T HE Government will certainly survive the loss of Mr. Thorneycroft and the two Secretaries to the Treasury, just as it survived the loss of Lord Salisbury, but Mr. Macmillan,...

SPECTATOR ESTABLISHED 1828 - NUMBER 6759 - FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 1958 - PRICE NINEPENCE

T HE only comment available in London about the Foreign Secretary's lunch last Tuesday with the Soviet Ambassador was that it was not a consequence of Mr. Macmillan's helpful...

T HOSE who lament that men with the highest professional qualifications are turning away from government into industry might ponder a moral. We would never have got English...

COLDER WEATHER with sunny intervals and showers will spread to all districts by about midday.—Sunday Times, January 5. WARMER WEATHER is on the way and had already reached some...

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT W ITH effect from January 1, 1958, the mini- mum wage level for African workers in commerce and industry in Southern Rhodesia was raised from £4 155. 6d....

By RICHARD H. ROVERE New York T HE President maintains what has almost every appearance of being a busy schedule. He sees Congressmen, eminent foreigners, YMCA leaders, old...

`GOOD GOD,' said Mr. Birch, when he was told the news of Dr. Dalton's resignation, 'they've shot down to wait, the earth spun our fox.' The patient fox settled round three or...

LAST TUESDAY'S LETTER in The Times from Lord Salisbury dealing with Cyprus seems to me an extraordin- ary performance. Quite apart from the mandarin language in which it was...

The Times's, I fancy that all the newspapers blushed—or if they did not, they °light to have. Here was a major political crisis, which had blown up in full view of the political...

was that their NAAFI tea was doped to secure a placid switchover from civilian life. I am interested to see from the Ger- man Communist paper Leipziger Volkszeitung that this...

was as childish as we have come to expect. Mrs. Barbara Castle attributed it on television to Mr. Thorneycroft's desire to escape before the Bank Rate Tribunal report is...

chances if I had not read this in the News Chronicle on Monday: Young electors will play a major part [in the Rochdale by-election]. Manchester Young Liberals will send 250...

by Mr. Julian Symons about the Metro-Vick trial, which caused such a sensation at the time. It will be remembered that false confessions were extorted from a number of British...

own casualty list,' a truculent correspondent in- formed the Spectator recently, but I wonder whether—now that 'City and Suburban' is to be with us no more—he will not come to...

UP LIVERPOOL BAN Fifty-eight of the 140 dogs rounded up during the last two days by police since the introduction of a ban on strays imposed as a result of the outbreak of foot...

that many much-criticised British and American statesmen in recent years were sick men rather than guilty men (Woodrow Wilson after 1918, Chamberlain in 1939, Roosevelt at...

By ALEC VIDLER T HERE is a cleavage, unacknowledged and in- deed obscure, between those who suppose that the Church or Churches can survive more or less as they are and those...

was discussing, last week, the ethics of anonymous reviewing, I did not mention one of the arguments put forward by the writer in the TLS that expert scholars see each other all...

Stately Home By ROBERT HANCOCK I NSPIRED by Lady Barnett, Debrett has done TV proud. Sir Gerald Kelly and Sir Brian Horrodks proved that swearing and soldiering are almost as...

By JOHN BETJEMAN I T TRESPASSED behind the red curtain at the east of St. Paul's Cathedral to have a look at the stained glass which has been inserted there. When the new...

By STRIX T HAVE been reading, with equal enjoyment, two 'excellent books. In' one of them—First Overland (Harrap, 18s.) —Mr. Tim Slessor gives a brisk yet urbane ac- count of...

Bangers and Bottle Tops By LESLIE ADRIAN A couple of readers have protested about my suggestion that if they want to get a good, old- fashioned banger they can find one in...

Around the United States ... Brian Inglis Trout and Truffles Anthony Hartley Moscow Night Out Cyril Ray All in Three Weeks ••• ••• Robert Kee Around the United States By BRIAN...

By ANTHONY HARTLEY E VERYBODY has his own France. Like pieces in a game of chess we have all stood on some of the sharply differentiated squares into which that most various of...

By CYRIL RAY N OWADAYS, as the tourists bustle hither and back, under the kindly eye of Mr. Khrush- chev, when people say, 'But didn't you actually live in Moscow, Ray?' I...

, By ROBERT KEE T HOUGH the return air fare from London to Tel Aviv costs £.135, this sum is probably, in terms of value, the best capital outlay for an exciting holiday that...

December 27 is in some respects Unfair to OA, GHQ, in general and to myself in Particular. OA consisted of Brigadier-General John Davidson, three GSOs I and three GSOs II. The...

United Service Institution on its External Services. After the address—as re- ported in the Journal of the Institution—he was asked whether, in theii broadcasts to the USSR, the...

Young published in the Spectator of December 27 in which he suggests that I may be able to answer the question he poses in the first paragraph of his letter, namely, 'Did any...

of Oliver Edwards are surely barking up the wrong tree. The umbrage Mr. Levin took was the common outlook of the professional to the amateur, and Mr. Levin ought to be told that...

Mr. John Speirs in Mediteval English Poetry 'draws on the work of . . . C. S. Lewis.' I meant to refer, not to the author of The Allegory of Love, but to C. B. Lewis, author of...

SIR,—Mr. Robson, by venturing to criticise Miss Raine's conception of literary scholarship, has provoked a number of attacks. And yet, to the passionate eye, both the...

Letters to the Editor Passchendaele Major-General J. F. C. Fuller, General E. A. Osborne, General Sir Bernard Paget Kidnapping Blake John Wain A Nearly Forgotten Art W. W....

SIR,—While one waits to hear if the BBC has taken Mr. Peter Wiles's strictures to heart and done something about the Russian service, one hopes also that Mr. Wiles will turn his...

Euston 3221

R. D. Reid in speaking out against these multiple vice prosecutions and the unhappiness and personal tragedy they entail, then our savage and vicious homosexuality laws might...

SIR,—In your issue of December 27 Strix talks of the decade of the Naughty Nineties being 1890-99. Surely he means 1891-1900? Similarly the Frabjous Sixties will not start until...

SIR,—A Bill is to be brought before Parliament early in the next session, which, if passed without amend- ment, will prove to be a waste of the nation's re- sources and a...

gladly belong to any society which existed to help the victims and their families of our homo- sexuality laws. But even more to the point would be the formation of a society...

SIR,-1 make no claim to being an expert on public opinion polls but I have done enough work in this field to have some insight into its intricacies; enough also to enable me to...

SIR,—Permit me to make one comment to Mr. Bryn Thomas, whose letter you published in the issue of December 27. I make no comment on Mr. Thomas's statement that public-transport...

SIR,—Sir Ifor Evans, in your issue of January 3, complains that I described the Observer as 'Astor- owned.' He adds, 'No members of the Astor family are members of the Trust,...

SIR,—Columbia Market is loved from afar, with Mr. Betjeman at his carriage window—Mr. Nairn from the depths of the Architectural Review. I am neither able nor qualified to swop...

. accustomed to a pattern in the one- , man shows by young artists at the Beaux Arts Gallery—and else- where for that matter. Every twelve or eighteen months the walls must be...

(RECORDING COMPANIES: D, Decca ; DT, Ducretet-Thomson; F, Felsted; OL. Oiseau Lyre; R, RCA; V, Vox.) A PIANIST who comes forward burdened with the name Tchai- kowsky, an RCA...

JANUARY 12, 1833 THE Daily Papers have been filling their columns . with extracts. from evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on the Factories Bill. It is to be...

Shakespeare and Chekhov THE most promising thing on tele- vision at the moment is the BBC's World Theatre series, which has begun with Henry V and The Cherry Orchard. The...

ter Square.)—Davy. (Empire.) 0 The Naked Truth. (Odeon, Leices- had bright intervals this week, and the brightness was mostly due to a couple of Goons in a couple of BRITISH...

Proust's Way By ANTHONY HARTLEY N T EARLY forty-five years have passed since the N publication of the first section of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, and I suppose that, by...

Warwick the Kingmaker. By Paul Murray. Ken- dall. (Allen and Unwin, 30s.) MR. KENDALL gives us as complete a picture as he can of the so-called Kingmaker—though in fact he was...

The Land of Midian. By H. St. John Philby. (Benn, 36s.) Forty Years in the Wilderness is another instal- ment of Mr. Philby's autobiography. It takes up the story where the...

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen: A Life. By Georgina Masson. (Seeker and Warburg, 35s.) AN excellent historian and a lively and imagina- tive writer, Miss Masson has managed to...

Snotty: The Story of the Midshipman. By Commander Geoffrey Penn, RN. (Hollis and ON entering the Service, every matelot is told (but rarely, to my knowledge, believes) that the...

THERE is no formula for a great or even a good novel, but there is for a readable one. A clearly told tale of intrigue, turning round an intelli- gently pointed and credible...

original schoolboy howlers on topics of current interest. Entries, addressed 'Spectator Competition No. 413,' 99 Gower Street; London, WC1, by January 21. Results on January 31.

in the remoter parts of the world, has now become something of a craze in Britain and the US, especially in such matters as house decoration, furniture making and small-boat...

ACROSS Deck game, perhaps, in which players must keep their heads up (5, 3, 4). • 9 It sounds, in such a case, as if the Selection Com- mittee has picked you tardily (9). 10...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 410 The usual prize was offered for the first verse of a National (not international) Anthem—in any style —for the new realm of outer space conquered...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT WHEN President Eisenhower de- livers his 'State of the Union' / \ message to Congress he must be thanking God that he is .no longer saddled with Mr....

The grey wagtail is hardly a garden bird, belonging as it does to the stream and the wet stones; but we enjoy an almost daily visit from one that picks over the asphalt of the...

By CUSTOS THE resignation of Mr. Thorney- croft and his colleagues came as great shock to the gilt-edged market, • and the immediate response was a lowering of quotations all...

'Mites cause the swelling of blackcurrant buds at this time of year and give rise to what is commonly called Big Bud, a destructive thing resulting in a poor crops The remedy is...

Time makes incredible changes in one's outlook, I find. Not long ago I came upon a fragment of a note I made about standing waist-deep in water waiting for duck to flight across...

By PHILIDOR No. 135. Specially contributed by A. J. LEVETT (New South Wales) BLACK (6 men) WHITE (7 men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week. Solution to...

By IAN NIALL I DON'T think anyone has troubled to produce a collective noun for jackdaws or, if they have, it has ever become widely known. Sometimes it seems to me that an apt...