THE HIGHEST-POWERED political symposium of the year took place at Chequers, where every Govern- ment Minister gathered to discuss 'Britain in the Seventies.' All the pundits...

Nobody, I believe, wilt consider it merely as the language of spleen or disappointment, if I say, that there is something particularly alarm- ing in the present conjuncture....

No. 7036 Lscablished 1828 FRIDAY, MAY 3, 1963

M HE petition just presented to the Queen on I behalf of the 800,000 stateless Tamils of Ceylon outlines a now familiar pattern of grievances. The Bulletin of the International...

T HE stunned silence from Bonn should not lull anyone into supposing that Chancellor Adenauer has had his final word on the subject of his retirement or upon his successor. It...

By KENNETH MACKENZIE I T is di ffi cult to imagine a more refined form of torture than to wait until a man is within days of completing a long prison sentence and then announce...

The Foot in the Door By J. V. DAVIDSON-HOUSTON* A WESTERN embassy behind the Iron Curtain is an island of freedom in a sea of suspicion. Despite all that is said about the...

I3.■ BRIAN INGLIS T HE press, The Times said, `conies badly out of the report'; the Observer, pleading guilty to a sin of its own, had `The Press Caught Out' as the headline to...

By J. M. COHEN T HE execution of Grimau aroused anger and horror in circles far wider than those of Communist sympathisers, of whom there are many among the intelligent young...

By DENIS BROGAN I HE restaurant we had booked into is one of the smartest in Washington's smart district, Georgetown—which is a sort of superior Chelsea. Thirty years ago it...

never left it, for then I need never have known just how brutally ugly and unnecessary those enclosing miles of semis are. Strung along narrow tracks with surfaces like billiard...

T HE ferry aeroplane, flying low, had to make a wide sweep over the coast of the Island. The moment, often repeated, of emotion at the mere fact of the Island's existence, gives...

The lack of political and modern history teaching and the resulting ignorance and in- difference in young people of how our society works is producing a whole generation of...

The press has behaved disgracefully. Partly because officials never tell reporters anything, it is true, but still, disgracefully. And even if the press knows more than the...

One or two pointers may perhaps be made about security from years of onlooking in em- bassies and Behind Curtains. Retired service officers, with their strict and Haig-like...

Reports that the Queen may visit Germany, either later this year or early in 1964, must meet with universal approval, not because we are doing the Germans a favour, but because...

Impressed by London's new skyline, 1 tried to get a thirtieth-floor after-dinner brandy in a much-publicised, very new hotel. Expelled peremptorily by minuscule uniformed...

enough for him. He's going to give him responsibility for the whole of economic policy.' `How do you know'?' `Dick told me himself.' `Harold's going to let Dick choose people...

By COLIN MACINNES Mr. Mataranka Birdum, a young Australian aboriginal and disciple of Miss Margaret Mead, was among us recently, on a scholarship from the British Council, to...

By CONSTANTINE FITZGIBBON O CCASIONALLY in history sex and politics have coalesced. There is no need to go back to prehistoric times, the practice of exogamy, and wars waged to...

closer relationship with the State schools, it is schools no means as certain as you suggest that the public schools should bring their age of entry into line With the State's....

be funny at George Lichtheim's expense, but succeeds only in being unfair and missing the point. George Lukacs is not one of the caged victims, but one of the gaolers and...

SI —Your contributor Mr. Alan Brien protests that my criticism of George Lukacs is a case of 'the free , man teasing the caged animal.' I doubt if Lukacs sees himself in this...

SIR,—Peggy Duff's letter in last week's Spectator deserves detailed answer. Mrs. Duff : You say I distort, first about CND's aloofness to the first Aldermaston march. Well, CND...

was startled by .the figures of 57 per cent approving of the aims of the Aldermaston March and 33 per cent approving of the March itself, principally because of the relation-...

Pop Goes the Poll J. C. Maxwell Cul tural Fallout George Lichtheim, Alfred Sherman CND's Future Herb Greer, Rachel Powell Oh What a Lovely War' Arab. Unity and Israel...

delayed by another Aldermaston. The experi- ence only confirms the feeling I had when reading the article—that nobody can make sense of the Cam- paign without looking seriously...

that a historian of Mr. Terraine's standing should condemn a show he has not seen on the evidence of a dramatic critic who did h no t see part of it prperly. Wt Mr. Lin thought...

Dream World By ISABEL QUIGLY Two Daughters. (Academy I AM never quite sure whether it is mostly India that pro- vides the quite extraordinary attractiveness of Satyajit...

SIR,—Even Lord Radcliffe, in his benign comments in the Vassall report, does not maintain that tautology, blatant fantasy or intellectual dishonesty are a justifiable part of...

SIR,—According to reliable press reports. since the beginning of the year, in a number of mass trials in South Africa under the shameful General Law Amendment Act, the so-called...

to boarding-schools by chiding Mr. Worsthorne for his use of the word 'jejune.' He could have found a happier example. Murals (French jeun) thi n.' 'fasting' and, by extension,...

Design at Work By NEVILE WALLIS ONCE again the Royal College of Art has mounted with style an exuberant and unpredict- able exhibition in its Gulben- kian Hall, itself an...

The Tippett Question By DAVID CAIRNS ALTHOUGH the BBC's broad- cast of The Midsununer Mar- riage (recently repeated on the Home Service) has raised the stock of Michael Tippett...

Schools BY BAMBER GASCOIGNE A medee. (Piccadilly.)—Luv. (New Arts.)—The Rivals. (Lyric, Hammersmith.) Ar its worst the French style of acting can be truly appal- ling; and,...

Apr eg-Bomb By CLIFFORD HANLEY THE post-bomb story is one of those irresistible temptations to writers, and considering how closely we live with it now, the lure will probably...

Beyond the Pain Principle BY ANTHONY HARTLEY I T has often been remarked—by Andre Mal- raux amongst others—that our era has a taste for the fragmentary in art and letters. In...

The Culture of Western Europe: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. By George L. Mosse. (John Murray 50s.) History and Hope: Tradition, Scepticism and Fanaticism in Modern...

main character of Walker Percy's novel strikes the reader as honest chiefly because he makes so few claims on the abstract. Behind him are littered the wrecks of patterns and...

been intimately associated in recent times, in a very – s pecial though melancholy relationship. The but guilt complex on Poland is still a minor Knowledge signi fi cant factor...

Virginia Woolf. By Dorothy Brewster. (George Allen and Unwin, 20s.) Virginia Woolf. By A. D. Moody. (Oliver and Boyd, 5s.) IN July, 1923, David Garnett reviewed in The Dial,...

Refusing a Dance Concords true picture shineth in this art Ninety-eight miles to the sea, Arrived late in the day To find sunshine gone and the sea Like the has blue-grey: It...

Early fell to the spell of, What wrong have I done love? Wondered with you how Gracefully not to allow Sense a way. Did not know Flesh has its mind, of danger, Whose coolness is...

I told you I was drained of happiness. The wine was only half-way down our glasses• You said to me, 'Are you not happy now?' Searching my heart, I had to own I. was. How should...

Your hair that makes the most of vines, Blue shirt against the trellis, and goggles Like insect's eyes, reflecting the lagoon. That's all the Kodacolour yields To which I add a...

Sixty gulls seed this field with white, Salting each furrow, crumbling the soil That falls in slabs like fruit cake. Serene in air, They waddle on the ground, their feet...

Side by side on the narrow bed We lay, like chained giants, Tasting each other's tears, in terror Of the news which left nothing to hide But our two faces that stared To ritual...

(Faber, 36s.) IT is only natural that the oil companies should have been cast for the part of wicked uncles in Popular mythology. They are large, rich and often American in...

Between the Lines: W. B. Yeats's Poetry in the Making. By Jon Stallworthy. 38s.) AMID today's vast overproduction of works about and around literature, it is always a relief to...

Postwar British Fiction. By James Gindin. (C.U.P., 30s.) LAST year there were 2,352 novels published in England; for the forty years since Ulysses (which is the period covered...

Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing. By Ruari McLean. (Faber, 45s.) T HE shelves of our few remaining second-hand book s h ops are changing as rapidly as second- hand...

BY TIM PAT COOGAN C EAN O'CASEY and Dr. Konrad Adenauer have Oa good deal in common. Both are practically indestructible, religion plays a large part in the lives of both—and...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT THERE is no doubt that the feeling of sober optimism which has seized hold of the London Stock Exchange— and let no one try to crab the fun of living more...

By CUSTOS T . best proof that the public is in the market is the recent success of the unit trust i ssues. The Welsh Dragon issue of five million - ) a. units, which came out...

y. 1,0THBURY O VER the past two years London and Manchester Assurance. has, by wise invest- ment , of its funds, substantially increased the rate of interest earned on them. In...

By MAUREEN O'CONNOR E VERYONE has been so busy lately assessing our latest social revolution or condemning office building that no one has noticed the de- cline of one of our...

The Air Herd By LESLIE ADRIAN AFTER all the competition between the international air- lines (muffled in recent years by Uncle lata, who thinks that anything that is good for...

By SHEILA MARTYN M ORE than 10,000 candidates will contest local elections next week all over the country, except in London, and they will all be known, at least by sight, to...