3 JANUARY 1958

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SUBJECT INDEX CONTRIBUTORS

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.. .. (A) (C) (CA) (CL) (CN) (CS) (F) (L) ARTICLE COMPETITION CONTEMPORARY ARTS COUNTRY LIFE COMPANY NOTE OR INVESTMENT NOTE CITY AND SUBURBAN FINANCE LETTER TO THE...

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SPECTATOR

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INDEX FOR JANUARY-JUNE, 1958 A & R Man, The, Robert Hancock, 848 (R) Acheson, Dean, Power and Diplomacy, 630 (R) Acland, Alice, A Person of Discretion, 140 (R) Acropo (R) lis,...

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MARKING TIME

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I T was inevitable that the year following the Suez adven- ture should have been one of relative inaction for British foreign policy. This time last year Her Majesty's Govern-...

THE

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SPECTATOR ESTABLISHED 1828 - NUMBER 6758 - FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1958 - PRICE N1NEPENCE

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MUTED ACCENTS

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T HE report by Mr. Peter Wiles on the Russian service of the BBC—published on another page—fully bears out the disquiet which has been expressed, both by Pharos and in the...

NEXT WEEK

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Spectator Travel Number and ANTHONY HARTLEY on Proust

Opectator

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JANUARY 5, 1833 A VERY singular controversy is going on in the newspapers. The parties are the mistress on the one hand and the servants on the other; the subject, a police...

THE BALANCE SHEET

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T HE year 1957 closed on an uncertain note for the British economy and the sterling area. The rally in the foreign exchange market on New Year's Eve pushed sterling up to $2.81,...

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Around the U.N.

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By DESMOND WILLIAMS EW governments in Western Europe now ex- r pect much from the annual session of the United Nations. The larger Powers have now re- signed themselves to...

Mr. Mintoff Again

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By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS M R. LENIVOX-BOYD is not the only person in England to receive the news of Mr. Mintoff's latest move 'with incredulity.' It is less than a month since Mr....

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Westminster Commentary

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But what else do we expect? I have been going on, week after week, about the calm—a calm not so much of the grave as of the catalepsy—which has settled upon that ruined pile off...

Moffat's Challenge to Welensky

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FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT 111) Salish rr HE recent decision by Sir John Moffat, Chair- ' man of the African Affairs Board, to take the Federal Electoral Bill to the Federal...

SPECTATOR INDEX

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The full alphabetical index of contents and contributors to Volume 198 of the Spectator (January-June, 1957) is now available. Orders, and a remittance of 5s. per copy, should...

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I HAVE HAD a letter from Professor Schoeck, of Emory

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University, Georgia, saying that he has read the correspondence following Henry Fairlie's article 'An Anatomy of Hysteria' with increasing amusement.' The Professor ridicules...

PEACE HAS a better chance when divided people have found

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out that the people on the other side of the gulf are—just like themselves—fathers and mothers and children. Mr. Kruschev has said, Communism can give the world a better and...

THE LAST newspaper casualty of 1957, Truth, went out with

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its final issue containing a forlorn para- graph of announcements about the contents of its next. The paper appeared on Friday, as usual; on Saturday the editor, Mr. George...

ARISING FROM A complaint by Professor Trevor- Roper of a

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rather snooty review of his book of historical essays, a debate has been taking place in the leader and correspondence columns of The Times Literary Supplement about the merits...

I AM GLAD to see that Sir John Charles, the

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Chief Medical, Officer to the Ministry of Health, has warned doctors about the dangers of 'tranquil lisers.' Some, of these drugs—as a recent investiga- tion has proved—give no...

I FIND IT difficult to follow discussion on foreign policy

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these days. Two Sundays ago there was A. J. P. Taylor in the Sunday Express saying that, though Hungary had been a poor show, we had better forget about past grievances as we...

A Spectator's Notebook

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THE NEW YEAR HONOURS provided the best and least embarrassing list for many years; still, it is hard to scan it without coming to the con- clusion that if it went the way of...

I HAVE BEEN AMUSED by the signs of a growing

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parental revolt against that little horror 'Noddy' —culminating in a powerful broadside from Mr. Colin Welch in this month's Encounter, in which Noddy is even accused of being...

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Big Three

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By LORD ATTLEE l N this massive volume' of 655 pages Mr. Feis has undertaken a survey of the contacts be- tween the leaders of the three great countries engaged as allies in...

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Report on the Russian Service

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By PETER WILES F ROM June 21 to September 6, 1957, the BBC's' Russian service was attacked in the correspondence and other columns of the Spectator. My request for permission to...

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Helping Readers Overseas

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SEVERAL overseas readers have written to the Spectator to ask if books, which they had diffi- culty in obtaining, could be sent to them. The Spectator will gladly arrange for...

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‘. . . A Vast Amount of Information' By CYRIL

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RAY 'THERE are those, I have no doubt, who buy .1 a fresh set of reference books every year —on the office, or out of an expense account. Those of us whose expense accounts are...

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City and Suburban

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By JOHN BETJEMAN Ntusi recount a curious incident about the I church at Wolfhampcote, near Daventry, for the removal of which to a building estate in Coventry proposals are...

No More Nicknames?

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By STRIX Y OUR nickname (in the unlikely event of your having one) is your eke-name : eke meaning `also,' like auch in German, and the 'n' having got itself attached by the same...

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Consuming Interest

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Supermarkets By LESLIE ADRIAN W an more and more shops here converting themselves into supermarkets—or, at least, into self-service stores based on the supermarket pattern—I...

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Letters to the Editor

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Passchendaele B. H. Liddell Hart Columbia Market Ian Nairn Safety Helmets W. Ritchie Russell, FRCP Useful Words for Book Reviews Jocelyn Brooke Hungary Paul Tabori Gallup Poll...

USEFUL WORDS FOR BOOK REVIEWS SIR,—lt is much to be

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regretted that Mr. Bernard Levin, in your issue for December 27, was com- pelled through lack of space to cut short his cata- logue of words suitable for book reviews. To assist...

HUNGARY Sin,=If the economic and political judgment of the Rev.

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W. Bryn Thomas is as sound as his evalua- tion of distances, then indeed you had every reason to question his broadcast over Budapest Radio. The Budapest underground was the...

GALLUP POLL SIR,—Yours is an ingenious hypothetical argument. Alas, facts

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destroy it. We put up for approval or disapproval, in one question, three possible decisions by NATO: (1) Talks with Russians; enormous majority approved. (2) Russia and West...

BEHIND THE TIMES SIR,—This is probably the worst possible season

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in which to fan the embers of religious controversy. Nevertheless, the Rev. H, R. Wilson's ipse 'there are two principal groups of priests in Eng- land, namely Catholic priests,...

SAFETY HELMETS SIR,—Your correspondent (December 20) refers to the frequent

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inquests on dead motor-cyclists who have been wearing light types of helmet which are thought to have given inadequate protection. This view, which is shared by some coroners,...

99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1

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Euston 3221

COLUMBIA MARKET SIR,—This (Mr. Fleet's letter on Columbia Market) is

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very odd. Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and the Daily Express building are all good in their several styles, and so is Columbia Market. It begins to look as though our new...

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KIDNAPPING BLAKE SIR,—Hasn't the real issue between Mr. Robson and

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Miss Raine on the question of Blake's poetry been lost in this argument over factual detail? The real issue is, surely, one of critical methods. Mr. Robson disapproves of Miss...

4 ASTOR-OWNED' SIR,—In your issue of December 20 Mr. Ran- .dolph

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Churchill mis-stated the ownership of the 'Observer by saying that it is 'Astor-owned: For the last eleven years it has been the property of Trustees, who have full power to...

VICE PROSECUTIONS

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SIR,—Even though the Government, for reasons which they are not prepared to give, arc to throw over the recommendations of the Wolfenden Com- mittee, one would still have...

STEPHEN LEACOCK

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SIR, —Mr. Kingsley Amis in his review of The Bodley Head Leacock in your issue of December 6 says that it would have been fairer to Leacock's memory if the text of this volume...

DIVORCE AND AFTER • SIR,—The Rev. N. S. Power is

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obviously well able to look after himself, but I hope I may properly draw attention to some facts ignored by his critic, the Rev. P. Wyld. According to the Church of England,...

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Contemporary Arts

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The Year's Theatre EVEN theatre critics have now begun to believe that they are un- reasonable, immoral and pitiless, so deafeningly is this tale repeated. For all I know it is...

The Year's Pictures

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Tins retrospect of 1957 is compli- cated by a recent visit to the United States which must inevitably colour memories of local affairs. For example, most American collec- tions...

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Finding a Moor

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• end of its run of Otello for this season. This is not out of deference to the critical proposition put for- ward some while ago by The Times that certain very great works (the...

Christmas Ballet

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AT the Princes Theatre a troupe from the Pantomime Theatre in Copenhagen show a programme of their traditional works and some lightweight dancing. The London Festival Ballet...

The Real India

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Pather Panchali. (Academy.) Windom's Way. (Leicester Square Theatre.) IT would be a pity if Pather Panchali, with its reputation, and the freshness of its touch with' things...

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BOOKS

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In Defence of Ordinariness By HENRY F.AIRLIE E VERY reviewer should declare his interest; and I frankly confess that I sleep more soundly in my bed at night if I know that...

The Dialectic at Howth

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He liked to play games with his children . . . (Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station, 11, 12). (For Christine) The bucking children on the sitting-room floor, The scattered...

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Courtier of Death

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The True Blue. By Michael Alexander. (Hart- Davis, 30s.) 'HE had peculiarities which I could not appreciate. . . .' Thus said the old Duke of Cam- bridge to Wolseley, in the...

The Cocteau Story

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To begin with, these aren't really Cocteau's journals at all, but a collection of passages from his previous work in which he talks about the torments and versatility of his own...

John Calder Ltd. are giving all profits fronl The South

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African Treason Trial (18s.), by Lionel Forman and Solly Sachs, to Christian Action. The first part of the book gives a factual account 0 1 the events of the trial to date; the...

Latter-Day Saints

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New Bottles for New Wine. Essays by Julian Huxley. (Chatto and Windus, 21s.) IN the last 150 years the nature of the physical substance of the universe has been substantially...

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A Nearly Forgotten Art

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Mediaeval English Poetry: The Non-Chaucerian Tradition. By John Speirs. (Faber, 42s.) IN this lon g book Mr. Speirs follows up his Chaucer the Maker with a series of studies of...

Educated Silliness

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Miss SIMONE WEIL'S attraction to Christianity and the Greek classics takes on a perilous aspect because she is approachin g the subject, not with the humility of a scholar but...

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Golden 'Boy

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IN many ways, the No seems to be treated in Japan today as a pseudo-art, like flower arrange- ment and the tea ceremony its purposeful remoteness, fossilisation, exclusiveness,...

Bullying Bab

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Gilbert: His Life and Strife. By Hesketh Pear- son. (Methuen, 25s.) IT is not a pretty picture that Hesketh Pearson draws of Sir William Gilbert, who belonged to Sullivan as...

Splendid Lunacy

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THE New Yorker's is a style that can quickly become a bore when used for its own sake. But in the work of S. J. Perelman it glitters for all it's worth, and that can be quite a...

New Novels

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THERE is an ill-defined category, somewhere be- tween the straightforward psychological novel and the story of crime, detection and horror, to which Nina Bawden's new book,...

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NEW MONETARY POLICY FOR 1958

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By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The occasion which induced the Chancellor to attempt this desperate cure was, as we all know, the summer flight from sterling which drained our already...

COMPANY NOTES

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By CUSTOS THE end of the long Stock Exchange account brought little change in sentiment, although some increase in business. This is not surprising seeing that the portentous...

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SPECTATOR CROSSWORD No. 973

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ACROSS 1 Puss takes a short drink, with a mint flavour (6). 4 Scarf hem, with flutings (8). 9 Citizen of Venice objected to the rating here (6). 10 All I turn to is irrational...

Exeunt Singing

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Competitors were asked to provide a Christmas pantomime lyric, might be sung by one of the following: `Widow Twankey, Dandini, any of the Denton Kings. having a political...

Most people living in, or having visited, London, are familiar

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with the clever rhyming advertise- ments in the Tubes and Underground which finish up with the line: 'There is no substitute for wool.' In view of the Modern attempt to make...

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ROOKERY ACTIVITY The gregarious habit of rooks is the thing

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about them that fascinates most people, 1 think. If it doesn't always fascinate, it certainly infuriates farmers or people whit live too close to the rookery. I find rooks and...

A SHEPHERD'S WRATH

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An unusually large flock of sheep was being moved from one place to another and the shepherd, aided by a boy, seemed to be taking things gently so that the whole business was...

Country Life

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By IAN NIALL To live 'up on the tops' is to challenge the elements, have the wind tugging at the roof, rushing smoke back down the chimney and wailing in the keyhole, but those...

BEAN SOWING If a sowing of broad beans was overlooked

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in autumn the omission can, to some extent, be com- pensated for by making one in January, providing the ground remains soft. Dwarf or one of the taller varieties may be chosen....

Chess

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By PHILIDOR No. 134. Specially contributed by C. P. KING-FARLOW (Richmond) BLACK (10 men) WHITE (12 men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. Solution to...