Portrait of the Week— IN A WHITE PAPER on the
state of affairs in Nyasaland, the Governor gave a lot more details about the alleged massacre plot. Where he had got them from he didn't let on. In Rhodesia, Mr. Clutton-Brock was let out. In Tibet revolution was let loose. In the Harrow and Belfast by- elections the Tories were let in.
[TIE GOVERNMENT WHITE PAPER on Nyasaland quoted a reference to violence in the proceedings of the Accra conference of African nationalists, and by failing to mention that this was inserted for Algeria's sake, suggested that it pledged support to that well-known Presbyterian partisan, the bloodthirsty Dr. Banda. No reference was made to the goings-on at Blantyre. Disclosure of sources, the Governor wrote. 'would not be in the public interest,' but 'subsequent information' was 'of comparable reliability.' No doubt. In Southern Rhodesia, public . °Pinion, abroad and at home, constraincd Sir Edgar Whitehead to withdraw the Preventive Detention Bill and to announce the release of Mr. Guy Clutton-Brock and fifty African detainees. Others are still imprisoned, and untried, and there is to be another Bill. Mean- while Mr. Lennox-Boyd has announced the creation df a commission of inquiry into recent events in Nyasaland headed by Mr. Justice Devlin.
*
IN A FAMILIAR-SOUNDING PHRASE, Mr. Macmillan described his meetings with President Eisenhower as 'the best conference we have ever had.' He was so taken with the idea of a summit meeting that he not only talked the White House into it, but has now adopted Senator Fulbright's idea of hav- ing one every six months. Meeting the Com- munists made less appeal to the Tibetans, who revolted against their Chinese occupiers; the Dalai Lama was reported safe. Mr. Suslov, the third most powerful man in the Soviet Union, visited Manchester, the third most populous English provincial city : it rained.
FOUR RIDERS FINISHED the Grand National course out of thirty-four starters; the race was described by the League Against Cruel Sports as 'a disgust- ing, bloody circus,' and by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals as no dif- ferent from any other Grand National. The British Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Horses decided 'to ask the Home Secretary to ban the race, and Mrs. Topham, chairman of the lessors of the course, was sorry for the Home Secretary being pestered by people who didn't know what they were talking about : casualties had been high because the going had been good.
*
TALKS between the ETU and the employers over the strike .at the Morris Commercial factory at Birmingham broke down after the president of the union spoke to the non-union man whose employment had led to the strike and came to the conclusion that 'he is anti-social.' Half a million signatures were on the petition to the House of Commons to perpetuate the copyright of Gilbert's share in the Savoy operas. The Minister of Transport prophesied that road con- gestion at Easter would be 'the worst in our history,' and Siamese twins were separated.
*
TRAPPED UNDERGROUND for forty-six hours in a crevice in the Peak District, an Oxford University potholer, Neil Moss, died on Tuesday morning.
Previous page
