ara

Vol. LXVII. No. 1733. THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1962

A ne\vspaper stand in a shop on tIie Champs Elysees, Paris: l\1.artin Harrison discusses t.lJ.e French press-and the Algerian v;ar on page"·1015.-

The Changing Meaning of Nationalism What is Psychological Maturity? By David ThomSOIDl By a Psychiatrist Disputed Masterpiece of Gioll"gione Sill" Waltell" Ralegh and History By Michael AyrtOIDl By Christopher Hm

Fll"ickell" and an Ameri~an Story Talking about ~cience By David Cox By Magmas Pyke REGISTERED AT THE G.P.O. Vol. LXVIll. No. 1733 Thursday .lfune 14 1962 AS A NEWSPAPER

CONTENTS CURRENT AFFAIRS: RADIO ESSAY: A Lesson on· the Freedom of the Press (Martin Harrison) 1015 The Poacher's Express (Huw Ballard Thomas) ... 1034 The Changing Meaning of Nationalism (David Thomson) 1017 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: The Danger of Being the Speaker (Daniel Counihan) 1019 From T. H. Williams, Rev. B. M. G. Reardon, John McFie, THE LISTENER: Rev. Norman Adcock, Ruth Adam, Norman Walker, Ancient Monuments? '" ...... 1020 F. A. J. Ford, GuiIfoyle Williams ... '" ... 1035 What They Are Saying (Stanley Mayes) ... 1020 LITERATURE: DID YOU HEAR THAT? Book reviews (Douglas Parmee, J. A. Camacho, Kennefu A Mansion of Taste and Elegance (Nick Young) 1021 Muir, Joel Hurstfield, Leonard Schapiro, and L. The Historical Novel (Maurice Cranston) ... 1021 Harrison Matthews) 1039 Instant Welsh (Michel Vercambre) ... '" 1022 New Novels (Vernon Scannell) 1043 Russian Show Jumpers (Dorian Williams) 1022 CRITIC ON THE HEARTH: HISTORY: Television Documentary (Arthur Calder-Marshall) 1044 In~ellectual Origins of the English Revolution-HI Television Drama (Derek Hill) ... 1045 (Christopher Hill) ... 1023 Sound Drama (Martin Shuttleworth) 1045 SCIENCE: The Spoken Word (John Pringle) ... 1046 Declare Your Interest (Magnus Pyke) 1026 Music (Edward Lockspeiser) ... 1046 ART: MUSIC: 'The Woman Taken in Adultery' (Michael Ayrton) 1028 Fricker and an American Story (David Cox) 1047 PSYCHOLOGY: GARDENING: What is Psychological Maturity? (A Psychiatrist) 1030 Making a Rock-garden (Will Ingwersen) ... 1048 POEM: BRIDGE (Harold Franklin and Terence Reese) 1048 A Death in the North (George MacBeth) 1031 RECIPES (Alison Balfour) 1050 B.B.C. NEWS HEADLINES AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE WEEK ... 1032 CROSSWORD NO. 1,672 ... 1050

A Lesson on the Freed.om of the Press

M A R"T I N HA R R ISO N on what happened in France during the Algerian war

Mr Harrison is a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford; he is the broadcasting network-or suffered for their occasional ventures author of 'Trade Unions and the Labour Party since 1945' and into political non-conformity. To succeed it was essential for the (with Philip Williams) , De Gaulle's Republic '. Government to influence the content of the daily and periodical ONE of the classic definitions of the freedom and press too. In Algeria the local authorities were granted draconian responsibility of the press is more eloquentiy simple powers to control all means of expression as early as 1955. But than the Declaration of Rights of 1789: 'The free on the mainland governments remained reluctant to establish open communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the censorship, realizing that this would irk even friendly papers. most precious rights of man. Every citizen may therefore speak, Ins!ea~, they turned to. seizi?g !ssues of deviant newspapers and write, and publish freely, except to answer for abuses of that periodicals. The technIque IS simple: newspapers must submit liberty in conditions duly determined by law'. Even today France advance copies to the 10c.al prefecture; there they are rapidly remains one of that small group of countries where 'free com­ scanned for objectionable material and, if desired, seizure is munication of thoughts 'and opinions' is mote than a phrase. But ordered by the prefect, a minister, or even a junior civil servant; the long, cruel strains that the Algerian war has imposed on the thereupon police confiscate the entire issue before it can reach entire structure of French society have in recent years led govern­ the public. ments to an ever-increasing number of infringements of these In time of war-and France was at war in Algeria-the needs ideals of 1789. Though M. Pompidou has promised that the end o.f public ~rde.r or s.tate security may, exceptionally, be so impera­ of the war may bring a return to more normal treatment of basic tive as to JustIfy seIzure. Such saisies de police administrative are freedoms, the habit of exercising arbitrary power may not readily in fact authorized by French law. But few, if any, recent seizures be renounced. Certainly the examination of French policy towards have been of this type-which exposes the authorities to the threat the press in recent years inspires little confidence for the future. of paying damages if they have acted improperly. Instead govern­ Freedom' of information was an early victim of the Algerian me~ts have exp!oited an article of the code of criminal procedure war. At the root of the chronic failure of Algerian policy lay an which allows seizure of documents needed to ascertain whether a irrational insistence on taking wish for reality. Governments crime has been committed against the state. Plainly the seizure of assiduously cultivated fictions of which they were as much the thousands of copies of a newspaper on the pretext of providing prisoners as the public: the rebellion, was the work of a handful evidence for the courts is a most flagrant abuse of procedure. In of foreign agitators, ' the last quarter of an hour' was at hand; a law, a seizure must be followed by an investigation which should settlement could be achieved without political negotiations with lead logically to a criminal· prosecution. In practice, once an the Algerian nationalists. To close, the gap between myth and inquiry has been formally opened, the matter is frequently dropped, reality progressively tighter control of information seemed leaving the seized newspaper hundreds of pounds the poorer. The essential. proportion of seizures which lead to successful prosecution for Almost all the means of expression were either brought more crimes against the state is extremely smalL Redress against abusive tightly than ever under the Government's thumb-like the state acts of police judiciaire has always been difficult to obtain in 1044 THE LISTENER JUNE 14 CRITIC ON, THE HEARTH

Weekly comments on BBC programmes by independent contributors

Television Broadcasting pediment to wise voting? The two by-elections can be taken either to , DOCUMENTARY confirm the general correctness of the polls in their estimate or their im­ The Debate Continues portance ih influencing voters. Clearly ',MR NENZIES (' Panorama', June 4) continued dishonest. opinion' polls could be ,the Common Market debate. It was hard to dangerous, as dishonest press, radio, decide how serious his objections were. Clearly and television publicity could. But . if we add membership of the Common Market given the possibility of these means to COlllmonwealth and European Free Trade of information, I think democracy Association commitments, ties with these latter should gain more than it loses. will· be looser. But if we are to achieve a world In the 'Election Special ' (June 6) societ:}', Britairi is uniquely suited to be the what struck me most was the c1ubbi­ universal joint. What seems to me lacking is a ness of the party representatives. Peter British statesman with the vision and eloquence Thorneycroft, J 0 Grimond, and needed to formulate this concept in ,a way which Harold Wilson might be on different can be at once inspiring and non-committal. sides of the House, but they were all In' Thailand, James Mossman obtained a in it; and with their use of Christian definition of· the United States' limited aims names in accusing one another' of from the American Ambassador which rang truer than the assurance Robin Day was given J ames MacArthur (left) as David Balfour and Finch as Alan Breck in Kidnapped: .. an in Washington that the Central Intelligence from the film was shown in the film AgenCY hadn't tried to buck the President by the Peter Finch on June 6 "sponsorship of General Phoumi. Tbe Dalai Lama regretted that Tibet hadn't joined the United Nations when there was still uncensorious acceptance of tearaway .time. lie had the' faith that truth will triumph and for the same reason it appalled over evil ultimately,' which I share. But I am adolescent misfits menace life on the not sure how much use ultimately it will be that at least to their peacock brains this . the future liberators of Tibet.know how to sing appear a glorification of their way of , Knick-knack, paddy-whack, give a dog a bone '. Interviewed by Derek Prouse, Clearly they love it, but it will sound strange came across as a personality with . echoing through the prayer flags across the roof power and a saving humility. I liked his , of the world. to Dame Edith Evans for teaching Tbe main local topic of the week, the influ­ comedy is 'firing powder puffs out ence of public-opinion polls on the electorate cannon '. In television the extracts from was explored by John Morgan in Middlesbrough Brown and Kidnapped came across . and West Derbyshire. Is it an aid or an im- than the black-and-white versions, of Barry Bucknell showing the effects bf colour, such as The Trials of Oscar dry rot, in the fourth programme in No Love for 'Johnnie. It was . the series 'Bucknell's House' that Mr Finch is going to direct heartening to hear that, at least for the wilful misrepresent~tion they im­ he doesn't feel that it is possible to pressed me most with being collec­ direct the same picture. Here is a real tively Them trying to get power the cinema, compared to whom the from Us. actors or directors are just hacks. The Labour Party Political Broad­ I was disappointed in 'A Man Alone cast of the same evening, 'Enjoying . portrait of Charles de Gaulle (June 5). The Life " to commemorate the Festival material was interesting. I did not know of Labour, by making a plea that two years as prisoner in the first world ' we should be thinking and planning his five attempts to escape. But Robert now for the increased leisure we can :p.ot seem to me to have penetrated to expect in measurable time and the of this perhaps unknowable man of limited leisure which is not yet The most dramatic Derby in catered for, showed an admirable eluded the' television cameras, freedom from purely party bias. leaders. I imagine most viewers of BBC Under the archidiaconal leadership, over as I did to ITV to follow up the a schoolmaster pleaded education Perhaps they were impressed, as I was, for leisure, Denis Howell, M.P., for superior visual coverage of the race itself. improved facilities for sport, Wesker June 6 also gave us another and Betjeman for the arts. Leisure 'Bucknell's House " a most instructive is a horrible word, carpet slippers dealing with the renovation of an actual and the Sunday sleep. 'Enjoying in Ealing which has almost ev(!rvthin!!: Life' conveyed to me a picture of a wrong with it. This instalment dealt party thinking ahead. and was simple and clear in its treatment. The need for that thought was Though in favour of glamourizing the shown by Ronaid KeHy's ' The phone service, I did not like' Miss Tearaways' (June 7), a subjective G.P.O. 1962' (June 7). The panel study of two moronic adolescents impose some order against a chaos compensating for weakness of lights, the deafening music of J ackie character and intelligence by the the organ, and K. Horne at his K. power of their over-driven motor­ Miss Pamela Walker won by . , A Man Alone': General de Gaulle in Paris in 1944 during the cycles. It won the Jury's Special her ambition for the future was to live celebrations marking the liberation of the city Prize at Cannes last month for its present. JUNE 14 1962 THE LISTENER 1045

DRAMA them enact appears to conceal an in­ Junk Dealers capacity for reflect­ THE TELEVISION DEBUT of Ioneseo's The ing real emotion. Chairs (June 8) was a revealing occasion, Tony Devoid of feelings Richardson's production at the Royal Court was life might well be such a spell-binder that it made the play seem a as meaningless as Jarky wonder. Then again we had only recently he would have us waited for Godot, The tight-lipped theatre was believe; but where something fairly new. Playwrights who lengthily is this terrible lack kept mum, who added their elaborate penn'orth of emotion? Not, of absurdity to a world they saw as already surely, with the wholly foolish, still had a novelty value. The characters. Ionesco ambiguity of exchanges which could be admired himself is the dry for, their style and equally well interpreted as one. ,meaning everything or nothing then seemed Oddly enough, the previous eVen­ ri delightful. , The barrenness of last week's television pro­ ing had shown a f~ ">"duction was not entirely due to the fact that the true portrayal of t< genre has since become so familiar. Naomi absolute inter­ !' Capon, who usually Seems one of the rare pro­ dependence in terms " ducers whose work is recognizable by its which to my mind t',individuality, gave the play a surprisingly quite outclassed matter-of-fact production, almost as if the Ionesco. Ray Galton i"; cameras were roaming a theatre stage where the and Alan Simpson, oplay was being performed. Yet television needs for all the frequent • "to establish the stylization of such a work more brilliance of their Cyril Cusack as the Old Man and Beatrix Lehm,mn as the Old Woman in The " : dramatically than the theatre. The stage is Hancock scripts, Chairs, by Eugene Ionesco ~ already an artificial enough medium; we're half­ ~:oprepared for anything to happen. But the te1e­ as the first in a weekly series built round these ~ vision camera is ordinarily so preoccupied with two characters-' '-makes me ~i'~ either recording or recreating reality that when apprehensive. The play is so complete and its it ventures in other directions the fact has to be ending so perfect that the BBC would have been , firmly stated. The mere recording of stylized more logical to invite Ionesco to bring The Old :~, dialogue and performances isn't enough. Here Man and The Old Woman back to life for a " the only attempt to match Ionesco's surrealism weekly series, 'More Messages for Mankind '. a pitifully inadequate series of tilted shots I pray that I'm wrong, and that Galton and revolving doors, a feeble substitute for a Simpson can do it again and again for the flext i!!" Cllmax which in Richardson's production was a five Thursdays. But I cannot imagine how. whirl of action. Robert Gould's science-fiction serial The Big But the mundaneness of this presentation did Pull (June 9) opened splendidly. A little fum­ expose the author's work more nakedly; and a bling suggested some under-rehearsal, but the ugly sight it turned out to be. To express script looks as though it might be the first serial sum total of a man's life in terms of a room­ since the Quatermass plays to qualify for serious of empty chairs awaiting a meaningless comparison. The next five Saturdays promise to from a voiceless orator is something be just as compulsory as the next five Thursdays. than nihilism. Despite the marvellously DEREK HILL *"cruUl/-lj,,,U performances of Beatrix Lehmann and the old couple's more tender little more than calculated Wilfrid Brambell as Albert Step toe and Harry Sound Broadcasting with their tetchier moments. The Corbett as his son Harold in 'The Offer', the first DRAMA programme in the series ' Steptoe and Son'

be cont:inuously reminded that a model is being A Hedge Backwards, Henry Reed's quintessen­ ing that the film, the only new major art form shown, as in fact is always the case in the tially delightful piece of English nonsense with of the last 100 years, 'had failed to transform theatre ~. At all events, after the interval, the Hilda Tablet, General Gland, the Shewins and the Bible into its own medium', made a fierce cast wacrmed to their work, and, by the end, in all, that was broadcast for the fifth (or was attack on Barab'bas and other recent productions that terrifying penultimate scene when the Jew­ it the fifty-fifth time?) in the Third Programme for their sadism and inanity. finder sniffs the barefooted, masked citizens, .the on June 6. Reed is, the author of one of the But is the commercial cinema worth dis­ produc1:ion had found a style. But by then it finest of all poems about the last war; he has cussing? Maryvonne Butcher, film critic of The was toO late. The production had disappointed the right to be a mandarin, not just because of Tablet, was emphatic that the Christian, tempted and so" perhaps, had the play, as a piece of that but because all he does he does superbly as he might be by his isolation in the modern theatre, in English. well. world, must not allow himself to opt out of To say this is not to blame the translators. MARTIN SHUTTLE WORTH it. She gave an account of the principles on The Aodorra of the title is not the real Andorra, which Roman Catholic censorship and re­ nor is ,it Switzerland; it is a Lilliput or an viewing are based which may have raised some' Erewhon, a laboratory of the human condition. THE SPOKEN WORD hackles but sounded cool and level-headed Frisch is Swiss; born in 1911, he grew up be­ to me. tween t:he wars, trained as an architect, had to, Winged Words JOHN PRINGLE leave th~ university without taking a degree ~ AT ITS WORST-its best is very good because: the money gave out; became a journal­ l:~~~~":' ; -current talks production tends to be MUSIC ist; watched Hitler come to power and Europe 11.'''''::", ~ artificially slick on the Home Service The Art of Conducting go mad; completed his studies as an architect, and non-existent on the Third Programme. I and in 1943 completed his first important build­ have heard some excrutiating radio on the ._ THE CONCERT given by the winner ing and his first important book. He is a builder Third, much of it no better than a talk I myself and runner-up of the International and an observer. once inflicted on an international conference. Conductors' Competition (Home Ser­ When this play begins a girl is whitewashing The organizers had asked me to talk for thirty vice, June 8) was a reminder that of all musical a wall in the city square. When it ends she is minutes but at the last moment cut me to careers that of the conductor is the most . whitewashing the asphalt of the square; the twenty. Childishly determined not to omit one mysterious, perhaps the most instinctive, cer­ 'blacks' from over the border have invaded; word of my prepared script, I set off to do a tainly the most difficult to establish. It is the her head has been shaved; her father has hanged Herb Elliott on the, audience. It didn't seem career of the performer par excellence, for himself, her half-brother, who took himself, and greatly to matter whether anyone listened. My whereas the. instrumentalist or singer has an whom others took, for a Jew, has been tortured full text was going to be printed in the 'Pro­ instrument on which to conceive the larger­ and killed. We have been shown that we all­ ceedings '. As I mounted the rostrum, I could than-life execution demanded from him on neutrals, blacks, and whites-partook in a com­ see that most of the delegates, even those with concert platform, the conductor, even at a· mon madness; that no one was guiltless of the ear-phones on, were making out their expense rehearsal, must step on to the platform with causes or the crimes of the last European war. accounts or writing picture postcards to their this magnified conception of the work he is to At a deeper, and more disconcerting, level we wives. It seemed a pity to disturb them at their perform entirely in his head. Chance has' hitherto have been shown that the parts that we play in work. I finished in eighteen minutes flat and played a large part in the discovery of a con-' society ,are doled out to us. If you tell a man felt pleased with myself, though there was some ductor, and even then his staying power has long enough that he is a Jew, he will become a incipient booing among the simultaneous trans­ been almost impossible to gauge. Obviously, "Cl Jew. If he is born one side of a frontier he will lators. with the growing popularity of orchestral music . , be a faSCist, if the other an Andorran. We are all Too much talks production on the Third more systematic methods must be employed. )~ victim, neutral and torturer. And this, I believe, seems to be of the same order.: to be aimed Indeed, apart from the handful of dominating .~.'~ is where the trouble lies. solely at eventual publication in print, with the .figures, there is known to be a shortage of ser-:: 'i When Frisch, as novelist, clothes this vision actual broadcasting gone througp as a kind of viceable' conductors. ' in a hundred thousand particulars and Faber or boring preliminary. I am sorry to have to quote It is greatly to the credit, therefore, of the: ~1 Stiller realize that they are pawns, we respond as an example Christopher Hill's third talk in Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society to have' ,;~ instantly and completely, for they, like us, are , Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution' organized, in collaboration with the BBC, a. ~ complete human beings who are also pawns. (June 5). The complex thought and printed­ competition which attracted twenty-two aspiring .'~ But Andri and Barblin and Biedermann and page-syntax of this brilliant series makes it, I conductors from as far afield as America, Hun"" ",j the other pawns of the Frischian stage are only would have thought, impossible material for the gary, and Israel. John Pritchard and Sir Adriaa .:~ pawns who are pawns. And this is not so com­ microphone at the speed at which it was ren­ Boult were among the judges who also, very;,:t pelling, in English, in the theatre. You can still dered last week. properly, included members of the orchestra.· . be Swiftian in German, but if you try in Eng­ There is, I know, an assumption that listeners Selected candidates were each offered two public' lish, and English actors are going to mouth to the Third Programme can assimilate informa­ concerts, preceded by four rehearsals, so that not ,:; your WOrds, they will come out Kensingtonian. tion more rapidly than lesser breeds, and do not only the winners had a chance of furthering .. C, I can't believe that Catherine Dolan has ever need to be coaxed into listening. Whether this their careers. Speaking as a radio listener, I whitewashed a wall in her life. theory is true or not, there are practical limita­ could not help regretting that the preliminary I did not have space last week moderately to tions. 'The Critique of Pure Reason', recited trials were not televised, as they were at. am ,> commend Charity Blackstock's The Briar Patch like the fat stock prices, becomes merely a waste earlier competition, when Sir Adrian provided ti::,t. (Home Service, June 2). I say' moderately' for of electricity. After trying desperately to keep running commentary oh each of the candidate's~::.; this was one of the clumsiest adaptations of a up, I decided, and I don't think I was alone abilities. We heard, however, the splendid wor1e; . novel that I have listened to for a long time. in this, to wait to read Mr Hill in THE LISTENER. of the two most promising candidates. .:; There were three. false endings, each one' less 'Conference' (Home Service, June 7) was At the broadcast with the BBC Northern convincing and conclusive than the last, and I taken at a still faster pace, but the quick-fire Orchestra, the runner-up, Vanco Cavdarski, do not believe that the dialogue had been heard manner is supportable in a discussion in col­ from Yugoslavia, gave ,an authoritative and first with the mental ear by either author or loquial speech with several speakers. Even so, I beautifully shaped performance of Beethoven'1, adapter. As a natural result the acting was thought the producer overdid the effect of glib­ First Symphony, firm in structure and rhythmi'::; sketchy, in some places downright slack. But it ness. Undue straining after the 'never a dull cally alive. The winner, Dietfried Bernet from:" was an interesting play, perhaps more than that. moment' impression can produce a breathless, Austria, started out nervously at the opening of In a small French provincial town Miss uneasy sensation which is the reverSe of natural. Ravel's Le Tombeau de Coupel'in, but soon,' Pe1ham's English finishing school stands oppo­ The subject was the effect of public opinion showed himself to be a musician of real tempera;: site M. Wolff'sJewish school for boys whose polls on elections, hung on the 'peg' of Aidan ment. The conductor who could strike such:: parents have been exterminated by the Germans. Crawley's outburst. Were these polls introducing appropriate tempi in the Allegretto and the: Girl falls in love with boy. A Frenchman tries a new factor into the voting system? If so, Finale. of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony and· to rape her, she kills him in self defence. should they be subject to some form of public maintain them with such a nice balance of Mummy takes her home to Ireland, boy is left control? Was it right that the sheep being pre­ sonorities has clearly a musical mind of distinc,. facing a· murder charge. Miss Blackstock got pared for the ballot-box should be told what the tion. It is a pleasure to acclaim artists who come, into deeper water than she could swim in with other sheep were thinking? John Freeman, before the public in this way, and at the close of any confidence, but she, at least, showed that 'Michael Shields, and Peregrine Worsthorne this enjoyable concert one was left with the feel: passionate concern for human values and for went hard at it. In the end, my own verdict on ing that the Liverpool competition, planned on the times in which she and all of us live, the the case for control was' not proven '. a broad international scale is probably a model absence of which is such a distinguishing feature 'New Comment' (Third, June 6) was about of what such ventures for the of so much island literature. film reviewing and some recent films as seen of performing musicians should be. The idea It is certainly a distinguishing feature of through Christian eyes. T. G. Rosenthal, reflect- the open competition for the recruitment