Portrait of the Week
Meanwhile, the negotiations are being followed with anxiety in both Western and Eastern Germany, where the not entirely happy coincidence of the opening of the conference with the tenth anniversary of Potsdam has not been missed (as The Times coyly remarked, 'The calendar can still play some impish tricks'). Dr. Adenauer has stated that a European security system based on a divided Germany would be unacceptable, and the only section of opinion that prepared .to accept the prospect is represented by Herr Grotewohl, who has remarked that it would be 'an effective measure for the pacification of Europe,' a point of view in which he and the Daily Express seem to concur. The only other notable reaction hai been a benediction from New Delhi, where Mr. Nehru has been busy congratulating himself on his recent world tour. He is'reported to have said : 'In a way I was a messenger of peace in every country I toured.' What a pity the itinerary did not include Pakistan.
Peace-making has little part in the news from North Africa. Casablanca, that Chicago of the Maghreb, has provided a startling demonstration of the fact that the French government is rather less than in control of its own police forces in the protectorate. The European mobs who insulted the new French Resident-General on the steps of the cathedral seem to have gone too far even for the right of the French chamber, and the inactivity of the police when it was merely a qu'estion of the lynching of one or two Moroccans may prove to be their down- fall when the corpus delicti was that of M. Grandval. Taking the rest of the news from revolting colonies, M. Ngo Dinh Diem has put the signatories of the first Geneva agreement on the spot by refusing to consult with the Northern Vietnamese government about possible elections throughout the country, and nine Cypriot youths have been arrested under the new emergency law introduced recently in the colony. Dr. Nkrumah has lost a by-election to the National Liberation in Ashanti, and the newly fledged government of Singapore has threatened to resign as a result of a conflict of opinion with the governor e the colony.
Elsewhere, President Peron has resolved to choose liberty, a process heralded by an attack on him and his police forces published in La Nacion. It remains to be seen whether his perseverance in the straight and narrow path will be proof against this provocation on the part of a free press. North of the Rio Grande Generals Ridgway and Taylor have been having another agonising reappraisal over American defence policy. Flexibility seems to be the keyword which, as everyone knows, is an excellent thing for defence forces to have, and there is now some doubt about how large a steamhammer the USA needs to crush how small a gnat. In China a well-known writer, Hu Feng, and a deputy. Pan Han-nien, haye been arrested for, counter-revolutionary activities. On the other hand, Cardinal Mindszenty has been released in Hungary, a step thought not to be unconnected with the Geneva conference.
In Britain news has been scanty as the country has basked in a heat-wave. The national weather cycle had not been inter- rupted in this way for some time, and the British Travel Association is already issuing denials that London rain and fog are no longer what they were. The town of Weymouth has been inundated and a number of people struck by lightning in various parts of the country. We have learned this week that the Council for Moral and Social Hygiene disapproves of the activities of the Royal Army Medical Corps. The Salk vaccine is not to be tested in this country, and Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd is. For coal still provides the main talking-point for anyone concerned to prophesy doom and destruction, and the FBI and Mr. Arthur Horner have been making the best of a bad job.
The main sporting item this week was the breaking of the British all-corners' record for the steeplechase by J. I. Disley in spite of the heat. At Lord's the Gentlemen were defeated by the Players by twenty runs, and at Ascot Vimy won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. General news includes the first test flight of the Folland Gnat, a conference on the history of the theatre in London, and a plan for racing fully rigged sailing ships from Torbay to Lisbon. A radio- active cobblestone has been discovered in the pavement at Huy in Belgium, though the precise significance of this has so far escaped observers. In the same country an operatic tenor has swallowed his moustache while singing Boito's Mefistofele, an accident which, it is reliably reported, has only happened once before. It has been a big week in Belgium.
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