CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 308, 28 December 1940, Page 6

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS.

"EXPLOITATION" (To the Editor.) In an instructive address, recentlr given at the .Auckland Rotary Club, Dr. C. Edgar Ford, music examiner for the Trinity College, London, for 20 years drew attention to the grossly unjurt disparity in incomes paid for comparable work done by Sir Edward E3gar. who was paid ouiy £25 p<» r annum for his musical masterpiece. "The Dream of Gcrontius."—and by Miss Shirley Temple, child cinema actress, who wa*4 paid £120,000 per annual by her employers. The explanation of this anomaly is as follow*: — gj r Edward Elgar received a "single"' income for a "single"' performance from a "single"' employer (who grossly exploited the same) —whereas. Mit-.s Shirley Temple, received in addition "multiple"' incomes, from "multiple"' mechanised performances from "multiple" 1 employers all over the world. These "multiple*' incomes wrrc not due 10 aw effort on the part of Mis* Shirley Temple, but were unearned income:-. t.olelv derived from, and rendered possible bv. "usufruct"' (fruits of u>e and use of fruits) of modern inventions by which many hundreds of thousands of mass produced copies or repetitions of the child actress, original "vingle"* performance were broadcasted all over the world. Such exploitation bv a few of the "community created"* usufruct of the many constitutes a very unjust monopoly. If we hard a just Cbrislan eocial order, all "mas*, produced"' multiple incomes could be devoted to greatly reducing the prices of admission to cinema performances and to greatly extending the industry so as to provide cheap educational cinema propaganda iu every school in everv land. THOMAS A. F. STONE