28 NOVEMBER 1952

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REPRISALS IN KENYA

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• of the active Mau Mau members into the open. if they are wielded blindly in reprisal for acts of terrorism, then they may make bitter enemies of the entire Kikuyu. Although...

Whose Decision in Korea ?

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The spectacle of Mr. Vyshinsky wiping out in a single t speech all the hopes that had been gathering round the Indian plan for settling the question of the Korean prisoners may...

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Sunday in the Saar

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Nothing is more essential for the safety of Europe than that Dr. Adenauer and his Coalition Government should remain in power in West Germany at any rate till the General...

Transport Guillotine

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The accepted convention that the official Opposition should always oppose with vigour the use of the device of the guillotine to shorten the Parliamentary debate on important...

The Volta Scheme

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By any standard the opportunity for the profitable large- scale production of aluminium in the Gold Coast is too good to be missed. When every allowance has been made for the...

Iraq Follows Egypt ?

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The riots in Baghdad have come so soon after the opening of the Iraq Petroleum Company's new pipe-line that they inevitably raise doubts whether this enormously costly...

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The Siege of Na-sam

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In North-west Tonkin the French have been forced back on to the defensive. Their foray, made in considerable strength, to and beyond Phu-Doan led to the capture or des- truction...

Steel Gone Cold The interruption of this week's debate on

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the Iron and Steel Bill, first by the emergency consideration of the Kenya situation and then by the counting out of the House, was symbolic of the whole steel nationalisation...

AT WESTMINSTER

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T HE House of Commons seems to have reached a point at which it must abandon hope of being allowed by either of the great parties to discuss with any degree of detachment the...

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COMMONWEALTH AND CORONATION

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T HIS week the representatives—in almost all cases Prime Ministers—of the States that compose the British Commonwealth of Nations are gathered in what is still recognised by...

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My assumption that the Latin version of the Lady of

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Riga included by Dr. M. J. Haarhoff in his Burge Lecture was original is evidently very much out, as a number of correspon- dents have been (mod enough to inform me. Like a...

The riots in Baghdad must be causing the directors of

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the Iraq Petroleum Company some anxiety, for a large part of their fortunes is staked on the new pipe-line from Kirkuk in Iraq to Banias on the Mediterranean, a distance of some...

TODAY'S THOUGHT Be content to please a few: to please

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many is bad.—SCHILLER. From The Daily Mirror (circulation 4,000,000). JANUS.

I hope that the Conservative amendment to Mr. C. .L

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Simmons' Bill proposing the establishment of a General Council of the Press by statute Will be carried on Friday. A Press Council may be a good thing or a bad thing. The Royal...

"Was Jesus Christ wrong ? The argument for Plural Marriage

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for both sexes after seven years, with graphs and diagrams. Edward Wilson, M.D. (Non - Register)." Advertise- ment in the New Statesman. I like the designation. Watch for...

An interesting case of cause and effect. The Spectator on

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September 26th published an article by John Benn on the way to sell British goods abroad. The Spectator of October 17th contained a letter signed Philip Marsh reinforcing Mr....

The Middlesex Education Committee has acted very sensibly in proposing

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to send picked boys to Christ's Hospital rather than Harrow. Not (let me assure the Prime Minister) that I mean anything derogatory to the school on the hill. But if it is a...

National Health Service patients are likely to be more vocal

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as a whole than pre-1948 out-patients in hospitals, and in some cases it is proper that they should be. Having attended a large hospital at 2 o'clock on a particularly busy day...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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L ORD SAMUEL, in raising the question of an all-party conference on the reform of the House of Lords on Tuesday, succeeded in eliciting from Lord Salisbury the assurance that...

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South Africa: Some Facts for Critics

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By R. H. W. SHEPHERD* I T is noteworthy that, while the chief political parties in South Africa are divided on the merits of apartheid, and also have serious differences on the...

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Eccentrics at Sea

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By Admiral Sir WILLIAM JAMES A FTER reading the recently-published letters written by Lord Fisher when he was a young officer, I wondered whether his genius would have been...

When Edward VII was

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Crowned By the Rev. W. J. CONYBEARE (Late Provost of Southwell) F . IFFY years ago the Coronation of King Edward VII took place in very difficult circumstances. There were...

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Making Money

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By GEORGE STAFFORD GALL O N Tuesday the Queen in Council signed a Proclamation authorising the issue of the new coinage, which is likely to last for the first decade, at any...

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Smuggled Culture

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By BRIAN INGLIS Dublin. W E Irish are a touchy people when it comes to reading about ourselves in newspapers and periodicals from abroad. We have not yet reached the stage...

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TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS

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Any notification of temporary address to which copies of the "Spectator" are to be forwarded during the Christmas holiday must be received by us by Friday, December 5th.

UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

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The Grey Goose By RONALD F. GUNN (Edinburgh College of Agriculture) I N winter there were no fish, but the burn did not lose its fascination. The pool below the bridge was...

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MARGINAL COMMENT

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By HAROLD NICOISON I N a paper presented last week to the Royal Society of Arts, Sir Leigh Ashton described with patient melancholy some of the difficulties that assailed a...

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CONTEMPORARY ARTS

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ART Dutch Pictures at the Royal Academy. Tim exhibition of Dutch painting at Burlington House is at once narrower in scope and wider in representation than that of 1929. Then...

THEATRE

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THERE is more than a touch of high-class green-room rag about the Old Vic's presentation of Un Chapeau de Faille d'Italie in Mr. Walton's adaptation. Both its charm and its...

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The Blue Lamp. By Ted Willis and Jan Read. (London

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Hippodrome.) . WE have had" the book of the film " and " the film of the book" and" the film of the play.' ' Now we have " the play of the film "- a dramatised and stagey...

MUSIC Samson and Delilah. • (Sadler's Wells.) SADLER'S WELLS'S decision

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to revive Saint-Saens's Samson and Delilah is even more mysterious after the performance than it was when first announced. There are certain operas, like certain plays, that...

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CINEMA

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Souvenirs Perdus. (Studio One.)—Forbidden City. (Berkeley.)— Retreat, Hell ! (Warner.) THE vogue for omnibus films has now, it appears, reached France, and in Souvenirs...

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SPEtTATOR COMPETITION No. 146

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Set by J. A. R. Pimlott Readers are invited to submit an extract from The Mad Hatter's Christmas Party. Limit - 200 'words. Prize — £5, which may be divided. Entries must...

Zbe iopectator, Robentber 27th, 1852.

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FOUR persons have perished at Walton-on-Thames, by an accident arising from the flooded state of the country: Lilley, a labourer employed at App's Court Farm, lived in a cottage...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 1 43

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Report by C. MacMaster-Fulton The Manchester Guardian has been advertising widely to attract new readers, holding out as inducement its wisdom, wit and" flavour." The Daily...

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SIR.—In Mr. Stephen Martin's letter, in your issue of November

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7th, 1952, he states: "The facts today are that, whether it was intentional or not, these Ordinances (Crown Lands Ord. and N.L.T. Ord.) have resulted in the most fertile land...

Sit,—Janus asks: "It is convenient ... to have a word

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which describes Christians in this country who are not Roman Catholics. What other word is there than Protestant ? " The answer is that there is no other word, provided that we...

t 4 Is Shaw Dead ? "

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SIR, —Is not the short answer to St. John Ervine's question that Bernard Shaw will not survive because he was not sincere ? He was a skilled controversialist, but he was more...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Mau-Mau and Kikuyuland SIR,—Whilst I do not dispute Mr. Le Breton's geographical location of the fertile and well-watered areas of Kenya, he is mistaken in assuming that "the...

• The Bishop of Monmouth's Sermon

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SIR,—The sharp eye of Janus overlooked another point stressed in the ill-timed sermon by the Bishop of Monmouth. Why pretend that the Anglican Church was not Roman Catholic...

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Snt,—Sir Henry Bashford has written a delightful tribute to Dorset

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place-names. But as we are thinking of poetic quality, may I point out that Fontwell Magna is really Fontmell Magna—I am sure Sir Henry will agree that the "supreme poet"...

"Attlee and Bevan"

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SIR,—I was glad to see that two of Mr. Stockwood's friends had dealt faithfully with the comments made by Mrs. Gardiner in your issue of November 14th; but I doubt whether...

Army Pensions

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recently received the annual report of a tea company, in which I hold a few shares. Although the profit for the year and the dividend are reduced, it is proposed to make a...

Place-Names

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Six,—Sir Henry Bashford's article on place-names in Dorset and Wiltshire must have delighted all who know and love those counties. One does not look for poetry in a directory,...

Bearded Tits

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SIR,—I am sorry to disappoint Lord Terrington on the matter of the bearded tit. In the notes which I drafted on that occasion I mentioned coal tits, remarking that they seemed...

Slit,—Puella Rigensis, as many others will doubtless tell you, is

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an old and valued friend. I think I first heard it fifty years ago, and it was then attributed to Arthur Sidgwick, Fellow and Tutor of C.C.C., Oxford. Here is another, not I...

There Was an Old/Young Man

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Snt,—The Latin rhyme of Professor Haarhoff reminds me of the limerick made up practically on the spur of the moment by Raymond Asquith, who like Dr. Johnson could make a rhyme...

Bannockburn

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SIR, —Sir Frederick Whyte's article, on reindeer in Scotland, made the first suggestion I have seen that the Scots lost the battle of Bannockburn, or that Robert the Bruce...

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The Giant Eel

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We have met three or four times up at the lake, and each time I have heard the story of the great eel. Its skin was :` the length of a door and two hand-spans wide." The teller...

Forcing Rhubarb

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Rhubarb can be forced and an early pulling obtained if 'the crowns are covered now. A box with the bottom knockZd . out is useful, or even an old tin bath treated in the same...

Pheasant's Flight

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As I was going up through the wood I saw something moving ahead, past the dying nettles, up among the elderberries and on across the slope beneath the firs. It was the cock...

A Fighting Weasel

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I am indebted to Mr. E. R. Cobb for an account of a weasel's attack on a cat. The account is given in a letter from Mr. Cobb's son who lives at Trumpington near Cambridge and is...

COUNTRY LIFE

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FROST makes the fire bright, they say. The fire was burning clearly, and the embers of the logs were bright, but if one sits by a wood-fire on a frosty afternoon sleep is...

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK

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Haig's Diary THE dust of controversy which once rose so thickly about the conduct of operations on the Western Front during the First World War has had time to settle. In...

The Overmighty Executive

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The Passing of Parliament. By G. W. Keeton. (Benn. 21s.) STUDY of the modern British Constitution now centres less on the familiar doctrines of the legislative sovereignty of...

Next week's "Spectator" will be an enlarged number containing reviews

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of a further selection of Christmas books. Amalie' Williams- Ellis, Marghanita Laski and Honor Croome will consider books for children in three different age-groups; Elizabeth...

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A Writer's Journals

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The Denton Welch Journals. Edited by Jocelyn Brooke. (Hamish Hamilton. 15s.) TiE story of Denton Welch's life and death must by now be well known. He was born in Shanghai in...

Home Sweet Home

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The Art of Being a Parent. By Amabel Williams-Ellis. (Bodley Head. 8s. 6d.) "CAN a parent make a good parent?" Miss Naomi Lewis once pertinently asked, and Mrs. Williams-Ellis,...

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For the Practical Fisherman

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Tins book contains less for the fireside reader than others in the New Naturalist Series, and more for the practical man who requires a reference-work at the water's edge. The...

The Englishman's Religion

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A Dean's Apology. By C. A. Alington. (Faber. 12s. 6d.) THIS is a very charming book, as anyone familiar with Dr. Alington's other works knew it would be. His style has to...

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Solution to Crossword No. 704 Solution on December 12 The

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winner of Crossword No. 704 is: The Rev. Canon A. C. REES, The Vicarage, Dewsbury.

THE "SPECTATOR" CROSSWORD No. 706 1 .4 Book Token for one

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guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, December 9th, addressed Crossword, 99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1....

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Middle-East Background

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The Arabs and the West. By Clare Hollingworth. (Methuen. 21s.) MISS HOLLINGWORTH spent most of the years 1940-1950 as a news- paper-correspondent in the Middle East, and has...

Fiction

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East of Eden. By John Steinbeck. (Heinemann. 15s.) Young Men Waiting. By Chapman Mortimer. (Cresset Press. 12s. 6d.) NEVER, I think, a writer who has let imagination get the...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By CUSTOS HOPE is again the dominant factor in invest- ment markets, although it has not yet developed into anything approaching real confidence. The assembling of the Com-...