ve an
educational value. Do they think that the public needs no education in
theatrical art? Are they content that the great half-washed should
remain in their present condition, which exhibits painfully a great lack
of education? Presumably.

Mr Klaw deals with the dramatic critic. Here, of course, our withers are
wrung and we write with a bias. He is indignant because the Syndicate is
accused of an attempt to "stifle and muzzle" dramatic criticism. He
thinks that it is "to his best interests to have it [dramatic criticism]
absolutely impartial, absolutely just, and always on the most dignified
plane." Then he explains that it is because certain American dramatic
critics have fallen from this high standard, or never reached it, that
they have been driven from the Syndicate's paradises. Who is to decide
whether the critic in a particular case is "absolutely impartial,
absolutely just, and on the most dignified plane"? Mr Klaw and his
colleagues, of course.

There is a certain fable in which a wolf set itself up to judge the
conduct of the relatives of an appetising lamb, and executed a vicarious
injustice. From time to time London dramatic critics of the highest
standard and most respected character have been excluded by particular
managers for a while from their houses, because the managers thought
they had not been "absolutely impartial, absolutely just, and on the
most dignified plane." Time and their friends have convinced the
managers that they had blundered, and peace was made.

Suppose, however, that those individual managers, who really are people
taking a far more dignified view of their calling than that of putting
it on the level of the dry-goods store, had been part of a syndicate of
Klaws, would those critics have been readmitted? Would the fact have
been recognized that the unfavourable notices were really honest
dignified criticisms, even if disputable upon the point of justice? Of
course not. If the newspapers had combined against the theatres, the
Syndicate managers would have climbed down. Would they have combined? I
think not. Here, indeed, is the peril.

It appears that the Syndicate has already laid its claws on some of the
London theatres. What combination is likely to be formed to fight it;
and if there be none, what is the inevitable result? In this land, many
centuries ago, even before the famous statute of James I. that regulates
our Patent Law, the British feeling has been hostile to monop