SIR,-May I congratulate you on the critical tone of your leader of November 2, in which, with great moderation, you suggest that the timing, and indeed the nature, of the...

Letters to the Editor TIhe Vialley of Decision Christophlr Hollis, Alinabel 14"illiamuis-lflis, Revu. Victor H. lBeaton, C. Al. B0owi'en, Dr. Al. E. Lampurd, P. Bateman and...

SIR,-I entircly agree with the views expressed in your very fair and balanced article 'The Valley of Decision.' Thcre is only one thing I should like to add and that is that...

SIR,-XWC, whose aillm is to presCIve anmong young men in Our sixth forms a regard for honesty of mind and clarity of thought, find our country committed to these propositions:...

SIR,-As regards your leader 'Thc Valley of Decision' we ought to bear in mind the extreme danger of US policy (both to herself and to others) Which Must 1aVC intluenced the...

SIR,-If we had been sincere in wanting to decfend the Sucz Canal, and not merely to possess it, we should have thrown a cordon across the Sinai Peninsula. One would not defend...

New Novels AMATEUR author-lecturers who make a practice of referring to the novel as an 'art form' and to novelists (including by implication themselves) as 'creative artists'...

On the Spot THEY SAW IT HAPPEN: An Anthology of Eye-witnesses' Accounts of Events in British History, 1485-1688, By C. R. N. Routh. (Blackwell, 15s.) 'IT may perhaps be...

ALLIANCE INTELLIGENCE MAJORITY OF AUSTRALIAN opinion is summed up in the typical digger phrase 'Good on you, mate.'-Sunday Graphic, November 4. NEWSPAPER 'QUIZZES' show...

AMERICAN REACTIONS BY J. GRIMOND, MP THERE is no one opinion in America on political events any more than there is in this country. Further, any one individual such as myself...

Munich and Suez BY DESMOND DONNELLY, MP T HEN there was Munich. I am sure that you will understand that we don't like discussing that.' Those words were said to me two years...

A Man on Rockall PINCHER MARTIN. By William Golding. (Faber, lSs.) -9 PINCHER MARTIN is a naval officer who, after the torpedoing °' his ship, drifts aimlessly about in the...

Fan's Eye View TI1E SWEET SCIENCE. By A. J. Liebling. (Gollancz, 1 8s.) MOST books about boxing are either written by the fighters themselves, usually in the days of...

Gertrude Bell DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT. By Josephine Kamm. I (The Bodley Head, lOs. 6d.) THIS is the biography of that remarkable Englishwoman, Gertrude Bell, written in a...

THEI1 MANNER ofl Mr. AnIhony NUtliL g's resignation from oflice raises sonIe nliteresting questiois olf political protocol. Mr. NuLtting lianded in his resignation on October...

TO MEET. Dwight Macdonald looks like a less cadaverous .- . . - I .1 . . . . . . . younger brother of Uncle Sam. Nobody being talked to by so benign a character could believe...

WIIFN I \VR(OVI: aboult A. P. Wadsworth hecre ia fortnight ago I k new, thiat iC waS VCF)r ill; 11nd likc evelyonel else who paid tribute to him then oln his retirement from...

HAVING BEEN imuch abused by stern moralists for even atdnmit- . . I I . .. - . . ting that 'rock 'n' roll' had me tapping my feet far less defending it, I felt much relieved to...

IROMI A IABLE. inI 111auIsrtI givillng tile Ii iinibcr of'n flllndeis durinl', .~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 7 the last tive years I see that, in the thirlecii months belfore tihc IlaSt...

A Spectator's Notebook 1 J1.1 1k V UIlo I 1h Timetis on tILleCSdly froli0 Lords JPortal, Alexainder m id ( m I it,-i I m ill raised a (liflicilIt mnoral probicll. which ort...

'SOUND, MONEY' AND THE EISENHOWER BOOM BY NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IF the averaVe Aerican was ignorant or ti foolish enouLh in this election to divorce b his own secuirity from...

COMPANY NOTES BY CUSTOS Tise fortunes of the battlefield in Egypt could be followed in the hourly moves in oil shares on the Stock Exchange, but generally speaking there has...

Country Life BY IAN NIALL T"F boys of the lower village are more resourceful than those who live higher up. I ani afraid. They built a bigger and better bonfire on which to...

CAULIFLOWERS Frost sometimes defeats the grower of cauliflowers at the end of the season. A remedy is to lift the plants with a good amount of earth at the root and to lay them...

THIi KNOCKER-UP One supposes that a truly expert knocker-up was one who suffered from some form of insomnia. I often used to wonder who knocked the knocker-up up. Perhaps he...

DOUBLE DILEMMA 'A two-headed calf never comes to nothin',' said the sage, 'because of a simple fact. It can never make up its mind what teat to suck and which mouth's to have...

Back to the Cry ? THE FABER BOOK OF MODERN AMERICAN VERSE. Edited by W. H. I Auden . (Faber, 21s.) POPTRY Now. Edited by G. S. Fraser. (Faber, 15s.) WFHEN The Poet's...

THE SCENE IN CYPRUS BY PETER BENENSON A thens THinERE is no more succinct summary of the mixture of Ru ritanian farce and Draconian terror prevailing on Cyprus since the...

Political Commentary By CHARLES CURRAN I T is far too soon yet for anything like a final estimate. . For the full story of Suez has still to be made public. Hesitations there...

PRESIDENT WITHOUT PARTY Tiia American election has turned out as expected-in the victory of Mr. Eisenhower and in the defeat of his party. Pi-obably a healthy Mr. Eisenhower...

WHIPS AND SCORPIONS W HAT seem to be the last flames of Hungary's present W struggle for freedom are still flickering as we write. As the ill-armed citizens of Budapest are...

Portrait of the Week IT has been a week of wildly fluctuating hopes and fears, constant anxiety, tension and anger. The mood was set during the censure debate in the House of...

A Modern Parable T1111 GOOD WOMAN OF SETILUAN. By Bertolt Brecht. (Royal Court.) SEARCHING for al good woman, the gods find her earning her living as a prostitute in...

Missionaries and Others No journal would claim, I think, to have found a perfect solution of the problem of television criticism. Looked at from one angle television is merely...

BO OKS . . .~~~. A Lot of Learning BY A. J. AYER HROUGHOUT these essays* Mr. Huxley is very much himself. And by this I mean his conscious verbalising self: I know nothing of...

City and Suburban B3y JOHN BETJEMAN I HAVE no shame in filling this column, at a time when all our human and political passions are stirred, with the usual matter I put in...

ALL AT SEA SIR,-l have just read Mr. Alan Bullock's review of Lord Strang's book Home and Abroad in your issue of October 5 with much interest. Lord Strang appears to have...

DRIBERG ON BURGESS SIR,-I was somewhat surprised- by Pharos's description of Mr. Driberg's articles about Guy Burgess as 'flat.' The story was, of course, unfortunate in thc...

Contemporary Arts High Sea THe BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE. (Odeon, Leicester Square.) - THE GRASSHOPPER. (Everyman, Hampstead.) - UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS. (London...

THE FIRST RISING SIR,-Your correspondent Ian Fraser appears to be one of the nco-Calvinists whose feelings are all of guilt and a shallow sentimentalism. 'We,' he says, think...

Hungary and Europe BY HUGH SETON-WATSON T WO weeks ago, for the first time in history, a nation overthrew a totalitarian regime. Unlike mere dictatorship, of which thousands...

A lRIIND of miine recently gave Ine two cxamples of skilful adaptation of Iraditional nonienclaturc to political necessity. Waiting in Athens airport for the plane to Istanbul...

The Irrelevance of Israel By ELIE KEDOURIE T HE military action at Suez has been officially justified by the necessity of keeping the peace between Egypt and Israel. But it is...

Anxious Week RAYMOND MASON, who is showing sculpture and drawings at the Beaux Arts Gallery, is an enigmatic artist and I found myself being reminded of the painter Fuseli....

A Whale MOBY DICK. (Warner.) THROUGH the windows of the SpOLIter Inn, Ishmael observes a sombre figure limping along the street; aboard the Pequod the hollow rap of unseen...

'Spanish and Russian Tisb three dance attractions oin view in Londoll last week were, in different ways, a denial of the conventions on which the ballet of OUr time rests. The...

Beacons and Bulletins O N the 19th they were off the Lizard, where the captain of a Scottish privateer named Heming saw I nthem, and hastened to Plymouth with the intelligence....

Scatacracks TIHE PI-I(ENIX 1300K OF MODERN AmERICAN 1IUMOUR. Edited M ichael Barsley. (Phoenix House, 12s. 6d.) Till SATURDAY EVENING Posi HumouR. Edited by John Bail-...

Sea-Drifts of Lilc THE OPEN SEA. By Alistair Hardy. (Collins Ncw Naturalist Scrics. 30s.) THE editors of a book who say they believe it to be lic greatest general work on the...

Deep Damnation I THE ASSASSINS OF AMERICAN PRESIDENTS. By Robert J. Donova0' (Elek, 21s.) MR. DONOVAN has written a lively and useful book. We owe it to a suggestion made by...

SHIRKING THE ISSUE BY DARSIE GILLIE Paris A WEEK after the Franco-British ultimatum to Egypt and Israel there had still been no serious debate in France about its rights and...

Apes, Giants and Men \IL ETING PREHISTORIC MAN. By G. 1H. R. von KoenigsWald' (Thames and Hudson, 21s.) [i-iis year, the centenary of the finding of the first example Of...