A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK 0 NE of the events not only
of the cricket year but of the Parliamentary year is the dinner regularly given, with great generosity, by Sir Stanley Holmes. National Liberal M.P. for Harwich, to the year's visiting Dominion team and a notable company of Ministers, back- benchers and British cricketers, including always Sir Pelham Warner (who alleges, with patent mendacity, that he is now 77). When Sir Stanley entertained the South Africans at the House on Tuesday it was just thirty years since he gave his first cricket dinner—to Armstrong's Australian XI. Tuesday's function might have been slightly tense, in"view of the imminence of a division which looked like being much closer than in the end it was, and the Prime Minister, who was winding-up the debate. could not stay to propose the health of the guests, as he cus- tomarily does. In his absence, that duty fell on the Home Secretary. Most great cricketers are conspicuously modest about their outstanding achievements, but Mr. Ede gloried openly. over having once batted for an hour and a half for 0, not out—a reminiscence which elicited from the South African captain the comment: "I wish we'd known about him earlier. He's just the sort of chap we've been wanting." Mr. Ede having further indi- cated his determination to get the House up before the Oval Test Match, Mr. Harold Macmillan expressed the benevolent hope that the Home Secretary would enjoy the five days there—in his retirement. An evening when everything went right (down- stairs, if not up, where Tshekedi was being debated).
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