2 NOVEMBER 1956

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THE VALLEY OF DECISION

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A TIME may come when a nation can only do what it has to do; when treaties and technicalities are swept away on the surge of events. That time, the Government decided on Monday,...

SPECTATOR

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ESTABLISHED 1828 N o. 6697 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1956 PRICE 9d.

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MR. MACMILLAN AND THE MYTH

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T HE Chancellor did well in his speech at Manchester last week to try to put the economic scene into a better perspec' tive. It was a good idea, too, to do this by reminding his...

THE BLOOD OF BUDAPEST

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I N the long run the recent events in Budapest may yet prove more significant than those in the Middle East. The desperate heroism of the Hungarians has shown, so clearly that...

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STATESMEN AND CANDIDATES

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BY RICHARD H. ROVERE New York T HE Presidential campaign has only a week to run, and it is running true to form. Both sides are panicky, as both sides always are in late October...

Portrait of the Week

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T lIE Middle Eastern Clare-up, discussed in our first leading article, was heralded by the mobilisation of the Israeli Army and an urgent call to American citizens to leave the...

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Political Commentary

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BY CHARLES CURRAN WRITE as British and French forces are moving to re- I occupy the Suez Canal. Nobody doubts that there will be resistance by Egypt. But the long-delayed...

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kHRUSHCHEV, BULGANIN and the rest really ought to have studied

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Lenin a little more closely. 'What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation?' Lenin once asked himself* and decided 1. when it is impossible for the...

THE BBC'S HANDBOOK for 1957 shows that the cost of

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producing television programmes is mounting almost as alarmingly as the number of viewers watching them is falling. it is futile to pretend that the problem can be solved by...

AND WHILE I am on the subject, it was also

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Lenin who com- plainedf that the Russian Government 'not only keeps the Russian people in slavery, but also sends it to subdue other peoples which rebel against their slavery,...

HAVE BEEN reading Mr. Driberg's articles about his friend (not

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Britain's) Guy Burgess. As a leading journalist's treatment of an intrinsically interesting subject they are curiously flat. Burgess, though he provides some quite cleverly...

A Spectator Miscellany

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Spectrum, a Miscellany edited by Ian Gilmour and Iain Hamilton, will be published by Longmans on November 5 at 16s. It contains a large selection of features and articles,...

A Spectator's Notebook

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THu SPECTACLE of America and Russia joining up on the opposite side to ourselves in the Security Council, as they did On Tuesday, is as depressing as it is unfamiliar. But it is...

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Hungary's Single Will

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BY ZOLTAN SZABO D ESPITE its fundamental difference, the present revolution in Hungary has, whether consciously or unconsciously, repeated the pattern of the Liberal rising in...

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The First Rising

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By IAN FRASER R EVENGE is sweet but it is also a short-lived passion and its exercise, like drinking sugared wine, is usually fol- lowed by revulsion. From 1942 to 1945 we—that...

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The Unopened Box and the Burnt Paper

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BY LORD TEMPLEWOOD L RD BEAVERBROOK has written an absorbing thriller.* The momentous events of 1917 and 1918 give him just the right background. The figures that emerge from it...

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City and Suburban

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By JOHN BETJEMAN LTHOUGH I am employed by the Daily Telegraph I cannot stifle an affection for The Times—its obitu- aries, for instance, those dim peers and dimmer baronets...

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Errol Flynn and the Incendiary Rat

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H ' ERE,' says the blurb, 'is the story* of the remarkable adventures of a young officer of the Royal Engineers, serving with Orde Wingate's Chindits in Burma.' But the blurb,...

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HUNGARY Sta,—The present tragic events in Hungary* cause enormous suffering

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to thousands of defenceless citizens. This Society, in which both Hungarians and Britons of various shades of opinion meet without distinction, has opened a Medical Aid Fund....

POLITICAL KILLING

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Sig,-1 believe you will receive in good spirit a protest from a keen and regular reader. Your reference on October 26 under the head 'Political Killing' to 'the Llandudno mob'...

Letters to the Editor

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Conscience and Constituents R. L. Travers Political Killing Patrick Campbell Hungary Prof: C. A. Macartney and others Mighty Old Artificer Evelyn Waugh Comprehensive Education...

DEAD SEA SCROLLS SIR,—Mr. Hugh Montefiore, in his warmly appreciative

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review of Mr. J. M. Allegro's 'Pelican' on the Dead Sea Scrolls, pays de- served tribute to its imaginative quality. He remarks that the dust-cover might well have been printed...

SIR,—It would be hind for any of us who teach

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in grammar schools not to sympathise with Dr. Eric James's plea for the preservation of their sixth forms. It may be true, as Dr. Pedley informs us, that the eleven-plus...

SANITATION ON TRAINS

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SIR,—Some five years ago, I wrote to the Lancet pointing out the archaic method used in the lavatories on passenger trains, viz., discharge to the line, and indicating that the...

SIR,—Pharos saluting M. Picasso on his birth- day, compares him

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with Yeats. Would not Millais be a happier comparison; the brilliant young draughtsman, who, through his wish to be the 'contemporary of successive generations,' reflected the...

99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1

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Euston 3221

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SIR,—In 'City and Suburban' on October 5 Mr. Betjeman congratulates

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W. H. Smith 0" preserving period shop-fronts. I am glad theY have turned over a new leaf, as one of the most charming Regency buildings in the West Country, the Royal Library at...

THOSE SHOP-FRONTS

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SIR,-1 read with interest the article by Mr. John Betjeman in the Spectator of October 5. SIR,-1 read with interest the article by Mr. John Betjeman in the Spectator of October...

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Revival

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HARVEST. (Academy.)---HousE OF SECRETS. (Gaumont.)---NIGHTFALL. (Astoria.) MARCEL PAGNOL'S nineteen-year-old Harvest, censored off our screens when it first appeared and now...

INTERMINABLE

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SIR,—Mr. John Amis in his review of Lennox Berkeley's recent opera Ruth speaks of 'those interminable four-bar phrases that modulate in bar three only to creep back to the...

THE FREE-STANDER Sta.—In the Spectator some time ago John Betjeman

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comments on the housing scheme for the Corporation of London in Golden Lane and directs the full weight of his personal dis- Pleasure on a feature topping the highest block. As...

Contemporary Arts

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Mother Tongue ONE of the unspoken aspirations of ITV seems to be to get away from the standard English developed and defended by the BBC since its foundation..I am sure ITV is...

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Second Attempts

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HAVING produced a steady flow of abstract instrumental works for the last twenty years , Alan Rawsthorne is now making his second contribution to each medium. His two most...

Novelist and Art Critic

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HENRY JAMES'S taste in the visual arts was natural and well educated; it was also wholly conventional, being no more adventurous than Stendhal's and certainly less so than...

The Hump

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MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. By William Shakespeare. (Old Vic.) I REALLY could not have believed that any person with even a moderate amount of discrimination left in his palate...

Tim Opectator

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NOVEMBER 5, 1831 ENERGETIC MEASURES.—On Saturday last, a couple of workhouse boys were sent, by order, of one of the dignitaries of the Church, roun d the town of Dereham with...

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BOOKS

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Knowing the Void BY IRIS MURDOCH T HERE is a persistent conception of the philosopher as one who perceives the unity in different branches of knowledge and offers out of his...

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Englishmen and Others

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READERS of his earlier books know Mr. Taylor as an historia n who can . write with learning, imagination, wit and decision. Sortie of these essays (which are mainly...

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The American Way of Life

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A LOST PARADISE: Early Reminiscences. By Samuel Chotzinoff. (Hamish Hamilton, 21s.) A LOST PARADISE: Early Reminiscences. By Samuel Chotzinoff. (Hamish Hamilton, 21s.) A IEN...

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Italy Then and Now

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GHOSTS OF THE RIALTO. By Daniele Vare. (Murray, 21S.) PAGEANT OF ITALY. By James Reynolds. (Hale, 25s.) As a boy Daniele Vare was taken once a year to Venice s: that he should...

The Polish Anvil

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FIGHTING WARSAW. By Stefan Korbonski. (Allen and Unwin,- 105) ONE essential ingredient of any understanding of recent ev e i ll .0 in Poland must be some attempt to get the...

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Royal Conservative

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b F OR nearly forty years Charles V ruled a greater empire than a lY man before him. He does not fit into any of the easy categories So dear to the English historical...

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Round the Bend

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DR. JOHNSON was forcibly removed to a mental hospital n October, 1950, and detained there involuntarily for six weeks He suspected at the time that he was a victim of a drug :...

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The New China

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VISA FOR PEKING. By A. de Segonzac. (Heinemann, 21s.) THE period of non-partisan reporting of the new China seems to be beginning. M. de Segonzac, a French journalist who is...

New Novels

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F RANK BAKER'S originality in dealing with the marvellous lies i0 his use of outlandish facts, possibilities, innuendoes, and su Pernatural whispers of all sorts, in perfectly...

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ANTIDOTE

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A Malvern reader offers a suggestion on the treatment of ants and remarks, 'My daughter was hedge-clipping a short time ago—standing on a kitchen chair in order to reach-the...

GREASE BANDS Winter moths are counteracted by grease • banding trees

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with strips of sacking six inche s or so in width. A heavy grease should be use d and it is a good plan to renew this grease from time to time in case it hardens and allows the...

FIELDFARES RETURN

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There is not quite the same thrill in noting the arrival of winter migrants as there is i n discovering that the first swallows hav e reached us, that the wheatear is on the...

Country Life

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BY IAN NIALL Comm down a tree is such a positive thing —the tree cannot be put back, nor can it be replaced in much less than thirty years—that anyone who is fond of trees...

The Mad Hatter

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Heads and Tales, by Aage Thaarup (Cassell, 21s.), is the story of a young man who learnt hat-making the hard way, rose to great eminence in his profession, designing hats not...

Northern Europe

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mill this fourth volume, East Norway and its Frontier (Allen and Unwin. 25s.), Frank Noel Stagg has covered all Norway in his series of histories; they are based on wide...

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THE CHURCH AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE

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BY NICHOLAS, DAVENPORT h imself Archbishop of Canterbury exposes rumself to the rudest of attacks when he condemns a flutter in the new Premium Bonds as a 'cold, mechanical,...

COMPANY NOTES

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By CUSTOS THE stock markets have maintained a remarkable calm in the face of the disfurb- ing news from the Middle East but, of course, everything has been marked down —oil...

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Out of Bondage

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SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 348 Report by Barbara Smoker Bonds, The usual prize was offered for a Civil Service letter to withdrawers of Premium based on the letters of...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 351 Set by Buzfuz

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Code words, from 'Overlord' to the 'Hat- rack' of Private's Progress, are the preserve of the Forces, though they could be adapted to civilian requirements. Competitors are...

Chess

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BY PHILIDOR No. 74. Specially contributed by Dr. L. A. GARAZA (UruguaY) BLACK (5 mon) WRITE (8 men) WHITE to play and s m o a lu te tio in n t n w e o xt m w o ee ve k s :...

The Chairman of the American Rocket Society has produced a

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'Constitution of Space Travel' ('The earth ship should be invited to land by any living beings there may be on other planets. No force must be used ') A prize of six guineas is...

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SPECTATOR CROSSWORD No. 912

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ACROSS 1 Some can point to this make-up (12). 9 This abstainer can spoil a snack (9). tu Their queen rush'd to battle, fought and died (5), It This month the Italian can drop...