31 JULY 1959

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ROOTED IN DISHONOUR

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G OVERNMENT supporters have done their best to shrug off the Devlin Com- mission Report; but on any serious reading, it provides a damning indictment of British policy in...

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The Black Diaries

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W HEN Roger Casement was sentenced to death in 1916 the British govern- ment managed to silence agitation for a reprieve with the help of some diaries, alleged to have been kept...

North East Frontier

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IT is easy and convenient to lump the Scandinavian countries together as a political and economic entity. Such events as Mr. Khrushchev's recent cancellation of his tour there...

Sub Judice

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W E contended last week that as nobody had been charged with an assault on Guenther Podola, we could not accept that the question how he came by his injuries could be considered...

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Stalemate in Ceylon

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By CHANCHAL SARKAR A FTER scurrying to Ceylon for what seemed a major political crisis it was an anti-climax to find a crust of cynicism so thick that it kept nearly everyone...

THE SPECTATOR Some issues of The Spectator since June 26

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have not been as widely distributed as usual owing to the printing dispute. Readers who require any of these numbers should send ninepence for each copy required to THE SALES...

Boredom Sets In

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Our Geneva Correspondent writes: By last weekend it was clear that though the conference might continue, it had ceased to exist. Any written report must necessarily have more...

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Westminster Commentary

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SO DR. DALTON, Sir Thomas Dugdale and Mr. Ian Harvey are to remain the only three Ministers since the end of the war who have honourably resigned because circumstances, rather...

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SOME WEEKS AGO I received the sum of

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£4 13s. 6d. as change for a purchase I had made out of (as I thought) a £1 note. When I queried the amount, I was told that I had handed over a fiver; and on investigation, I...

THE INDEPENDENT TELEVISION AUTHORITY

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has been scared out of Its few wits by the mounting criticism of breaches of the Television Act. Mr. Christopher Mayhew's Bill to fix by statute the amount of ad- vertising...

WHETHER OR NOT Mr. Carleton Greene makes a good head

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of the BBC, it is good to see a dedicated BBC man get the post; the practice of handing such jobs around to the faceless men from the Forces is a thoroughly bad one. I have been...

WHY, INCIDENTALLY, did the BBC have to prevaricate about the

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impending appoint- ment? I first saw Mr. Greene's name mentioned as a possible successor to Sir Ian Jacob several weeks ago In a Sunday news- paper, but the list of other...

I ADMIRE THE wrr, as I deplore the parochial primness,

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of whoever it was that added to the railway-station poster which proclaims: HARWICH FOR THE CONTINENT the pencilled postscript: AND PARIS FOR THE INCONTINENT PHAROS

THE MAGISTRATES OF SWINDON, Who have jointly held the title

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of Ass of the Century since they solemnly declared The Decameron obscene and ordered it to be burnt, must yield up the title and the trophy to Mr. W. S. Wigglesworth, Chancellor...

A Spectator's Notebook

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HAVE SELDOM SEEN a more nauseating exhibition of egotism . . . A self- satisfied prig if ever I saw one, completely satisfied about his rights.' This is not, as one might...

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Phonevision

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By DEREK PARKER A FTER some years of pressure countered by prevarication, the American Feder- al Communications Commission recently decided to allow 'Pay-As-You-View' tele-...

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Visiting Fireman

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Tourist Angst By ALAN BRIEN I NEVER seem to meet anyone who has been on holiday any more. They have always Just been 'abroad'—just for a spur-of-the- moment,...

Little Women

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By KENNETH ALLSOP C ANDY, a strip character who is about seventeen and has the look of a scrubbed Baby Doll, a Bardot without libido, takes a job in a florist's shop. She is...

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Roundabout

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'Nothing happens down here,' said the man who minds the pier. 'Just people asking stupid questions: "What time does the next steamer go?" "Aren't any steamers go from here," I...

Cinema

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Collapse of all Parties By ISABEL QUIGLY Left, Right and Centre. (Ritz.)—The Mouse that Roared. (Odeon, Marble Arch.)—The Tunnel of Love. (Empire.) This column tends to ask...

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Theatre

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Double Bluffing By ALAN BRIEN The Ring of Truth. (Savoy.) —Eleven Men Dead At Hola Camp. (Royal Court.) The Ring of Truth is a bright, brave, half-success- ful attempt at an...

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Consuming Interest

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Party Pieces By LESLIE ADRIAN Yet I had been under the impression that even if drinking habits had changed at the cocktail hour, eating habits had remained the same: nuts,...

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A Doctor's Journal

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Labmanship By MILES HOWARD I am indebted to A. D. B. Clarke, Consultant Psy- chologist to the Manor Hospital, for taking up some of the points touched upon in my note 'In De-...

GOING ON HOLIDAY ?

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You might be unable to buy the Spectator when you go on holiday, as newsagents do not carry surplus stock. To make sure of receiving your Spectator send us your holiday address...

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THE BRITISH RADICAL Stn,—A point your correspondents seem to have

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overlooked is that I was writing about the Conservative Party! But I believe Mr. Cameron is wrong in arguing that the adjective 'radical' is no longer useful, although I agree...

SIR,-Mr. Nicholas Davenport's article in your issue of July 10

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under the heading of `J'accuse the BIA' could be answered at great length, but I would only like to make some short comment. No one would deny that market prices of investments...

Letters

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The BIA Roger L. Barnett, Roger Falk The British Radical Robin Marris, Vincent Firth Plucking Teeth Edward Samson The Gower Peninsula Stephen Lee Granting Visas Miss N....

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SIR,—Many of your readers must know the Gower peninsula, recently

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`designated' by the National Parks Commission as an `area of outstanding natural beauty': The western end of the peninsula consists of Rhosili Bay, a three-mile stretch of...

SIR,—I am sorry if I appear to throw a cynical

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spanner into your smooth-running radical machinery, but from some ex- perience I must make the mild observation that `radical' was never much more than a magic word, used among...

PLUCKING TEETH

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SIR,—Miles Howard, in his reply to my letter, raises—ingeniously, in a greatly compressed space—so many dental problems a select committee would be required to conclude them....

GRANTING VISAS SIR,—I had occasion recently to visit the French

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Consulate in order to obtain a visa for a friend with an Indian passport. I was surprised to learn from the official who examined the passport that a visa could not be granted...

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BOOKS

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Defoe for England By SIMON RAVEN A LL inhabitants of this world are guests during their lifetime, though there is some diversity of opinion as to the nature and identity of...

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Disbanding the Republic

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TWENTY-FIVE years ago Plato's Republic was generally viewed as one of the noblest monuments of Western liberalism and en- lightenment. Together with the funeral speech which...

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The Judge and Wolfenden

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Law and Opinion in England in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Morris Ginsberg. (Stevens, f2 2s.) THE views of judges non ex cathedra are generally revealing, and anything...

View from Below

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Lollards and Protestants In the Diocese of York. 1509-1558. By A. G. Dickens. (O.U.P. for the University of Hull, 30s.) THE dust jacket hints that this book is 'less specialised...

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Pell-Mell Premeditated

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THE Nelson touch . . . the phrase evokes an impression of impetuousness; the instant, wilful, disobedient impulse of genius which seizes a momentary opening and thrusts through...

. Angry Queen

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NOT a biography but a portrait of a brilliant, passionate, elderly spinster as she appeared to pupils and colleagues during the last thirty years of her life. The outline is...

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Novel-Rapping

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A Tinkling in the Twilight is bad in a way that makes it singularly difficult to furnish a reasoned summary of its plot. It is a first- person novel, the account given by...

Further Proof

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Philosophical Papers. By G. E. Moore. (George Allen and Unwin, 30s.) Tins posthumous volume of Moore's uncollected papers contains what were perhaps the two most important,...

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Landscape into Landseer English Art 1800-1870. By T. S. R.

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Boase. (O.U.P., 50s.) THIS first comprehensive history of British art in the nineteenth century is a notable piece of pioneering work. Such an authori- tative general book has...

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FILM FINANCE

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT A BRUTALLY frank report comes from the directors of the State film bank (National Film Finance Corporation) for the year to March, 1959. The way in which...

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Investment Notes

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By CUSTOS H Avnia recovered from its technical set- back the bull market has become quieter and less interesting and this I think should be its condition over the holiday...

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Company Notes

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TN his statement to stockholders, the "chairman of W. H. Smith (Holdings) Ltd., the Hon. D. J. Smith, naturally strikes a note of caution on account of the printing dispute, but...