'kqs. aly —Xi3;f - • Lord Lugard is deice, " roughout 1968 the SPECTATOR has been Inducting a sustained campaign against the esent Government's policy towards Biafra d Nigeria....

Britain's economy lingered in a state of con- valescence throughout the year, with occasional bouts of fever hinting at relapse. The inter- national monetary system also...

• POLITICAL COMMENTARY JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE, MP One of the features of life at my first school which I recall most vividly was the 'craze.' One term it would be stamp collecting;...

THE RICH HARRY G. JOHNSON Harry G. Johnson is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. The idea of a wealth tax is a fairly old one, generally regarded as...

AMERICA JOHN GRAHAM Washington—The Vietnam War is over. There was a time when it commandeered every con- versation in Washington, when someone who didn't know the difference...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS It has been discovered that some of the chess masters in the International Tournament have been 'fixing' their games. I've heard the politician has his...

THE 'PRESS BILL GRUNDY This has been a year to remember as far as newspapers are concerned. Much has hap- pened, many are gone but not forgotten, and the newspaper world has...

J. W. M. THOMPSON At this moment, in the apprehensive lull be- tween Christmas and the New Year, one remembers Wordsworth in his later and lugu- brious mood. 'Another...

PERSONAL COLUMN GILES PLAYFAIR This is by way of beiing an appeal to the National Theatre. But a word or two of ex- planation to begin with. Among the grown-ups, I take it,...

MEDICINE JOHN ROWAN WILSON As one grows older, certain subjects crop up in conversation with increasing frequency. One of these, perhaps not surprisingly, is rejuvena- tion....

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN Another salvo in its battle to keep the banks open on Saturdays was fired off last week by the Consumer Council. It published figures re-...

From the 'Spectator, 26 December 1868—Admiral George Grey is a brave man. He has ventured to publish a letter in the Times advocating a cession of Gibraltar to the Spaniards,...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN It was with a sense of a great turning-point in history having been turned, that I read not tong ago in The Times that Mr Robert Maxwell, the...

AUBERON WAUGH For as long as any Christian, liberal or human- itarian tradition survives, the year 1968 will be . remembered as the one in which a British government, for the...

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Christianity and humanism stand today in con- trast as rival concepts. It was not always so. Europe knew a long tradition of avowedly Christian...

PETER VANSITTART Lucia in London and Trouble for Lucia E. F. Benson both introduced by Micheal Mac Liammeir (Heinemann 30s each) E. F. Benson (1867-1940), son of an Archbishop...

MICHAEL BOBBIE Imprisonment in Medieval England Ralph B. Pugh (cuP 90s) This is a pioneer work of great importance for students of English legal and social history. The author...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH A good deal is known about Lawrence's troubled relationship with Jessie Chambers, in- cluding her own account of it; but until now little has been known of...

Patient hope OLIVER WARNER Old-style patronage could have odd effects, among them cross-fertilisation. This is strik- ingly exemplified in the influence of Thomas Hope, who...

JOHN ROWAN WILSON There is a good deal to be said for reading biographies backwards. Quite apart from the advantage of putting off that dreadful opening chapter on 'Early...

MICHAEL ROBERTS There have been many biographies of Queen Christina; so many of them written by women that one is tempted to diagnose a variety of female weakness. Most of them...

LAURENCE MARTIN The Bomb and the Computer Andrew Wilson (Barrie and Rockliff 30s) The bulk of this book is a highly readable account of wargaming and of all the many other...

INTERVIEWED BY PETER BROOK Gordon Craig and Peter Brook met towards the end of Craig's life; he was eighty-four when he recorded this conversation for Granada Tele- vision in...

Joys of the chase PENELOPE HOUSTON Bullitt (Warner, from 1 January, 'A') Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Astoria, 'U') Readers of Raymond' Chandler probably re- member his defence...

ART PAUL GRINKE The British Museum, not usually prone to ex- hibiting its book treasures outside the purdah of the Reading Room, has mounted a very fes- tive display of...

THEATRE Sugar is sweet HILARY MAILING 'As with the Commander of an Army, or the leader of any enterprise, so is it with the mistress of a house. Her spirit will be seen...

MO NE Y NICHOLAS DAVENPORT All business is a bet, as Keynes used to say to me, and therefore all investment in business is a speculation. But last year it was much easier to...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL One set of shareholders will be spending the Christmas holiday thinking hard about its present situation, prospects and responsibilities. I refer to...

CUSTOS Transatlantic influences have had much to do with the performance of London markets in the past few days. Gold shares responded immediately to the incoming us Treasury...

Sir: Have Lord Robbins and Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper taken leave of their senses? Do the Metropolitan Police constables no longer exist? Viewing the circumstances of...

Sir: Sir Denis Brogan (6 December) is shocked by the form 'Who do they trust?' But it isn't bad grammar. Certainly it is better than 'Whom . . . ?' which is not only prissy but...

LETTERS From James A. Sharpe, Ronald Cholodny, Robert Brady, W. Waddington, Edward Bonney, John Palmer, Charles Schwarzenberg, Ewart Milne, Kennedy Wells, Keith Kyle, Donald...

Sir: The recent publication of a pamphlet by the Labour party entitled Socialist Successes, price 6d, prompts rne to suggest that it is high time to issue a guide (a fourpenny...

December) to criticisms of his article on Bologna, when I gave the 1914-18 War dead as 812,000 for Britain (6 December), I meant exactly what I said, never supposing anybody to...

Sir: Of the self-inflicted wounds from which this country's financial life-blood at present gushes, the most ill-judged and dangerous is undoubtedly education. Allow me to put...

Sir: Capitalism may never have done anything for any nation, but Patrick Cosgrave (20 December) misquotes what he calls `its most enduring statement of faith.' What Charles...

Sir: May I appeal, through your columns, to newspaper editors to restore one or two of the traditional courtesies extended to their contri- butors? I was trained as a young...

Sir: In the First World War, my father died as an Austrian officer; this will explain why I was mildly amused to read the indignant statement of Mr Auberon Waugh (6 Decem- ber):...

Sir: J. W. M. Thompson is singularly perverse ('Spectator's notebook,' 20 December). He writes that Mr Wilson had 'better hasten his nobbling of the House of Lords or he might...

Sir: Of your courtesy: I think I may have been among the first non-Jewish -writers in these islands to welcome publicly the setting up of the State of Israel in 1948, in the...

COMPETITION Set by E. C. Jenkins: Walter Mitty never got round to being a Robin Day or a David Frost. Before television interviews are finally banned on account of their...

Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were in- vited to compose an intelligible piece of prose around ten given words, chosen from the open- ing passages of a well-known book. They...

PHILIDOR Solution to no. 418 (Schumer): (a) Kt – B 6 mate. (b) I R– B 7, R any; 2 R mates accordingly. (c) I R – B 3, P R; 2 P – Kt 8 = Q, P – Kt 5: 3 Q – Q 5. (d) I Kt – B 3....

Across I Is conflict this songster's theme? (7) 5 Bad, some foreigners would say, a hazard to shipping on the Indian coast (7) 9 Pulses have a sporting advantage for destruc-...