W HEN, a year ago this week, Sir Anthony Eden took office as Prime Minister, the Spectator commented that the Conservative Party existed again for the first time since 1940....

ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6667 FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1956 PRICE 9d.

E VERYBODY in the world except Mr. Dulles knows that a first-rate crisis is building up in, and over, the Middle East. It is painfully clear to everybody, except Mr. Dulles, not...

BY CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS I N many ways the most important speech in the Maltese debate in the House of Commons shortly before Easter was that of Mr. Robert Mellish. It is not...

You were wrong, and you will pay, Comrade Rubashov. The Party promises only one thing : after the victory, one day when it can do no more harm, the material of the secret...

WAUGH

BY HENRY FAIRLIE I RE most parents I have to decide whether my children should be vaccinated against poliomyelitis, but it is not as a parent that I wish to discuss this...

is the conclusion to be reached by a Socialist-become- Cabinet-Minister when he comes to the burning question: `Should he, for instance, get on to Christian-name basis with' his...

was much impressed by the work of the British and Anglo-German centres there. I fancy it is not very widely known in this country to what extent these activities are financed by...

NOT LONG after Lord Beaverbrook set foot in England the other week a new writer called 'Richard Strong' began to spread himself in the Evening Standard. His content was...

have said, is the Theatre. I welcome the chorus of approval which has greeted the English Stage Company's opening at the Royal Court Theatre of a repertory season which will...

To become a successful political leader in Great Britain you must be either a bishop or a bookmaker. The bishops are a distinguished lot—from Gladstone, the greatest of them...

BY CHARLES CURRAN F OR the past six years the Parliamentary leaders of British Socialism have been living in a goldfish bowl. They have run out of ideas, lost contact with the...

If there is one statement of fact about post-war Britain that may be called incontrovertible it is this : the only kind of riches that incur no popular disapproval are riches...

The Socialist professors are profoundly mistaken, I suggest, if they suppose that egalitarianism, with its concomitant of classless austerity. is likely to stir the Welfare...

13', RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL F OR years the British press have clamoured for more newsprint. Recently the allocations have been somewhat increased and particularly for the mass...

BY JOHN ARLOTT H ARD upon the first snowdrops. and weeks before the cricketers have pulled their roller from its depression in the winter mud, the first cricket books appear, in...

By JOHN BETJEMAN S this is Easter week I am opening with two matters of thanksgiving which I saw in Holy Week, instead of my usual grumble about the devastations wrought by...

REEDY swine!' `Greedy swine yourself.' `Tu quoque is the sign of a fool, so you must be a fool as well as a swine.' I suppose the verbal sword-play of the schoolroom still...

Capricorn Africa Thomas Fox Pitt Edward Carpenter Judas's Service Rev. J. K. NettlelPid 'Reason and Life' A. MacC. Armstrong Jacobean Intelligence Peter Quennell Alan Hodge...

situation in South Africa, will applaud the aims of the Capricorn Africa Society `to establish a society free from all racial discrimination [and] capable of enriching itself...

SIR,—I am making a study of Religious Sym- pathy and Tolerance and should be grateful for the use of your columns to seek from your readers any examples—preferably from their...

Sia,—It is a pity that in his article (March 30) Mr. Hollis used the four Gospels so indis- criminately. is this due to the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus of 1893 in which...

SIR,—In reviewing Sr. Marfas's book Reason and Life Mr. J. W. N. Watkins seems hardly to have realised that the author was setting out to show why we in our age need to...

SIR,—In your issue of March 30 we are flattered to notice that you have devoted some three inches of your valuable space to a selec- tion of extracts taken from an article on...

Dodos and After TILE MULBERRY BUSH. By Angus Wilson. (Royal Court.)—TFIE COMEDY OF ERRORS. By William Shakespeare. Adapted by Lionel Harris and Robert McNab. (Arts.) ANGUS...

I SUGGESTED in my previous article that Josef Herman's images of human labour (and I do not count him a Social Realist as the title of the notice stated) were beginning to...

A TROUPE of about two dozen French African Negroes appear, under the title Les Ballets Africains, at the Palace Theatre in a bill of song, dance and music by several odd...

SPIVS. (Cinephone.) — RACE FOR LIFE. (Academy.)—SCARLET AND BLACK. (Paris- Pullman.) MOST of the week's films come from foreign parts, and the best of them comes from Italy. I...

APRIL 9, 1831 PAOANINI'S PAY.-It is said that one of , the concerts given at the Opera in Paris, by Signor Paganini, produced him I6,500f. An amateur has made the following...

IN the days before I married I used to go away as frequently as possible, and, with my bank manager's warmest approval, to stay with friends for the weekend. Since marriage my...

Sir Robert Walpole BY L. B. NAMIER T WO themes run through the' book, intertwining as they must : the pattern of politics and the life-work of the man whose term of office as...

BY OLIVER EDWARDS G ERMAN poetry is one of the richest parts of the national heritage, though from the wish-wash served up in The Oxford Book of German Verse it might scarcely...

APPROACHES TO GOD. By Jacques Maritain. (Allen and Unwin, 8s. 6d.) THE NEW MAN, CHRISTIANITY AND MAN'S COMING OF AGE. By R. Gregor Smith. (S.C.M. Press, 10s. 6d.) CHRIST AND THE...

CONSERVATISM IN AMERICA. By Clinton Rossiter. (Heinemann, 21s.) WHEN American writers get on to a topic there are always so many of them that the result is like an avalanche....

and transport; but, later, she was obliged to confess that her father had decided that for a 'young female' to visit a literary recluse, despite the fact that he was blind,...

FROM Dorm TO MARVELL. Edited by Boris Fo i rd. (Pelican Books, 3s. 6d.) THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT HERRICK. Edited by L. C. Martin. (Clarendon Press, £3 3s.) FOLLOWING The Age...

As Monica Hutchings takes us along the meandering Dorset .7iver. the Stour, she herself keeps up a steady flow of conversa- on. At least so it seems, for her writing is...

FOUR out of five books on Africa are sheer grind. Father Huddleston's book, by contrast, although it is about human misery and frustration and despair, is sheer joy. This has...

CARLOTA—THE STORY OF CHARLOTTE AND MAXIMILIAN OF MEXICO. By Princess Bibesco. (Heinemann, 13s. 6d.) CARLOTA is subtitled 'A Historical Romance,' but there was nothing...

To SEA IN A SIEVE. By Peter Bull. (Peter Davies, 15s.) The difference between the best type of British naval war memoir and the average German one is to be found in the opening...

A GUIDE TO EARTH HISTORY. By Richard Carrington. (Chatto and Windus, 21s.) OFFHAND, I can think of no book which covers more detail in less space than this one. It starts with...

lively and literate detective-story writer—as it might be Mr. Symons—takes a job at a 'progressive' school to get 'material.' Author and character, between them, dredge up an...

10s. 6d.) Don't be put off by the ill-drawn wrapper ; this is a highly intelligent, light thriller, with a brilliantly ingenious motive for a curious crime, and some apt and...

and fifty pages for half a guinea seems short Measure, but it's interesting to see ,London in general, and the Savoy in particular, through Maigret's eyes : does the Metro-...

There have been fictional murders at Oxford, Cambridge and (I seem to remember) Bletchley Universities; here, surely for the first time, is murder at a Dublin University located...

12s. 6d.) A more successful, if less sophisticated, attempt than Mr. Robinson's to yoke satire and the sinister, is this tale of a simple soul of a reporter who goes native in...

Also set in Yorkshire, also very sensible, matter-of-fact, and near to life as we know it, but this time by somebody who knows police procedure as Mr. Grierson knows the circuit...

collection of fifteen English short stories gives shorter measure for a higher price. But Julian Symons is in superb form here, with his seedy little tale of pen-friends, and...

The detective is called Autumn; the college porter, Tantalum. There is a reporter by name of Bum, which—and whom—I find it hard to forgive the author (himself a journalist) ,...

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. By Ian Fleming. (Cape, 12s. 6d.) WE all think that we could write a good thriller if we tried; and when, four years ago, Mr. Fleming published his first...

THE SECOND MAN. By Edward Grierson. (Chatto and Windus, 13s. 6d.) It's difficult to see how, or by whom, this tale could be bettered, of a woman barrister who worries away, in...

6d.) Twice as much reading for only another three bob— and the extra value isn't only in the number of pages. Of the two short novels here, one is a hypnotic account of a murder...

6d.) Nineteen short stories of crime and detection, in which an English writer, Michael Gilbert, shows up especially well with a neat, light tale of police ferreting, and...

WELFARE workers, club organisers and the police will testify that if more boys could be coaxed into the boxing ring there would be far less juvenile crime; in fact, if the young...

PHILIP CALLOW'S The Hosanna Man (Cape, 13s. 6d.) reminds Me of Lawrence : the young Lawrence of The White Peacock. There is something about this first novel of the same...

By CUSTOS THE long Easter account on the Stock Exchange ended on Tuesday with a firm undertone but no liveliness, except in oil shares. The favourable Budget out-turn- with a...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT THE next round of wage claims is approach- ing. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers have resolved, at their annual conference, not to stand...

light hatever the diary says about sunset and ? it irtg-up time, the rooks take account of 1 1 w i n, th in gs as they actually are. I found myself walking home the other...

of stable or other manure in an old stern that has been filled with water. One can =, varying dilutions for all sorts of things in garden. It is particularly good for helping...

BY IAN NIALL ONE reads from time to time of the efforts Made to acquire land and create new wild-life s anctuaries, which, from almost every point of view, are a most...

about N t i '°sity in hens,' says Mr. W. A, Evershed, of g ereford. 'Among the first half-dozen we !equired after our return from India was a ol e looking, very large White...

BY PHILIDOR. No. 44. IL WEENINK WHITE (6 men) to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to last week's problem by Kt-Q 2. 1 P-B 4; 2 B-Kt 7. Occasionally...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 318 Report by W. May Byron Competitors were invited to imagine that, as an anti-inflationary measure, advertising agencies have been asked to reduce...

Some time ago, American college men protested against the definition of the word 'journalistic' in Webster's Dictionary 'Characteristic of journalism or journalists; hence, of...

ACROSS 1 Literary definition of where the shoe- maker should stick (4, 4, 4). 9 A green patch, where much is in- tended? (9) 10 'Though the dull perplexes and re- tards'...

DUNKLLY, 8 The Crescent, Northampton, and the Rev. H. J. LANS SMITH, 48 Cornmcadow Lane, Worcester.