T HE verdict of the Guillebaud Committee comes at first glance as a pleasant surprise. The Committee was asked to inquire into the cost of the National Health Service in order...

ESTABLISHED 1828 No. 6 6 5 8 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1956 PRICE 7d.

T HE HerbertCommittee on the electricity industry—the first independent study of this kind we have had into a nationalised industry—is very welcome. The Committee comes...

BY DARSIE GILLM M P ONSIEUR Guy MOLLET'S large majority of 420 to 71 71 means neither stability nor even momentary tranquillity for him. He would certainly have preferred the...

T1 BE Government's decision to prepare to jam Athens Radio, if it is considered necessary, shows to what an impasse British Middle Eastern policy has led. Sir John Harding's...

I T is fitting that the Oxford Chair of Poetry should be filled by election. Acclamation is the traditional method by which the true poet has been distinguished from the fake,...

T HE most important item of news this week for most people living in Great Britain has been the sudden onset of snow and biting winds. Compared with the realities of cold...

of the Spectator arrive late. We regret any incon- venience this may cause. Readers who are unable to obtain a copy, and would like to receive one by post, should send...

BY HENRY FAIRLIE I T has happened. In the Atheneum, where they keep the public copy of The Times, oddly, in the hall, between the door and the lavatories, I suppose they read...

THE HOME SECRETARY has not yet succeeded in doing or saying anything sensible about the case of the three men who were Wrongfully convicted of assaulting a policeman. He first...

that I have any great taste for the pathetic fallacy) to be a rather melancholy business, so I am not without sympathy for The Men of the Trees in the row they have been making...

unbend without creaking. But Mr. Harold Macmillan and Sir Anthony Eden are not among them. Mr. Macmillan's 'There ain't gonna be no war' was an embarrassing experience for his...

just before the Party Congress, is one more sign that the pot is still boiling in the Soviet power struggle. He had been Stalin's l ocal protection expert as long ago as Teheran...

LAGOS . . . one of the jewels of Her Majesty's realms . . . —BBC. . . . this ramshackle town . . .—Evening Standard. * `LIZIEET, Lizibet,' they roar.—Sunday Graphic. A...

BY ROGER FALK T HE title of this piece is not as casual as it sounds. I have recently returned from a month's journeying in Africa, and flew what was virtually a circuit,...

BY PETER LYON T O draw a parallel between boxing promotion and art promotion may seem a little unfair. Those who are familiar with the world of art dealing may point out that...

BY L. F. RUSHBROOK WILLIAMS Delhi T HE bitter regional controversies—Maharastra against Gujarat:Bengal against Bihar, Sikhs against Hindus in the Punjab, and the...

By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS A GROUP of American businessmen have, the news- papers tell us, recorded their prophecies of what - life will be like in the United States in 1975. They...

campaign for the destruction of that noble building, the Imperial Institute in South Ken- sington, whose tower is the most beautiful prominent landmark on the London sky after...

BY JOHN BETJEMAN I HAD the unspeakable privilege this week of going inside the Church of the Ark of the Covenant on Clapton Common, E5. Many a time have I stood outside those...

A friend has collected for me twenty-eight new sorts of cards, which you can now send to save yourself the trouble of writing a letter. For instance, there are seven different...

I AM apt to be lax in my attendance at reunion dinners. This is partly because I do not live in London, but another reason is that they induce a feeling of sadness. It is...

Euston 3221

The New Estate H. A. Marquand, MP, 'Furnished,' C. D'Oyly Grange Tastes in TV Sir Kenneth Clark Establishment Bodies Christopher Chataway Oxford Roads The Warden of All...

Curran might, per- haps, focus his sociological spotlight on the new 'Poor Institutions,' and thus reveal the dingy, obverse side of that bright medallion, 'Social Security.'...

SIR,—May I contribute a word or two of comment on Mr. Robert Blake's two articles concerning the well-worn topic of Oxford roads? With much of Mr. Blake's exposition I have...

the ITA entitled 'Monument to Fraud' must have wondered if things could really be so bad. May I therefore be permitted to give them a key to the spirit in which the article was...

SIR,—In your issue of January 20 Pharos speaks of Independent Television News 'solemnly' giving 'its list of Establishment bodies.' He says that incomprehensibly we omitted...

'Tabloid,' as this is a trade mark of Burroughs Wellcome & Co. and may not be used by any other person.—Yours faith- fully,

Robert Blake in the Oxford roads controversy if one felt that Christ Church came to it with entirely clean hands. In the last sentence of his article, Mr. Blake mentions a...

January 27) that 'Wales beat England at Rugby football, and Welsh fans nearly beat the police in their attempts to climb the Eros statue.' The first part of this statement is...

ment last week to say how much I deplored the actions of the police and Home Secretary in the recent cases where homes had been searched without warrants, a bookseller fined for...

Philosophy in the Middle Ages was unworthy of your paper. There must be few students of mediaeval philosophy who do not know that Gilson is not a cleric. Your reviewer is one of...

now apologise. It was seeing him described as Director of Studies at the Pontifical Institute of. Medieval Studies at Toronto which made me think he must have taken Orders....

a kind of mischievous silliness of which a good example is his quiz (January 27) about various schools. I do not know why he should want to make so much mystery over the fact...

crudely Non-U as it is mauvais ton; But the truth of the matter is clear as can be To anyone living this side of the sea. Rugby, Winchester, Harrow, Eton, Wellington, Stowe...

THE twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Anna Pavlova has been appropriately marked in print, in issues of recorded music, and in celebratorY performance. There can be few...

ELECTRICIANS rewiring the floor below obscured the View this week : the BBC's programmes were afflicted by Scotch mist, which lifted often enough only to frustrate. What I heard...

Mozart Exhibition AN exhibition of some of the British Museum's remarkable collection of Mozartiana is now on view in the King's Library. It will remain open until the end of...

PLAIN AND FANCY. By Joseph Stein and Will Glickman. (Drury Lane.)—FRESH Alas. By Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. (Comedy.) AFTER a long period of inactivity the London...

THE CONQUEROR. (Odeon, Marble Arch.)— FREE CINEMA. (National Film Theatre.) 1 - r is, admittedly, difficult to find an American actor of star quality who looks like Genghis...

FEBRUARY 5, 1831 WERE we called on to give a short definition of the British Government, we should say tt was a machine for regulating the Army, th e Navy, and the...

Phoenix Too Frequent BY KINGSLEY AMIS H ARDLY a week passes without the canon of Lawrence and Lawrentiana seeming to grow fuller and more overwhelmingly definitive. This latest...

JAMES VI AND I. By David Harris Willson. (Jonathan Cape, 30s.) Professor Willson is already well known to scholars for his valuable work on James I's privy councillors. His...

THE ROAD TO JUSTICE. By Sir Alfred Denning. (Stevens, 10s. 6d.) LORD JUSTICE DENNING is the only truly controversial figure on the English Bench, in the sense that his views...

THE EDGE OF THE SEA. By Rachel Carson. (Staples, 18s.) MISS CARSON has .dived more deeply into more books about the s ea than most professional oceanographers with a set of...

A PROSPECT OF BRITAIN. By Andrew Young. (Hutchinson, I 6.s.) THIS is a fine and pleasing book, far above the general run of con- temporary 'books about the countryside.' Its...

FRENCH LEAVE. By P. G. Wodehouse. (Herbert Jenkins, 10s. 6d.) WITH the dry rot and John Betjeman hovering solicitously over Blandings Castle, with Jeeves in the service of a...

THE SHIRT OF NESSUS. By Constantine Fitz Gibbon. (Cassell, 21s.) THE events of July 20, 1944, in Hitler's headquarters are not only of interest to historians; they have...

THE jolly Jack-tar is an engaging and reassuring figure in English, folklore. Never mind the public ingratitude or the general vile- ness of conditions at sea, he was always...

CARNIVAL KING. By Henry Treece. (Faber, 12s. 6d.) A MATCH FOR THE DEVIL. By Norman Nicholson. (Faber, 10s. 6d.) THESE two plays have nothing in common except that , they are...

By Aubrey L. Williams. (Methuen, 18s.)' PRESENT-DAY readers of Pope value The Dunciad highly. Mr. Williams's indispensable book does for it what Miss Starkman's book did for A...

By PHILIDOR No. 35. G. C. DOBBS BLACK (6 men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves: A% solution next week. Solution to last week's problem by Hartong: P-Q 4 threat R x P. 1 ....

Jean Hecht. (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 25s.) M ATT BRAMBLE, in Humphry Clinker, said that 'every trader in. any degree ,of credit, every broker and attorney, maintains a couple...

of the Jacobean and Caroline theatre, bring Mr. Bentley's mam- moth work almost to completion. There is one more volume to come on theatres and theatrical customs. When that...

For a prize of competitors were invited to submit a 'Things To Do' list of five items such as might have been compiled by any three of the following : Bottom, Shylock, Lady...

of narrative up to 150 words including all the following adjectives. in any order but in their correct senses : disingenuous, rebarbative, solipsistic, lapi- dary,...

ACROSS 1 Convulsive effect of those illuminating bills (8, 5). 9 Not quite everyone takes to the drug- gist (9). 10 Roman matron's stage appearance is almost common (5). 11...

168 The winners of Crossword No. 871 are MR. F. FITZMALIRICR, 4 St. Barn- abas Road, Sutton, Surrey, and Mtss L. M. Coungs, 150 Itri2nton Road, Purley, Surrey.

A friend asked me recently if I could offer explanation for the fact that fir poles are ! ) '!en perfectly round while the trunks of, say, ' 1 M, beech and elm are far from...

BY IAN NIALL WHEN myxomatosis first began to spread in some of the southern counties of England there Were stories of farmers in other parts offering considerable sums of money...

The local migration of birds is, I always feel, a subject Upon which we never seem to have enough information. Quite plainly large num- bers of birds move about in their own...

with bedding plants sown in good seed compost. At the same time dahlias can be brought out of store and set in soil. Early work is most beneficial in districts where frosts do...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT THERE can be no better proof that a new Macmillan Committee is urgently required to investigate and report on our financial system and advise on the...

By CUSTOS So dull have the stock markets become, waiting for the new Chancellor to show his hand or New York to' show a lead, that for the first time a steel denationalisation...