6 FEBRUARY 1953

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THE FUTURE OF CENTRAL AFRICA In particular it would appear

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that certain changes from the original conception of a Native Affairs Board have not in any way weakened it as an instrument for the protection of African interests. There seems...

The North Sea, whipped up to-gfury by gales and spring

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tides has reclaimed for itself some of the English, Dutch and Belgian land which clever engineering had won and had guarded by strong sea-walls. The Low Countries have had by...

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The Refugee Danger

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At well over 1,000 persons a day, the refugee movement into West Berlin from the east hai passed the danger mark. At first this influx looked like a local and temporary diffi-...

The Russian Puzzle

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The Soviet spy-hunt continues to develop along expected lines, but two features of the meagre information emanating from the Soviet Press are worthy of remark. Firstly, although...

Where Mr. Butler Stands Tuesday's debate may not have told

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the House of Commons very much about the recent Commonwealth Economic Conference, which was supposed to be under review, but it told it some very useful things about the...

The Other Place

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The debate on Lord Simon's proposal, in the House of Lords on Tuesday, that the Queen should be empowered to create about ten life peers, of either sex, annually (did anyone...

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AT WESTMINSTER

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3k * * * The storms have been a terrible theme and their impact upon the House of Commons has been direct. Sir Walter Smiles, the Member for North Down, was drowned when the...

Over-solicitude for Farmers

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The caution, not to say apprehension, with which the National Farmers' Union received the Government's recent decisions to ease the controls on eggs, feeding-stuffs and cereals...

Mayan's Justice

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The British Commonwealth of Nations is the loosest and least demanding of associations, but even so it is incredible to think that the Government of any country even nominally...

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THE PRESIDENT'S POLICIES

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p RESIDENT EISENHOWER'S Message to Congress on the State of the Union was an interesting mixture. So, apparently, was its reception. The Press of the United States is...

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Cambridge is a good deal stirred by discussions on the

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creation of a third women's college, or some temporary half-way house to that. The arguments in favour are strong. To limit the women to a total of five hundred undergraduates...

It is not very clear how much satisfaction Liberals feel

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they got from their discussions with Mr. Churchill on electoral reform on Tuesday. It is fairly safe to predict that they will not get much electoral reform. The case for it, of...

Mr. Bevan, with all If is defects, does not often

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lose sight of common decency as completely as he did in the discussion on the flood disaster in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Here was something almost unprecedented in...

There is always a certain- satisfaction in a verdict given

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by the courts against the Crown, not by reason of any prejudice or antagonism against the Crown, but as a demonstration of the complete independence of the judiciary from the...

" The Tribune, an admirably edited paper, moderate in tone

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and intelligent in comment. . . . " The New Statesman. But it seems to be a paper of that name in Kenya: such qualities no doubt flower better there. JANUS.

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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I T would seem almost incredible that so terrible a disaster as the foundering of the ' Princess Victoria,' with the loss of 134 liyes, actually in sight of land, should be...

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The Federation Plan

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By VERNON BARTLETT A FTER a month of discussion in Carlton House Terrace the delegates to the Central African Conference have completed their plan for the federation of the two...

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Little Old New Amsterdam

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By D. W. BROGAN HIS week New York is celebrating its third centenary, not indeed as a community, but as an incorporated municipality. As is right, stress is being laid on the...

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Refugees for Ever?

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By BARBARA CASTLE, M.P. W E drove from Jericho in sunshine which was hot for January even in the Middle East, and the camp, which lay two miles away, looked shabby against the...

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Prisons Without Bars

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By R. DUNCAN FAIRN* I UST before the last war the Governor of a Borstal institu- tion astonished the lads in his charge by telling them that, instead of being marched in fours...

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At Sixty-five

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By D. C. SOMERVELL,_ T HERE are a great many posts from which the occupant is compulsorily retired at sixty-five, and it occurred to me to wonder how things would have gone if...

Sunday

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Down the avenue des Gobelins between the trees A marble statue leads me by the hand Today it is Sunday all the cinemas overflow The birds sit high in the branches and watch the...

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UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

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The Sorcerer's Apprentice By PETER BLOCKEY (University of Edinburgh) T HE bread-and-butter machine stood at the far end of the long counter, against the wall, on a large table...

Vie pertator, februarp 5tb, 1853

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ALLSOPP'S PALE OR BITTER ALE The unanimous opinion or the most eminent scientific and Medical Men of the day, of Baron Liebig, Messrs. Graham, Hofmann, Muspratt, Watson, Budd,...

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MUSIC

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Verdi and Schubert. • " Tun pace and manner of dancing the tango vary considerably with the nationality of the dancers; and one would hardly recognise in our staid though still...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS

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THEATRE MR. MAUGHAM'S dry satirical comedy revives exceedingly well. While the passage of time from its first production in 1930 has inevitably dated its more superficial...

Vienna

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The khaki soldier loitering in the street yeplaces Baedeker's light-hearted crowd, The squares are paved with memories of defeat, Nostalgia fills the opera like a cloud. The...

Sonnet

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From the Spanish of Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola (1559-1613) Bearing her vineleaves after her, October Has gone and, haughty with the great-rains now, Ebro will neither bridge...

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ART

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Abstracts and Others. WITH the Institute of Contemporary Arts' exhibition of " opposing forces " we are back in the anarchic atmosphere of Dada and auto- matism. An " adventure...

Snake

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(A poem without an S.) Into her dream Let him but come Curling, coiling, calling, " Virgin, Eve, my darling, " Feel within you the Tree, " The ripening of your heart, " Know...

CINEMA

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Le Plaisir. (Studio One.)—Plymouth Adventure. (Empire.)— Military Policemen. (Plaza.) THREE stories by Guy de Maupassant, Le Masque, La Maison Tellier and Le Modele have been,...

TO ENSURE REGULAR RECEIPT OF

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THE SPECTATOR readers are urged to place a firm order with their news- agent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as...

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Sporting Aspects

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RUGBY FOR ALL By J. P. W. MALLALIEU ti; HE split ! " I had gone to a football match, but I thought: " Oh, goodness ! They are talking politics." But my neighbours were talking...

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SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 156

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Set by John Barlow The usual prizes are o f fered for groups ofOur " Short-Clerihews " on painters, writers, composers, actors and actresses, politicians, or other public...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 153 Report by Richard Usborne I don't

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think much of the entrants as parodists. Ivor Brown's paronomasia, Harold Hobson's Parisian Equation—yes, yes. But I'd have said that both of them had other prehensible...

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Sia,—I am positively disgusted and I know that many people

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are also in reading the comments of Janus in your issue of January' 30th. How easy it is to go with unintelligent clamour and cry, " Release Barabbas," as of old. While he...

of the police service " (my italics). Surely this means

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that the Home-Secretary is the last man in the world who should decide the - fate of anyone involved in the killing 'of a policeman ?—Yours faithfully, DEREK HUDSON. Westwood,...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Bentley SIR.—Janues comment on the execution of 13entley reflects the first impression of many fair-minded people: he didn't shoot; the other boy is too young to hang; he...

Africans and Democracy Sta.—Haying devoted the whole of my professional

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life to the service of the African population of South Africa, I was interested in the point of view advanced by Oguagha (Spectator, January 9th) regarding the causes of the Mau...

Snt,—In your editorial notes last week you - rightly drew

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attention to the political progress made in the Gold Coast and -Nigeria and to the fact that in West Africa racial problems are much less intrusive than in East. Lord....

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The Coronation Oath

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Sue,—Dr. Sykes now asserts that from 1689 to 1937 the promise to maintain the Protestant Reformed religion established by law " applied to England, not to Scotland, for the...

Indians in Fast Africa

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SIR,—I would like to congratulate Mr. D. V. Tahmankar, whose letter on Indians in East Africa you have published in your valuable journal of January 30th, on bringing to the...

The Nairobi Demonstration

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Sut,—I seek the hospitality of your columns to correct the unfortunate impression made by incorrect reporting of the meeting of Kenya settlers outside Government House, Nairobi....

Women in the Ministry

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Sut,—In the Spectator of January 16th Lady Pakenham describes " backward areas where anti-feminism still lurks," but she entirely omits equal ministry in the Church of England...

A Spectator Puzzle

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It seems to me—perhaps to you— We ought to know a thing or two About this super-man who wrecks All other entrants' hope of cheques. Whate'er the competition set, He's sure the...

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The Cadgers One of the most ramshackle old lorries I

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have ever seen turned into the road that goes up to R's farm. It stopped while one of the passengers got down to open the gate. He was a jaunty character with a black hat on the...

The Hotbed Seedlings can be raised in good time by

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use of a hotbed and frame. Use straw and horse-manure, and see that the mixture is thoroughly moistened. Spread the bed on rubble to cover an area slightly greater than that of...

Hedging

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Among all the crafts of the countryside a fine bit of thatching or hedging pleases me most. A newly thatched rick, when the job is well done, is a most satisfying sight,...

Farmers' Debate Rain streamed down the windows of the little

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café in the Merioneth town, and I sat listening to an animated discussion between two groups of farmers. The subject I had thought to be Government and agricul- tural committees...

COUNTRY LIFE

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A YEAR or two ago, when I last dared to look up one of the bedroom- chimneys usually selected by the jackdaws as a nesting-place, I brought down a quantity of debris that...

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK

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"Babble-Tongue" - THE enormous popularity which the writings of Macaulay/once enjoyed seems in recent times to have declined 'greatly. How many people nowadays can remember the...

The Middle East

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THE latest volume of the Chatham House Survey for the war years deals with the political developments of the Middle Eastern region (from Afghanistan to Morocco), which are...

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Resurgat

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The Easter Party. By V. Sackville-West. (Michael Joseph. 10s. 6d.) EVERY novel written by a poet is in one sense an allegory. If it moves him as a poet—and he has no business...

- To Italy—By Aeroplane

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An Italian Visit. By C. Day Lewis. (Jonathan Cape. 7s. 6d.) Tins will do. It is not what I like. I have lived all my life with a different kind of poetry ; and I am not going to...

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Ichabod !

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The Disinherited Mind. By Erich Heller. (Bowes and Bowes. 18s.) " THE consciousness of life's increasing depreciation "—that is the theme of Professor Heller's book, which would...

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Roman Catholics and the Bible

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A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture. (Nelson. 84s.) THE Reformation is popularly supposed to have left the Christian West divided into two camps, appealing to the authority...

Metaphors and Language .

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PHILOLOGY may well be described as the " gay science," for it combines fact, speculation and fanciful uncertainties in pleasant proportion. The laws of Grimm and Verner may be...

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Fiction

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Restless House. By Emile Zola. With an introduction by Angus Wilson. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 12s. 6d.) Modern Greek Folktales. Chosen and translated by R. M. Dawkins. (Oxford...

In next week's "Spectator" C. M. Woodhouse will review "Tito

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Speaks" by Vladimir Dedijer ; Enid Starkie "Et mine =net in te" by Andre Gide; Derek Hudson "The White Knight" by A. L. Taylor; and the Astronomer-Royal "Astronomy for Everyman".

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Clear the Decks! 13y Rear-Admiral Daniel V. Gallery, U.S.N. (Harrap.

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12s. 6d.) ADMIRAL GALLERY writes with engaging gusto of his war experiences in command of, first, the U.S. Navy's air-base in Iceland and, later, the Guadacanal, one of the...

Fantasy and Fun. A Collection of Children's Art, Poetry and

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Prose. Collected Anony- mously. (Forbes Robertson. 12s. 6d.) A SMALL school of forty to seventy pupils has yielded here eighty pages of verse and prose, with a number of...

Shorter Notices

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Prompt Copy : The Brough Story. By Jean Webster-Brough. (Hutchinson. 15s.) FOR those who enjoy a whiff of old-fashioned grease-paint or a game of theatrical Happy Families Miss...

God and the Unconscious. By Victor White, O.P. With a

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Foreword by C. G. Jung. (Harvill Press. 21s.) THIS series of reprinted essays and addresses is a substitute for a book unwritten. Its purpose is to reconcile Jungian psychology...

MUCH the most interesting part of this book is that

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in which General Blumentrift, Rundstedt's former Chief of Staff, writes from first-hand knowledge. His account of the German preparations to meet an Allied landing in the West...

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Solution to Crossword No. 714 Solution on February 20

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The winner of Crossword No. 714 is: S. ENGLAND, Esq., Latyther's School, London, N.9.

THE " SPECTATOR" CROSSWORD No. 716

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[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, February 17th. addressed Crossword, 99 Cower Street,...

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FINANCE AND INVESTMENT

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By CUSTOS FOLLOWING the news of the widespread floods the markets became subdued on Monday, and the effect was accentuated later by concern about the withdrawal of the American...