a blunt saw. We should, I suppose, be relieved that there have been so few ugly incidents of this kind; but I suspect that...

IN me FOURTH round he turned the full force of his furious aggressio n on Waterman and floored him with a brilliant right, that can NO travelled no more than six inches, to the...

a story I have heard which shows that some old loyalties, which stand above party and even above country, still survive. At a recent meeting of a Northern Rotary Club a public...

appearing behind the Iron Curtain. Bashkimi (the Albanian Communist newspaper) of December 9 has an 'eye- witness account' of the events in Budapest—an interesting example of...

B Y J. W. N. WATKINS ii ELIEF in equality is clearly an integral part of socialism. And I think it is fair to say that belief in a certain inequality is implicit in...

BY HUGH J. KLARE 0 NE in every two persons sentenced by the courts to imprisonment gets three months or less. That is really a pretty staggering figure and the Home Secretary...

T HE atmosphere in the Chamber was heated. The Government of the day—known, from its brilliant power to forestall events which never happened, as the Government of the...

BY JOHN BETJEMAN F OR three glorious days my telephone in the City was out of order. The engineers told me that this was due to an Act of God, and it was nice to hear them using...

Below are the answers to the Christmas Questions set in last week's Spectator. 1. (a) Charles Augustus Fortescue in Belloc's Cautionary Tales. (h) Alice in Alice in...

DECEMBER 31, 1831 A TERRIBLE STORY.—The passengers in Prince's Street [Edinburgh], a few evenings ago, were thrown into a state of alarm and excitement, from a whisper, which...

W HEN we say, as we quite often do and have done since the dawn of time, that something is not what it used to be, we generally mean that it has shrunk or dwindled. This is not...

several general hospitals since the inaugura - tion of the Health Service in 1948, I can more than endorse many of Mr. Inglis's comment ! in his article The Coming Crisis in...

The Despised Czeslaw fesma,, Comprehensive Education R. W. Powel, All-Star List Michael M. 12!..1 Crisis in Medicine Social Worker Keele Hon. Josiah Wedgwooa and Sir George...

so far as it goes, I feel the compiler's knowledge of the country is incomplete and Mr. Betjeman's additions per- functory. I should like to make the following additions: four...

SIR,—Dr. Murray's letter in the Spectator of • November 23 seems to me to raise at least two points of great importance. First, 'learning to learn.' No schoolmaster, surely,...

Euston 3221

A CRITIC'S farewell to his free theatre tickets is a melancholy business. However, I do not propose to dwell upon that side of my abandoning this column to its (doubtless...

SIR,—May I apologise to Mrs. Charlotte Haldane for carelessly bringing her into my predictions for 1957? It was, .of course, Mrs. 'Freedom' Haldane to whom my forecast...

SIR,—The University College of North Staf- fordshire has recently launched an appeal for £500,000 for building funds. May we draw the attention of your readers to the College's...

an invasion of action painting, !'art autre, tachisme, abstract expressionism, the most fashionable experiments emerging from New York and Paris. The assault has, in fact, been...

IT has not been a rich year in music. The first half of it was dominated by the Mozart bicentenary, universally celebrated. A new complete edition of his works has been begun in...

MORE rather than better television is what 1956 has meant. The commercial boys in their first full i year have certainly got into a sort of stride remarkably quickly. Sure,,...

BY GRAHAM HOUGH T HE main reason for this second edition of the Gerard Manley Hopkins Further Letters* is the inclusion of a group of eighty-one family letters not known in 1938...

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, MARINER. By Samuel Eliot Morison. (Faber, 2Is.) PROFESSOR MORISON, the distinguished Harvard historian, has already written a full-length Life of Columbus,...

THE MAN OF LETTERS IN THE MODERN WORLD. By Allen Tate. (Thames and Hudson, 12s. 6d.) CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE. By David Daiches. (Longmans, 25s.) THESE two books are at...

BALLOONS. With an introduction by C. H. Gibbs-Smith. (The Ariel Press, London, 25s.) LONG ago there used to be a kind of milk chocolate—I expect many readers remember it—it was...

THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD AFFAIRS 1954. By Richard P. Stebbins. (Harper and Brothers, 48s.) UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY 1945-1955. By William Reitzel, Morton A. Kaplan and...

DE VALERA AND THE MARCH OF A NATION. By Mary C. Bromage. (Hutchinson, 25s.) `SITTING around a turf blaze at the hearth of one of Ireland's old country houses is conducive to...

ITALIAN ART, LIFE AND LANDSCAPE. By Bernard Wall. (Heinemann, 21s.) THE Victorian colonisation of Italy has in retrospect its comic side. The fifth column of maiden ladies...

THE parish is dead. That is the ,truth in many parts of Britain. One in ten people, at the most, go to church. And they largely represent middle-class ecclesiasticism. About one...

I Am in some doubt about Andre Simon's Cheeses of the World (Faber, 30s.). It is attractively arranged and presented, with illustrations luscious enough to make us wonder why we...

ANY work of literature which too vehemently proclaims its form is perilously near failure. The writer of the short story must be Constantly wary of this danger; there is...

THE author, Paul Townend, risks, but effort- lessly overcomes, any invidious comparisons by subtitling his book Swiss Venture (Robert "ale, 21s.) 'a fresh look at Central...

Competitors are to suppose that various of the illustrious dead—all diarists—are still alive, keeping their journals in the original styles. A prize of six guineas will be...

SEVERAL short biographies of Raleigh have come out in the last few years. The only justi- ficatio n for the latest of them—Walter Raleigh by Philip Magnus (Collins, 8s. 6d.)—is...

ONE of the most hospitable doors in English literature' — Mr. de la Mare's remark on Hardy's lyrics may more suitably be applied to the writings of Mr. de la Mare himself....

Given a childhood history cram in verse form, competitors were invited to provide a similar aide-mdmoire that might have a place in a world of adults. THE standard of entries...

and looked over the field, a crumbling haystack sags towards the hedge. The top of the old stack was being combed by the unusually high wind, and every second strands of hay...

By PHILIDOR No. 82. J. HARTONG (Holland) 1st Prize, Anglo-Dutch composing match, 1956, 2-move section. BLACK (10 men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week....

with one day a gale coming up out of the south-west, and the next, a fixed sky and a damp stillness that infects the rooks and jackdaws, making them perch and remain like...

By IAN NIALL YEARS ago we had pigeon pie often, but as with hare and rabbit, one can become satiated with such things, and the taste for them goes for ever. The other afternoon...

attacks other things in season—rhubarb crowns, celery and so on—but it can be of some help if the soil has been turned before it becomes iron hard, for it breaks up the heavy...

BY CUSTOS A NEW year approaches and every investor will be asking himself what he should buy. I propose to be rash enough to give my personal choice. Conventionally, in making...

BY NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IT has been a depressing and frustrating Year for anyone whose savings have been invested on the Stock Exchange. To my Socialist friends who want to tax...

ACROSS 1 No odds among the wise? (5, 5) 6 '- to every zephyr, ne'er a verse to thee' (Kingsley) (4). 10 The Presbyterian tree (5). 11 The wretched hound's been turned into a...