I T is not surprising that the dispatch of British and Ameri- can arms to Tunisia should have caused anger in. Paris. For this relatively small-scale operation—small-scale by...

L AST week's announcement of a Russian loan to India of some forty-five million pounds to- gether with the quest for credit in London and Washington of the Indian Finance...

Special Children's Books Number

By JOHN MOFFETT D unedin, NZ W HEN New Zealand crowds to the poll at the end of the month (91 per cent. voted at the last election, in 1954) the issues will be clear, though not...

B y RICHARD H. ROVERE New York ADLAI STEVENSON, after executing several .Administration spokesmen have said that they requested Mr. Stevenson's ideas not because they needed...

A TEMPORARY but considerable strain has suddenly been im- posed on the Western alliance by the delivery of a consign- ment of arms from America and Britain to the Tunisian...

But so did all the other Tories. For Mr: Mac- millan was talking about his motion beginning 'That it is expedient that a Tribunal be estab- lished . . .', and it suddenly began...

IT IS ALWAYS sad when a great man decides to- leave the scene of his greatness. Field-Marshal Mont- gomery will surely rank as the greatest commander to have fought in Europe...

Lloyd's answer to Mr. Philip Noel-Baker's complaint in the Commons that he had not known of Britain's changed relationship to the International Court until it was revealed by...

contribution may have been his ability to associate others—even God, I have heard the irreverent maintain—with him in any project he undertakes. With the players of Portsmouth...

me to task for attempting to deal with the problem of remarriage after divorce in one paragraph. But all I was in fact trying to do was to show that the oft-repeated statement...

of art exhibitions. My latest find is attached to an exhibition at the AIA Gallery, called Pictures Without Paint. The learned com- mentator refers to the work of Arp 'who as...

By ROBERT BOOTHBY, MP N all the years I have spent in public life I I have never seen a major political and economic project thrown out with such apparent careless- ness as...

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for motor-cyclists seems to me a very sensible document. Nobody wants to restrict early acquaintance with the internal combustion engine more than is necessary, but to put the...

did mean the end of the debs. But so far as I can see it will have very little effect. Newspapers will continue to pin the meaning- less label of 'deb. of the year' on the girl...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T tie end of the year, even as the closing years of life, should, we are told, be devoted to self-examination. Taking stock of all the wicked things that we...

By H. E. BATES T WENTY-FIVE years ago, when we came to live on this village green, a farm labourer earned tenpence an hour; a crazy yellow wasp of a bus ran no more than two or...

By ROSE MACAULAY DI( what steps, we sometimes ask, did ED Christmas become the major offensive into which it has, anyhow in England, now developed? It makes a powerful assault...

By COMPTON MACKENZIE 0 N the night of September 9, 1917, I left Greece in a French torpedo-boat that was escorting two battleships across the Straits of Otranto in a savage...

By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS W HATEVER the Socialists and the Liberals may decide to do, there is no reason to suppose that the Government's proposals for reform of the House of Lords...

Wolf HANCOCK By ROBERT The fun of Make Me an Offer is fresh and uncluttered with the fatty sentiment that blankets most of Mr. Mankowitz's later works. The British Antique...

By ROY JENKINS, MP D URING his ten months as Chancellor Mr. Thorneycroft has been prolific not only in the different policies he has embraced .but also in the advice for which...

By JAIN HAMILTON ROSSINCi to the cab rank beside the public L./lavatory in Fleet Street, I bumped into Scylla Fraser-Neame, a neighbour of mine in Highgate whom I hadn't seen...

By STRIX T HEY tell me (and I am delighted to hear it) that in this issue of the Spectator Sir Harold Nicolson is to lead a march-past of the Old Guard; and it has been...

By JOHN BETJEM AN I NIAGINE yourself, if you are not one. an arch- deacon. You were appointed because you had financial and administrative ability. You have as much zeal for...

By LESLIE ADRIAN A Bout' this time of year the newspapers start their Christmas carol of 'only x more shop- ping days till Christmas.' If this exercise has any object, it is to...

Sta,—Surely by now someone else should have pointed out that Fanny Price was the original Angry Young Woman! There being no Redbrick, or even White Tile Universities, she was...

SIR,—I can let Mr. Betjeman have a few facts about Barry Pain, since 1 published a volume of his short stories in 1914, and his Collected Tales in 1916. 1 met him on a few...

Haig's excuse for launching, and carrying on with, the Passchendaele horror. As he says, this excuse of Haig's was a late one. One is hard put to believe that Haig, told in...

SIR,—I wish Mr. Betjeman would explain the reasoning that led his Diocesan Advisory Committee to refuse approval to the inclusion of the words, 'To the Glory of God,' in an...

roused by Convocation's attitude to the remarriaeL of innocent parties as a 'rumpus' started by the AL W. J. S. Weir. It is, in fact, part of a protracted effort to rctai• a...

Passchendaele `To the Glory of God' Burry Pain Divorce and After Mansfield Park The Block Grant Au Anatomy of Hysteria Keeping up with the Rices Leaseholders and the Rent Act...

psychiatric absurdity : and, if, as a practising journalist, he has time to read the classics, I suggest that, ere returning to the topic, he peruses The Major Symptoms of...

Sta,—I read your excellent special feature 'The City of London' with considerable interest. One sentence, however, in the article entitled 'Barbican Develop- ments' calls for...

appeared in your issue of November 8, pointed out some of the serious effects which the introduction of the block grant will have on public education generally. One branch of...

SIR,—The communications sent to Mr. Muggeridge and Lord Altrincham are not explained by the fact that their criticisms were aimed at the Queen. Such abuse is commonly meted out...

the Colonial Secretary has only drawn up a constitution for Kenya that is not only unacceptable to the Africans but displeasing to many of the Settlers! Asked about the African...

SIR,-1 was confused by the implication of Michael Young's recent letter in The Times—and equally so by that appearing in your issue of November 15. (a) Is Which ? available on...

SIR,—May I suggest that the letter from your corre- spondent Mr. Shipman in your issue of November 15 is typical of the confused and highly coloured think- ing of these young...

opinion that the new Rent Act will not effect them. In this they are wrong. Admittedly, a leasehold house is not and never has been subject to control and at the expiry of the...

ANYONE who takes the cinema at all to heart must be disconcerted by the general feeling (never quite expressed, but murmured, like that indiscretion about King Midas's ears, to...

Darius Milhaud WITH Vaughan Williams eighty- five and Stravinsky seventy-five, Milhaud was probably lucky to have his sixty-fifth birthday noticed at all on his recent visit to...

FORCED awake in a hotel room by i the central heating, I turned on the television and watched, at 6.45 a.m., a programme called Sunrise Semester (or was it Seminar'?). A...

NOVEMBER 24, 1832 NOVEMBER 24, 1832 A CASE of bankruptcy was discussed at the Bal 11 ' ruptcy Court yesterday, which happened as far back as 1796! The bankrupt, a Mr. Philips,...

Donald Ogden Stewart. (Arts.) THERE are moments when the London stage begins to feel like some obscure and uncommitted country (certainly it is underdeveloped) for whose...

Rub 8 pieces of lump sugar on 2 big lemons, collecting all the fragrant essential oil possible. Put the lumps in a bright saucepan with I teaspoon of ground cinnamon, + tea-...

Two Patrick Campbell Ci-Git Robin McDouall Other than French and German T. A. Layton Splendours and Miseries Lesley Blanch How to Invest in Wine By RAYMOND POSTGATE THE...

By ROBIN McDOUALL 4 /A A MONG other needless waste, due to lack of forethought, he [R. L. Stevenson] threw away a cold leg of mutton, a loaf of white bread, a milk bottle and...

In a small tumbler break the yolk of a fresh egg and mix in 1 teaspoon icing sugar. Add 6 drops Angostura, 1+ oz. sherry and half that amount of brandy. Fill glass with shaved...

Put 1 lb. of dripped heather honey into a bowl and dissolve it gradually by adding 11 pints of real pot-still mountain dew. When honey and whisky are blended. stir in 11 pints...

By PATRICK CAMPBELL M ULOCK and I were sitting by candlelight on the floor of the Waterfields' drink cup- board, with the door locked on the inside. The rest of the house-party...

By T. A. LAYTON R ED, white or rose, chilled or chambre, weak R or strong, young or old, blended or vintage, with a snack or a banquet, wine can claim to be the most civilised,...

Put 21 pints of orange juice, pint each of lemon and bottled-sweetened lime juice, 4 oz. golden syrup and 1 pint of water in the bottom of a punch bowl. Set a large block of ice...

Miseries By LESLEY BLANCH H ERE in Southern California life and gas - tronomy centre round the barbecue. Thi s outdoor charcoal grill has become a whole waY of life, carefully...

One pint lemon juice with a mixture added of I pint Jamaica run?, 1 pint cognac, 1 pint peach brandy. Make a lemonade (sherbet) with the lemon juice, 4 lb. sugar and 9 pints...

Lord Hailsham, from his earliest years Was frightened by the House of Peers. The merest whisper of a Duke Would make the infant Quin tin puke; A Marquess visiting his mum Would...

The Poet and the Dreamer By KINGSLEY A MIS CQUAINTANCE with school examination scripts and with the tastes (or professed tastes) of young people entering the university will...

BY BERNARD LEVIN W HEN, early in 1955, a weekly literary article began to appear every Thursday on the books page of The Times., there was much specula- tion (tinged with...

By D. W BROGAN CIHAW, borrowing from Gounod's praise of a Mozart, declared that Dumas was a summit. There never had been, there couldn't be a better opera than Don Giovanni, a...

Graham Greene. By John' Atkins. (Calder, 21s.) THERE has recently been a powerful film about a military academy in the Southern American States, throughout a hundred-odd minutes...

T houghts in the Wilderness. By J. 13. Priestley. ( Heinemann, 21s.) ;OF course,' says the comic foreigner, 'I admire our great English writers, your Shakespeare, your D ickens,...

MISS MARGARET STORM JAMESON has always been acutely aware of the element of hostility that exists between humah beings—not only between such as are naturally enemies, but also...

J, 9N the morning of November 11, 1938, I went into the offices of Picture Post — it had then been a_ PPearing for about a month—to find the editor, Stefan Lorant, walking up...

Soldiers and Governments: Nine Studies in Civic. Military Relations. Edited by Michael Howard. (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 21s.) 'THE subject of this . book is an enthralling and...

THERE will probably never be an impartial book about prisons. Sir Lionel Fox, chairman of the Prison Commissioners, has written a classic.. on- the subject. So in shorter...

lir. inhabitants of this country are the misera- _ °I est people in the world.' Thus William vampier, the first Englishman to see Australia, in 1688; but little did he know of...

Westminster Wader. By Rufus Noel-Buxton. (Faber, 18s.) As a rule, by the time the idea of writing an autobiography occurs to novelists they have already cannibalised most of the...

The Concise Encyclopedia of English Pottery and Porcelain. By Wolf Mankowitz and Reginald G. Haggar. (Andre Deutsch, 6 gns.) The Small House Today and Tomorrow. 13Y Arnold...

Alarms and Diversions. By James Thurber. (Hamish Hamilton, 18s.) POPPING up from behind the most 'contemporary' furnishings of American minds—Manhattan, Hollywood, Pentagon...

The Maxims of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Translated, with an introduction and biblio- graphical note, by Constantine Fitz Gibbon. (Allan Wingate, 15s.) THE Fronde is a period...

The Market of Seleukia. By James Morris. (Faber, 25s.) THE literature of Middle Eastern travel in English is rich and rewarding. But in the last few decades a blight has...

Arabesque and Honeycomb. By Sacheverell Sitwell. (Robert Hale, 35s.) A Reed Shaken by the Wind. By Gavin_Maxwell. (Longmans, 21s.) IN these days of astringent, laconic...

Frames of Mind. By Henry Yellowlees. (William Kimber, 25s.) DR. YELLOWLEES was brought up in his father's mental hospital and has spent his life dealing with psychiatric...

THE Edwardian age is rapidly displacing the Victorian, for first place in nostalgia, all the more because the nemesis that fell on it gives it a pathos' that adds to its wonder....

The Apothecary's Shop. By D. J. Enright. (Seeker and Warburg, 2 s.) Contexts of Criticism. By Harry Levin. (Har- vard: O.U.P., 30s.) WHILE Mr. Enright was lecturing in Japan he...

George III and the Historians. By Herbert Butter- field. (Collins, 21s.) IN this new book Professor Butterfield estimates the value of the most recent passage in the...

Stendhal's Love [de ['Amour] (Merlin Press, 21s.); Plutarch's Moralia (Heinemann : Loeb Classical Library, 15s.); Conrad's Under Western Eyes (Penguin, 3s. 6d.) and Almayers...

Horses in Fact and Fiction. Compiled by Ake Runnquist. (Cape, 35s.) The Great Horse Omnibus. Edited by Thurston Macauley. (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 25s.) English Love Poems....

The author creates an entirely new first growth of . the Medoc so as to stage a series of mediwvally melodramatic murders at the château (where they are unconscionably behind-...

but predictable little number about yet another mild-mannered man- an American professor of mathematics this time -who plans to murder his tedious wife. The campus background,...

4.50 From Paddington. By Agatha Christie. (Collins, 12s. 6d.) The plots are so improbable, the characters so puppet-like, the style so stilted and the coincidences cluster so...

10s. 6d.) Young wife's elderly husband is dead, leaving a letter that accuses her of infidelity. If it is suicide, she is proved a wanton; if murder, she is the first sus- pect....

was 'something suspiciously like moisture' in the cockney sergeant's eye over the Chief Inspector's kindness to the kiddies; the American lootenant talks about 'a real live...

political killing in the rococo hugger-mugger of immediately postwar Vienna, a place and a period that this admirable writer knows inside out, and writes about with feeling....

A child is kidnapped and must first be sought, in the alleys of Rye and the valley of the Loire, and then rescued. The hack- neyed theme is made fresh, moving and exciting,...

As far as my feet will carry me. By J. M. Bauer. (Andre Deutsch, 15s.) As the peace goes on, publishers seem to become more and more convinced that what makes a war best-seller...

which was reviewed in last week's issue by John Davenport, are J. M. Dent and Sons with Faber and Faber.

The Early Christian Church. By Philip Carring- ton. (C.U.P., two volumes, 52s. 6d. each.) THE Archbishop of Quebec's lengthy (over 1,000 pages in all), learned, handsomely...

gorse, and stunted and wind-bowed larch, is a feeding ground for all sorts of bird both large and small. The hawthorn attracts berry-eaters but tits find insects, eggs and...

By IAN NIALL THE county roadman, with his two red warning flags fastened to sticks, has a comparatively uneventful life, working his way along his stretch of highway, trimming...

Sha ckleton. By Margery and James Fisher. (Barrie, 30s.) IN spite of sputniks, polar exploration is still o0 0 n hng. Shackleton Base, occupied by the " 3111 tIlonWealth...

The unsightliness of run - to - seed broccoli doesn ' t apparently bother some gardeners, but it is wasteful and may be avoided to an extent by heeling' plants to the north and...

Some years ago I gathered what knowledge I had on poaching and wrote a book about it, discovering, on publication, what a vast field the subject really covers and how...

By PHILIDOR No. 128 Specially contributed by J. HARING (The HaguC) at.AcK (5 men) WHITE (10 men) WHITE to play and mate in 2 moves solution next week. Solution to last...

By CUSTOS THE reduction in the American bank rates had more lasting effect on the zt . London stock markets than on Wall Street. After the initial resPonse, when the...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT WHY are bankers so. myopic? The lowering of discount rates from 31 per cent. to 3 per cent. by five Federal Reserve banks, including New York, comes...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 403 Report by Pibwob Competitors were asked to invent unlikely definitions (on the lines of 'Buccaneer' from 'Boucan, a framework for broiling oxen)...

1 Future works to be done in the little boats (8). 5 How Miss Woodhouse might have appeared to Mr. Knightley at times (6). 9 Ina, do get a move on! (2, 1, 5) 10 What Landor...