E VEN if the United States recession turns out to be no more than that—if the lines on the graphs cease their depressing plunge and take an upturn—there is unlikely . ever...

SPECTATOR

By RICHARD H. ROVERE THE recession is still something I don't know any Cuban mountain fighters, either, but I know there is a war in Cuba. Unem- ployment in the US was reported...

D URING the pre-election campaign in Northern Ireland, Unionist spokesmen put forward the remarkable theory that the only opposition the Government needed was the opposition of...

W HAT is interesting about the cut in the Bank rate to 6 per cent. is that it has provoked so little reaction in the City. The Stock Exchange, the money market, and the foreign...

By JACK DONALDSON T . price s and subsidies were announced by the vernment w in a White Paper last Friday. The 2 rgest cut permissible under the 1957 Act wasf . per cent. of the...

BALFOUR By .HONOR ',"%i don't think there's tuppence to choose be- tween them, but Oi think they ought to give the Liberal a chance,' declared a farmer in Oke- hampton market...

Indeed it is not, and when it transpired that the news was merely a report in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten of a dreamed-up tale in the Daily Herald my cup of grief was full. Or...

Automobilia by IAN FLEMING

the Government will have suffered one of the most striking defeats in by-election history or the public- opinion pollsters will be hunting for their passports, while...

reflected in the actual voting figures, I fancy that the Opposition is going to be even More perturbed by the result than the Govern- tn ent. Conservatives of my acquaintance...

which had a colour bar; and 1 can remember the incredulity with which our party received the warning that, whatever other customs or laws we might feel like breaking, there was...

television as `Pay-As-You-View'—a sad come-down for what was originally a fine project ! Meter television—by which you put a shilling in the slot and get an hour's...

that the chief feature of the election campaign, wherever he went, was the complete absence of any interest in the new Federation. An uneasy alliance between Mr. Norman Manley...

old-style megalomaniacs, could hardly have occurred, even from natural causes, without a good deal of publicity. As it is, the thousands of words that have been written about...

will be on sale a day earlier than usual.

By HAROLD NICOLSON A FRIEND of mine has recently sent me two articles published in a periodical called Books and Art and written by a zestful man under the pseudonym of 'Humphry...

. . . Or Else! By CASSANDRA I WAS not classically educated. I was not scienti- fically educated. I was not expensively educated. I was heavily educated. My tuition was divided...

The next article in this series will be by PHILIP TOYNBEE Future contributors will include Patrick Campbell, Christopher Hollis, Ludovic Kennedy, Marghanita Laski, Wolf Manko-...

By H. E. BATES By mid-January the crocuses were no longer a Wonder. Seven kinds of them were springing up, showing vividly against that curious unmarriage- able green-gold of...

By CYRIL RAY T was a wine-bar we were in, King's Cross way, I but the faded and rather floppily-constructed blonde who sat herself down with a sigh, com- plaining that at the...

By STRIX TN the Spectator of April 17, 1953, the clair- voyant Strix wrote : 'If Everest is climbed this year the sumtnit is likely to be reached some time towards the end of...

The Glass Menagerie. By Tennessee Willia ms. (Theatre Royal, Stratford, E.) AT the end of a Tennessee Williams play there is an emotional surplus, you feel that slightly too...

Despatches from the Front Line By ALAN BRIEN A ONE-NIGHT stand at an experi- mental Sunday theatre club, Each His Own Wilderness sounds immediately as if it were going to be a...

A Question of Size By BASIL TAYLOR AUSTIN WRIGHT, who is showing sculpture and drawings at Roland, Browse and Delbanco, is an eclectic and conservative artist. He seems to be...

Italians in Drury Lane By COLIN MASON Ar a time when Sadler's Wells was facing disbandment on account of a year of particularly bad takings, the season of Italian opera pro-...

Soldiers are People By ISABEL QUIGLY For the film is a study in realism, or the lack of it; an (anthetically) realistic treatment of a (Psychologically) unrealistic event,...

An Ad is an Ad By MARGHANLTA LASKI AN argument invariably brought by advertisers against anyone who criticises advertisements is that the critic is not typical. And since I am,...

MARCH 30, 1833 BRITISH MUSEUM. Mr. BERNAL, on Monday, brought up the report of the Committee of Supply voting 16,0001. to the British Museum. Mr. Comm strongly objected to the...

Something for the Bride By LESLIE ADRIAN This is a system which is widely practised in the United States, but not so generally known in this country. It is operated by stores...

SIR,--I was glad to read your outspoken comments on the Whitchcad case. I have not studied all the details of this particular case, but am all too familiar with the distressing...

SIR,—In her review of my book Life and Work of Maria Montessori, Jean Howard has 'put the boot on the other foot' so many times that it is impossible to deal with more than a...

Montessori school—where one of us taught for two years—we are amazed at the lack of comprehension shown by Jean Howard in her review of E. M. Stand- ing's Maria Montessori....

SIR,—Like your correspondent Pharos I have read the account of the Adjournment Debate on Peter White- head and Rampton Hospital with a considerable measure of gloom, not...

Theatre Censorship Frith Banbury and others Detention of Mental Cases Dr. Donald Mcl. Johnson, MP The Insolence of Office J. M. L. North Montessori and the Right Boot E....

of March 7, may 1 suggest that the fol- lowing points seems to be worthy of some considera- tion, to say the least : The district in which I live consists entirely of fairly...

admirable paper, I am astonished by your leading article this week. You say (how rightly!) that' `the electorate is sick of the way the present party system works . . .,' but...

SK—Without in any way wishing to appear to de- fend Sir Charles Petrie may I be allowed to complain at the Old Testament treatment meted out to him, and the Stuarts, by your...

a' French reader who professes to be indignant at yOur mild criticism of the savage war and murder waged today in the name of the French people against' the people of Algeria....

con- troversy, but Miss Delves-Broughton's thoughtful letter has raised some points that I should like to answer, if you will bear with me once more. It is true that, while I...

van into a passenger car? It would be far easier, I suggest, to buy a small ambulance, which is tax free, or a small prison van, Which also is sold free of purchase...

Sta,—That it should come to this! If I buy a van and choose to convert my van into my shooting brake (from which I am not going to shoot anything— absurd name) by the...

even 'hiking' is an adequate translation for a trip with assault river crossings! But the Russian word `turizm' is the same as the English (or near-English) word 'tourism.' It...

the successor, in 1941, of the Supreme War Council of 1917 was the Combined (not Joint) Chiefs of Staff Committee (Spectator, March 21, page 352). The Joint Chiefs of Staff was...

The Documents in the Case BY W. W. ROBSON T HE friendship between H.G. Wells and Henry James ended in 1915, when Wells published noon. It used to be the custom, even among...

John Venn and the Clapham Sect. By Michael Hennell. (Lutterworth Press, 30s.) THE Clapham Sect has a better press today than has been the case for some time. During the...

THIS deeply interesting book is the second in a series of reports published by the Institute of Community Studies. Like its predecessor, Family and Kinship in East London, by...

WHAT is a reasonable man? One who always Works by reason, who keeps a stern rein on emotion and instinct, who never allows his judg- ment to be affected by anything other than...

Top People Orders of Chivalry. By Peter Vansittart. (Bodley Head, 15s.) AFTER Living in the Present, John Wain's third novel, The Contenders, is a pleasant surprise; but it...

MR. JAMES SUTHERLAND ig the Lord Northcliffe' Professor of English Literathre at University Col- lege, London. (Almost, as it were, the Mammon Professor of God.) He is also a...

experiences during the Hungarian revolt of 1956. The sequel tells how, as a refugee, untrained and singularly unfitted for grown-up life even under normal circumstances, with...

BY D. W. BROGAN T HE Congress of the United States is a body whose faults and follies, virtues and intelli- gence greatly affect our lives and may even affect the whole future...

Africa All Over Into Strange Country. By Carol Christian. (Allen and Unwin, 15s.) ALL these novels are about Africa, South and West. The one 1 put first is by an African, and...

Big Sur and Elsewhere HENRY MILLER'S Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (Heinemann, 30s.), ostensibly describing his life in a Californian Paradise, is pre- ceded by...

Wright. (Andre Deutsch. 12s. 6d.) PORTRAITS in urbane free verse—one might almost call them vignettes—of the English colony in an Italian Art City before the First World...

SPAIN has been forgotten, thanks in part to Franco's retiring disposition. Now it's coming into Its own as a subject for research and reflection and, for that matter, as an...

o ODHAMS • Spring Selection For the first time, the whole inside story of Radar and its development in peace, and war told by its greatest pioneer in one of the most...

down under by a young English bachelor who recently emigrated to start a new life in Australia. 234 pp., 9 pp. of illus. 18s. Od. net Colonel, the Hon. F. H. (Fred) Cripps,...

an eminent man of letters and preSented in the forni of twenty- six unabridged extracts from classic war books, including The Dam Busters, The Last Enemy, etc. 320 pp. 15s. Od....

of the worst depression experienced since the war; we have seen a further shrinking in world trade with our own unemployment rising and the tonnage of our ships laid up doubled...

Further particulars may be obtained from the Registrar, The University, Birmingham 15. to whom applications should be sent before 14th June, 1958. POST GRADUATE EXHIBITION THE...

Com- fortably furnished or unfurnished bed-sitters with full board, Irons 6 ans.-Royston. St, John's Hill, Wimborne. Tel. 16. SHANKLIN 2009. Katrick Private Hotel. Highly...