W E described the interim report of the committee of inquiry into the railways as 'shock treatment.' Its final report can only be called load shedding. The committee confesses...

LSTABL1SHLD I82s No. 6605 FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1955 PRICE 7d.

T HE Asia Firsters are still vocal, of course, but it must be a long time now since all but the most foolish in Washington abandoned the hope that Chiang Kai-shek would one day...

T HE Commissioners of Inland Revenue, a body to whose efficiency and common sense the community owes more than it can be reasonably expected to acknowledge, produced the annual...

Mr. Duncan Sandys' equivocal announcement that the Government has 'decided in principle to adopt the policy recommended by the Beaver Committee on air pollution' is welcome so...

The indefatigable Mr. Tom O'Brien urges that the St. James's Theatre should be preserved 'from the clutches of the vulgar' as a memorial to the late Queen Mary; the trade...

The Liberal Party's agenda for its Conference at Llandudno from April 14 to 16 is not a refreshing document. The rhythm of the Liberal creed is getting monotonous : civil...

UNSAFE TO KNOW 1 the honeymoon with Mr. Tom Williams came to an end even ascribed the American attitude as being due to Foreign Office pressure, which in turn he attributed to...

South Norfolk when farmer John Hill scraped into Parlia- ment by a handful of votes has been flashing more persistently this week at Westminster. At the Central Hall the...

LORD SALISBURY'S mysterious statement this week about the Government's intention to `go ahead' with the task of reform- ing the House of Lords contained all the subtlety and...

Mr. James Henderson Stewart, Under-Secretary for Scotland, has criticised the Scots farmers who failed to make provision for the recent storm. They should, he considers, 'take...

CROSS BENCHER, the political columnist of the Sunday Express who is often thought—wrongly, I hope—to reflect the ideas of Lord Beaverbrook, is worried about the use of...

the British Transport Commission did its best to ensure that the press would be well informed about the great Plan. I went along to one of them and, listening to Sir Brian...

when the moon? Having paid our money, for The Times and the Daily Telegraph, we can take our choice. In Wednesday's Times, for example, it was announced that sunrise was 7.47...

Farmers' Union and listened with the greatest admiration to the soft answers with which Mr. R. A. Butler turned away (temporarily) the bucolic wrath which had boiled up against...

(Negro Style) By D. W. BROGAN W E all find ourselves, from time to time, in doctors' or dentists' waiting rooms, or in a club where all the serious, worth-while papers have...

Mettle Fatigue ? By JENNY NICHOLSON p ALMIRO TOGLIATTI, probably in the whole history of the Communist movement the most skilful party leader outside Russia, has once again...

mines, transport and constructional engineering, sharing with their falow-layworkers the same pay and hazards. These French priest-workers are no wide-eyed idealists. Many of...

thought I summon up remembrance of things past. I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought. of being photographic, had the camera been invented in their time. Would they have...

By IAN' NIALL T HE hard winter, such as we are experiencing now, is always welcomed by gardeners and farmers because at low temperatures it is reasonable to expect that large...

winter and spring and it has already started. The first lambs on the farm nearest to as were four or five days old when the snow came, but the cold weather had been forecast and...

By JOHN BETJEMAN T HIS is the first week, for many, of the shortest, but nevertheless the nastiest, term at school. Think, dear readers, those of you who have passed your...

on about half a dozen or so occasions, and if I took my experience as an indication of the number living in my locality I should be very far out. rile hedgerows and woods are...

a long lead over their neighbours, particularly when it comes to advancing such things as begonias which can be set in peat moss. Dahlias from which cuttings are wanted can also...

clearly the public opinion, which 1 venture to think your contributor knew, but all three have missed the opportunity of replying to the important suggestion in his penultimate...

toleration of homosexual practices appears to have elicited no support from your readers. The sad thing is that the healthy reaction displayed in your correspondence columns...

of a lapse of judgement when they allowed a defence of homosexuality to be published in the same edition as the new Schools Competition. In many sixth forms the Spectator is a...

to answer it. He is ignorant, and no doubt proud so to be, of the subject he so resoundingly and self-righteously attacks. Had he prepared himself by purely literary study, he...

a little child'; and to have to imagine that my sisters are likewise subjected to the quite un- mentionable facts of life as well, especially at an age when it is considered by...

Homosexuality Stanley Haynes, Paul Ries Collin, Foul Fifteen, Biological Heterosexual, Teacher, P. B., Biological Homosexual Little Sister Mrs. C. B. Dibley, Olive Kent, W....

three of your correspon- dents, may I help redress the balance by con- gratulating you upon your public spirit in allotting space for the ventilation of this subject. I am not...

who rose up in indig- nation about Mrs. Knight's broadcasts. I think few would condemn the BBC for allow- ing a controversy between a so-called Scientific Humanist and a...

conjectures about the prospects of a science- fiction pantomime. I may point out, reinforcing the belief common to Celts, that the Cornish are invariably twelve months ahead of...

over a number of years, I feel impelled to inform you how very shocked I am by the manner in which you have criticised Mrs. Knight's broadcasts. There is no dignity in the...

tell you how much I deplore your treatment of Mrs. Knight and her broadcast on 'Morals Without Religion.' She presents an important matter in an earnest and forthright manner;...

TITE election of Mr. Shcc to fill the office of President of the Royal Academy, has excited general . surprise out of the Academy, and some disappointment within it. We are...

Railway Settlement with interest : 1 also read Mr. Jim Campbell's reported denial of any redundancy or inefficiency on the part of the railwaymen. As I see it, the real danger...

repre- sentative of his kind all over ,Europe. You may not need a porter: but Mary undoubtedly will. Remember, then, that porters on the Continent are paid by the piece; and...

Mr. Thomas Bahington Macaulay visits Paris. (Iowan!, Paris, Feb. 2. 1839.) resolved to go to Versailles. The palace is a huge heap of littleness. On the side towards Paris the...

Thomas Gray writes home to Mrs. Gray. (Letters, Nov., 1739.) The sixth (day) we begun to go up several of these mountains; and as we were passing one, met with an odd accident...

Mr. Edward Gibbon gives some advice (Autobiography): 1 will briefly describe the qualifica• tions which I deem most essential to a traveller He should be endowed with an...

Mr. William Lithgow arrives in Venice (Rare Adventures, 1610): Mine associate and I, were no sooner landed, and perceiving a great throng of people, and in the midst of them a...

By GLYN DANIEL The traveller to the south of France who can spare a few days en route, or who likes travelling hopefully through the French countryside as much as arriving at...

By C. ALOYS■US PEPPER T HE ship was still alongside at Tilbury when the Captain entered on his tour of inspection, crisp subordinates at his clean pair of heels. He bent low...

Wolfe Tone, the Irish revolutionary, is alone in Paris. . awaiting the French Directory's decision on his plan for an invasion of Ireland, (Journal, Feb. 29, 1796.) I have now...

TELEVISION AND RADIO IF I remember rightly, the percentage of Spectator readers who (according to the recent questionnaire) do not look at television, is considerable. It is to...

Richard IL By William Shakespeare. (Old Vic and Theatre Royal, Stratford.) COMPETITION is fierce in the world of theatre these days. The Old Vic had no sooner announced that...

Din extremes of illusionist realism and of non-figurative abstraction are to be found at Arthur Jcffress's gallery in Davies Street and, for the rest of this week, at the...

in order to have another chance to get killed on a battlefield, is something of an enigma, but for all young soldiers it seems a point of honour, and the inmates of Colditz try...

And to bring bad dreams at night; Uncertain temper, fear of loneliness, The heavy unspecific brute disorders Proof against diet.and a change of air. Beneath the dog star all...

F OR some years now the poets of the Thirties have been under a cloud. Indeed, the case against them was put from the very beginning. Their style appeared forced, their attempts...

I rs and buts are a fascinating, if unrewarding, intellectual exercise, and occasionally one wonders what the subsequent history of Russia might have been if popular political...

The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042-1216. By Frank Barlow. (Longmans, 25s.) FOR many years professional historians have been sniped at for their alleged failure to communicate...

As Fine as Melanctha. By Gertrude Stein. (0.U.P., 40s.) Three Studies in 20th Century Obscurity. By Francis Russell. (Hand and Flower, 9s. 6d.) Three Studies in 20th Century...

novels ought to rush out and buy. Glorious Life is one of the most consistently entertaining and engaging books I have read since the war. The story is nothing much and indeed...

The Missing Macleans. By Geoffrey Hoare. (Cassell, 12s. 6d.) OF all the mysteries created by the disappearance of the Macleans, there Are two that really matter: Why did they...

By CUSTOS THE weakness in the gilt-edged market and the alarms from Formosa contrived to bring the bull movement on the Stock Exchange to a halt this week, but what brokers...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT THE slump in the gilt-edged market has gone beyond a joke. At one time this week 31 per cent, War Loan had fallen to 85 to yield 4.15 per cent. A little...

In the first Elizabethan era, popular bal- lad s often fulfilled the function of present- day newspapers—e.g., a ballad on the Queen's speech at Tilbury (when the Armada was on...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 256 Report by Allan M. Laing A prize of £5 was offered for a Ballade (three stanzas and an envoi) designed. sincerely or satirically, for the Holidays...

ACROSS 1 Nothing sinister in the marsh to alarm (8). 5 Pig in a soak? (6). 9 Its occupants are a wooden lot (5, 3). 10 General Matador? (6). 12 Early space-traveller (6)....