ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6656 FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1956 PRICE 7d.

T HE statement issued this week by the Independent Television Authority is a notable example of the art, or science, of public relations; bland and plausible, it says very...

I T would be a bit too glib, perhaps, to say that the Welfare State has this month won its final, irreversible victory in this country, but a case can certainly be made to this...

Oxford Roads by Robert Blake Borley Rectory by Anthony Flew Dulles and Life by Richard H. Rovere

`TRAMP BREAKS DOWN AFTER ALL-DAY GRILLING.'—Daily Mail. 'FORTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD Avril made his dramatic statement . . . after detectives had questioned him for thirty hours.'—...

T HE week's foreign news has been dominated by Mr. Dulles's indiscretion in Life, an article that raises once again all the issues on which Great Britain has differed from the...

and one was given £400 as ex gratia payments. Even such a mythical figure as an admirer of the Home Office would not say that foresight was one of its more noticeable qualities....

IT HAS been widely pointed out that if the policeman had died the three innocent men who were convicted of assaulting him and were released last week would have been hanged....

BY HENRY FAIRLIE T HERE are two ways of ensuring that one's views are not treated seriously. One is to suggest that the accep- tance of the American loan after the war was a...

closed I must confess that I am not much wiser than I was when the controversy began. My suspicion is that Admiral Sir William James has the stronger case when he argues the...

to be is an established writer. If you are dead and sufficiently obscure or once famous and now neglected,i you can look forward from the next world to a revival, However dull...

no gentleman wears a kilt south of Perth. So I suppose that judged by the simple test of latitude Herr Werner Sczepanek, a postal sorter of Ham- burg, would commit no solecism...

a sermon Canon Collins identified some of the bodies which he regards as members of the Establishment (a comprehensive list, but why on earth the poor British Council of...

some connection With the Territorial Army has sent me a form which contains definitions to be applied to 'War.' This is a harmless enough document which reveals that 'limited...

(in Tribune) have replied to my comments on the sermon in which Canon Collins asked : 'How can any Christian, be he the Archbishop of Canterbury or the humblest member of any...

Government Pressures on the Press, is the Institute's Most useful study to date. We are still inclined to think of the freedom of the press as something which—like freedom from...

entertainment on Thursday at the Fishmongers' Hall. Many distinguished people have been invited. I understand that one Minister so far forgot himself as to decline the invitation

BY CHARLES CURRAN NEW class has come into existence in Great Britain. It has been created by the two great pressures that have transformed our national life since the decision...

BY CANON ROGER LLOYD W RILE she still lived, or too soon after her death, it was not seemly or decent to peer into Kathleen Ferrier's interior spiritual life. That it was her...

BY OLIVE LLOYD-BAKER S HOULD the departed grandfather or great-grandfather of a present-day landowner revisit his estate and over- look the affairs of his successor, nothing, I...

By JOHN BETJEMAN I T is good news to hear that , the Methodists are contemplating redecorating the inside of Central Hall. Westminster, whose baroque entrance staircase is rich...

F ' EELING better'?' The invalid, who had adopted, mutatis mutandis, a sphinx-like posture, waggled her behind in an irritable and preoccupied way. An unfinished game of...

SIR, —We are told that three men, imprisoned wrongfully for over two years, have been 'pardoned' (forgiven). Forgiven—for their wrongful imprisonment!—Yours faithfully, P....

tighten my belt to aid a crisis-stricken economy, I should like to protest at a recent, and as it seemed to me blatant, example of waste of public money. The owner of a...

of January 13 : 1. The conclusion I wished to draw in my earlier comment was that no evidence has, as yet, been forthcoming which would, either by the canons of historical or...

Christians and the H-Bombs Canon L. J. Collins The Insolence of Office Alison Blair Unpardonable P. Fleetwood-Hesketh The Mystery of a Diary Professor T. D. Williams J. W....

was settled some three or four years ago with the publication of the memoirs of Sjt. Sullivan, QC. In a chapter dealing with the Casement affair he leaves no doubt that the...

Euston 3221

SIR,—Indeed. why not expansionism plus im- port control, as Sir Robert Boothby suggests? (Spectator. January 6). Restrictionism may well throw out the baby as well as the bath-...

SIR, —Delighted admirer as I am, week by week, of the ingenuity displayed by your competition entrants, I am distressed to find in, your issue of January 13 the point of the...

Sim,-1 would like to comment on the recent review of M. Gilson's book in the Spectator by Mr. Cranston. (Incidentally, I don't think M. Gilson is entitled to the prefix...

SIR,.—The hue and cry over the Government's lack oL touch and leadership will have done considerable good if it consolidates the minds of the Tories on the future of Toryism as...

Gilson's book was affected by his belief that it was the work of a priest, M. Gilson (de l'Academie francaise and the University of Toronto) is a layman.—Yours faithfully, D....

outlined by Pharos last week ? This Scourge of the Hungarians eventually bought an estate in Hungary, learnt the language, and became an extreme nationalist in his adopted...

really believes that the Medical Officer of Health follows a career in drains, for there are no depths of ignorance to which the really de- termined politician cannot sink; but...

SIR,—It is not correct to say, as Mr. Stretton did last week, that problem boys become such after their National Service. In fact one of the main , logical criticisms 'of the...

of which was unaware, at. once gives me the thought, 'Let's do it again,' for in these drab days my most exciting adventure has been something con- nected with a Zebra...

SI11,—As Thackeray died seven years earlier than Dickens it must have been his ghost who expressed, in 1870, the opinion of his rival. quoted by Mr. Kingsley Amis in 'The...

JANUARY 22, 1831 THE spectacle of Europe at this moment is remarkable: the times are pregnant with doubt and uncertainty. The truth is, we are all in a transition...

Modern American Painting To read the names in the catalogue of the modern American art exhibition at the Tate with their German, Scandinavian, Nether- landish, Mediterranean,...

I HAD watched Associated Television's experi- mental magazine programme, Sunday After- noon, with particular interest, because I heard the producer outlining his plans for it...

DRAGONS , Wyvern, chimera, basilisk and cockatrice, Dragons still terrible but dead, The first inhabitants that built Their nests on mountains running salt And hung their...

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. (London Pavilion.) —TRIAL. (Empire.) — THE TERRIBLE ROAD. (National Film Theatre.) Tins is International Fog Week when the foreigner, often so engagingly...

As gentle as a gentle animal Or liquid lifting of a fountain's plume She was all through that day : I think that all Gentleness wanders right back to the womb, And is...

So, brief means violent as well as short : This one was disembowelled and that one died Unravelled in the agony of death : And some lascivious madcaps chased, and caught, The...

Mezzo-Giorno BY ISABEL QUIGLY F OR centuries the Latin soul has been putting its stamp ' on the Anglo-Saxon. For decades now the Anglo-Saxon has been examining, with rueful...

Tut:, FAtt Emir, 1942-1946. By F. C. Jones, Hugh Burton and B. IC ' Yearn. (O.U.P. for R.1.I.A., 60s.) l tut, latest volume of the Chatham House Survey of the war years, though...

THE history of agriculture in Britain during the 1939-45 war should be, without question, a success story. That is the thought which heads Sir Keith Murray's concluding chapter...

INTO THE WATER BARRIER. By Donald Campbell, in collaboration with Alan W. Mitchell. (Odhams, 15s.) MY WRITING LIFE. By Neil Bell. (Alvin Redman, 16s.) IT is a pity the author of...

And they blessed Rebecca and said unto her, let thy seed possess the gates of those which hate them. PROFESSOR WILLIAMS offers us, in his new book, which is a mag- nificent...

THE RAPIDS. By Basil Davidson. (Jonathan Cape, 13s. 6d.) A POINT OF ORDER. By Gwyn Thomas. (Gollancz, 12s. 6d.) A TANGLED WEB. By Nicholas Blake. (Collins, 12s. 6d.) THE LILAC...

IF literary history is to be more than an aid to holding one's Own in conversation, or to avoiding the error of making Dickens predecease Thackeray—and as taught in universities...

GRAND-DAUGHTER Of Henri IV, niece of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, first cousin of Charles H of England and of Louis XIV, Richelieu's god-daughter, Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans...

POLLY : My Wonderful Mother. By Barbara Cartland. (Herbert Jenkins, 15s.) THE life of 'Polly : My Wonderful Mother' has been written by Barbara Cartland who is obviously, in...

G. M. Trevelyan, and in this nosegay, picked for him by Dr. Plumb, we have examples of most of the possible types of social history. Mr. Rowse starts from a single text—a...

BY IAN NIALL TILE other day I was asked to identify a 'sparrow-hawk' that had met its death swoop- ing down through a set of telegraph wires. The bird turned out to be a...

One often hears of the extraordinary power. to survive that is possessed by certain animals, and recent instances have been those of cats that somehow or other found their way...

I found it hard not to join in the laughter when the following tale was being told by one man to another in the bits queue, 'Bob 'adn't been up to much for a long time an' it...

By PHIL1DOR No. 33 C. PROMISLO 1 . . B-K 6 ch; 2 Kt-Kt 5. 1 . . . 13-B I ch; 2 R-Kt 7. I . . B-Kt 1 ch; 2 R-R 7. I . . . P x P; 2 Kt x P. 1 . . . R x Kt: 2 other; 2 Kt-Q...

MANAGEMENT is at last beginning to engage general attention among businessmen; a process summed up by Mr. Drucker when he says 'we no longer talk of "capital" and "labour": we...

To ensure a good crop of beans it is often advisable to make a second sowing to follow up those put in in autumn. Whiteseeded Long- pods are the choice for winter. A third...

By CUSTOS THE strong recovery in Government stocks on Tuesday helped to steady the drifting market in industrial ordinary shares. It was the end of a depressing Stock Exchange...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IF I may repeat the hope that the new Chancellor will avoid making money any dearer and will pursue the direct approach to the trade unions, which is...

Robert Browning. Com- petitors are asked to imagine that this was the work of the poet, and for the usual prize to provide an introductory poem from Browning's pen. Limit :...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 307 Report by A.M.O.S. A prize of LS was offered to competitors to indulge their lower natures with a set of six naughty resolutions which they would...

95 Ds - winners of Crossword No, 865 are. Miss C. M. !BOWEN 18 Cumberland Road, Kew, Surrey, and MR. S. C. L. ROPPINLi, 11 Prospect Park, Exeter, Devon.

ACROSS DOWN 4 Listen? No. It's rude! (8) fond of soup? (7) (6). tea! (9) 10 No lawyer's fees charged to the testator, - 3 Jot this clown (6), 12 General who might inspire the...