What looked like becoming a deadlock in the cease-fire nego- tiations at Kaesong has been converted into a hope of progress. The first Communist proposal for a withdrawal of all...

D ESPITE his rejection of the term, Mr. Harriman has been fulfilling in Tehran the role of a mediator. He has not merely been trying to calm and sweeten the atmosphere, but he...

Government spokesmen spend so much time rebutting the charges of critics within their own party, who say that they will not succeed in spending £4,700 million in three years,...

It is not impossible that in the Commons debate on economic affairs, which has not taken place at the time this is written, the Government may find some way of attributing the...

The two chief characteristics of the issue which has so far prevented the formation of a new French Government—State aid to Church schools—are first, that it is not of major...

The continued long-range exchanges of mutual accusation between . India and Pakistan are not calculated to lessen the tension between the two countries. The tension is now not...

In his speech in the Foreign Affairs debate on Wednesday, Mr. Morrison gave his opinion that the Japanese treaty was "another important contribution to the stability of the Far...

T HE Foreign Secretary of the day and former Foreign Secretaries still in Parliament usually preserve a friendly relationship. More than that: they are inclined to teal one...

If the preliminary agenda is any guide, then the fiftieth annual conference of the Labour Party at Scarborough in October is bound to be the occasion of a battle royal between...

The education debate this week was disappointing and dis- turbing—disappointing because Members ignored it or took part lethargically, disturbing because of the threat that...

T HE murder of King Abdullah leaves Ibn Saud as the last survivor among those Arab statesmen who, for good or ill, helped by their personal endeavour to shape the map of the...

I 44 T is hoped the book may be of interest," says a covering note from the Railway Executive. Your British Railways, the publication to which the note refers, is not, as a...

weasels (the former, surely, are unusually numerous this year ?). "It is signi- ficant" (says the Report), "that, although several of the animal welfare organisations pointed...

of the Committee on Cruelty to Wild Animals (H.M.S.O., price 3s. 6d.), of which until this week I had only read the summaries that appeared in the Press. This is a most able and...

and use of the gin-trap (" a diabolical instrument ") should be made illegal. The Committee is convinced that the gin is far the most efficient type of trap so far devised, but...

to her dressing-room after seeing the performance. After some general conversation about the production he raised a point which had obviously been worrying him. "I say," he...

certain make of cigarette-lighter fail to arouse in me the suspension of disbelief. They have indeed an opposite and slightly irritant effect, causing me to run pettishly over...

By GAVIN GORDON • Brussels K ING BAUDOUIN of the Belgians started his reign under the happiest of auspices. The weather was good and the crowds large, loyal and enthusiastic....

By S. P. CHAMBERS T ODAY it is generally recognised that the countries of Western Europe and of the Commonwealth, taken indivi- dually, are no match economically for the United...

. 1 fly DAVID THOMSON D OES it matter very much when an old man of ninety-five breathes his last? Especially when he dies in an obscure Island fortress, six years removed from...

WIIERE it is always and is never, day, Vistas are sharp with spairks on stone and track And desolation's quays a,te stroked with wind Warm from the metals, then a listening...

LI, 3. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. • O LD Elvet is a gentle backwater of history. For most of the year, except perhaps on race-days, the world leaves it basking in memories or gazing...

By A BANK CLERK W HAT sort of life did I expect when I entered a bank ten years ago at a salary of £65 a year? I certainly had no dreams of a sudden rise to a high-salary grade....

THE SPECTATOR readers are urged to place a firm order with their newsagent or to take out a subscription. Newsagents cannot afford to take the risk of carrying stock, as unsold...

some student of "mass-psychology during the epoch of the common man" were to analyse the attitudes adopted by ordinary citizens to the wireless services in different countries....

THEATRE 44 Poor Judas." By Enid Bagnold. (Arts.) MISS BAGNOLD'S play, the first of the three to reach the last stage in the Arts Theatre's festival competition, is certainly...

this farce opened, another farce had been howled to death in the same theatre by a derisive audience. The players must surely have been twitching before the curtain rose. But...

Alice in Wonderland." (Odeon.)—" Worm's Eye View." (Rialto.) — " We Want a Child." (Berkeley.) MANY honest British faces will Se purple with indignation when they see the result...

Canterbury festival play may be another Murder in the Cathedral. It never has been ; it never will be—but how depressing for the authors to feel they are beingludged by another...

Boa FLAHERTY, who has died at home in Vermont at the age of 67, has been called the "father of documentary." In a sense he was, but " documentary " is much too pale and prim a...

ORCHESTRAL: H.M.V. issues Berlioz's King Lear overture played with maximum persuasiveness and sympathy by the Royal Phil- harmonic Orchestra under Beecham. In Sibelius's first...

AFTER the operatic season proper has come to an end, first at Covent Garden and now at Glyndebourne, a little or " silly " season seems to exist, so that with a little judicious...

Set by E. W. Fordham Walter Bagehot said : "A man's mother is his misfortune ; his wife is his fault." A prize of 1'5, which may be divided, is offered for three new epigrams on...

MIL GLADSTONE'S PAMPHLET ON NAPLES OF all the events of this year, at home or abroad, one of the most striking is the publication of Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet on the State...

Report by R. J. P. Hewison A prize of £5 was offered for an extract from a narrative poem about contemporary town life in which the language was to be purged of non-Anglo-Saxon...

SIR. —The su gg estion that both Tshekedi and Seretse should return to the Baman g wato country appears a dan g erous remedy, in view of the excited ' state of the country. At a...

SIR,—Most people can sympathise with Mr. Richard Freeman's feelin g of resentment and frustration at rearmament in the present extended state of our economy. But by now nobody...

SIR, —Your correspondent, Mr. H. W. Pearson, makes one or two some- what surprisin g .statements. He doubts, for instanc , .., "whether the' crowds of university m e n at Putney...

Making Ends Meet gia,—Havin g for ten years kept analysed accounts of all my expenditure, even to the point of recordin g q uantities of solid fuel and the consump- tion of g...

but I am surprised that none of your contributors has drawn attention to the fact that the increased cost of livin g - , which is of course adversely affecting every citizen, is...

villages, in a con- tinuum of 4,000 years, orgapised their osm forms of play as a cultural expression of their work,,in the fields. The, daily husbandty, the fruits of the earth...

a tragic downfall" the now obsolete "cant." It bobbed on the surface of eighteenth-century conversation like a marker-buoy above a wreck, and its presence gave warning of false...

Tim Waterperry Nurseries, which I mentioned a fortnight ago, has- caught up and recharged with vitality the moribund (or shall I say murdered ?) tradition of the Big House in...

SIR,—The answer to Janus's question, "Can we really afford this kind of thing ? " is that the United Nations and its specialised agencies cost less than the wars they are...

from Nottingham should not have disturbed your correspondent Mr. W. Herbert Spencer. After his murder of the Trent Bridge groundsman Mr. Mallalieu also had his Final Problem,...

Sta.—Your issue of April 27th reached this mess on July 8th. Mr. Ervine's review of Wyndham's life of Lady Wilde is perhaps not very informative but it is certainly very...

I happened to be one of the judges of the procession of vehicles that opened the fête there in July, and my barely concealed view was that every turn-out ought to have had first...

are like bullets this year but does not state their strain and year If they are the new Cambridge strain, I believe the cause is their excessive prolificacy and -that the...

99 SIR,—Mr. Harold Nicolson does well to castigate the current phrase "I couldn't care less." Is not this that subtlest of the seven deadly sins known of old as accidie, and...

SIR,—Vale University is 250 years old this year, and in February, 1952, the anniversary will be celebrated in New Haven. The Yale-in-Britain Association is collecting...

But what a revolution that English villages from "the quietest places under the sun" have become the noisiest! The traditional Sunday evening is shattered by "the roaring of the...

I THINK everyone agrees that the most intelligent modern poetry is extremely difficult to understand, that it is written largely for people who are themselves devoted to the...

The Changing Culture of a Factory. A Study of Authority and Participation in an Industrial Setting. By Elliott Jaques. (Routledge. 28S.) IT is a commonplace that whilst...

Sir Pelham on “Plum" OF all the books (and they are many) which Sir Pelham has written upon his beloved subject Cricket, his latest, Long Innings, appeals to me as the best...

with an introduction by John Hayward: (Cassell. 4;s.) THIS is the most distinguished book of photographs that has appeared in this country for some years. It consists of 100...

Food, Farming and the Future. By Friend Sykes. (Faber. 2 IS.) IN spite of its redundancy, lack of style, clumsy arrangement of material and the intrusion of such shocking jargon...

Simpson. By Edward Sackvidle-West. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 121. 6d.) Simpson, the most naturalistic of Mr. Sackville-Wesrs_ novels, was first published in 1931. Now, twenty...

David Hume: His Theory of Knowledge and Morality. By D. C. C. MacNabb. (Hutchinson. 75. 6d.) IT is almost as uncomfortable to actept the doctrines of Hume as it is to reject...

los., 6d.) THE size of the twentieth-century family ia not a reason usually given for the condensation of the novel, but it certainly makes pos- sible a _picture of family-life...

ONE of the things that everyone knows about Brighton Pavilion is that Sydney Smith said of it that the dome of St. Paul's must have come down to Brighton and pupped." It had...

The Drawings of Francesco Guardi. By J. Byam Shaw. (Faber. 27s. 6d.) THIS first volume devoted to the drawings of Guardi to be published in England is most admirably selected....

(Collins. 125. 6d.) ALL Cricket books are out of date. It is not Mr. Robinson's fault that his survey of post- war cricket ends with the opening of the 1950 M.C.C. tour in...

By CUSTOS MARKETS are now taking a breather after suffering their nastiest jolt for some months past. In actual volume selling has n(Oeen heavy but on one or two days it has...

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for one guinea will be "warded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week, August 7th, addressed Crossword, 99 Gower Street, London, W.C.1....