REPORTED THEATRICAL TRUST.

Evening Star, Issue 11609, 20 June 1902, Page 3

REPORTED THEATRICAL TRUST.

[Special to the Stab.] WELLINGTON, June 20. Recently a Melbourne paper published a statement to the effect that a combination had been formed by Messrs J. C- Williamson, Charles Frohman, and George Edwardes, with the intention of obtaining sol© control of the Australian and New Zealand theatres, and that negotiations were proceeding in this colony at the present tune. On tins the paper proceeded to address a homily upon tue abomination of trusts, pointing out the evils of the system as it exists in America, where the great theatrical trust has made itself hated by the public and feared by the profession. “In Australia and New Zealand,” continued the article, “ the number of theatres is small, the number of aates required is large, and a syndicate would have almost unlimited aontrol in the event of their getting a footing. A manager of companies would have to lease the theatre from the syndicate, who would fix terms that reduced the profits to vanishing point, and enable the syndicate to grow rich while providing the public with toe poorest fare. It is, of course, poss.ble that a trust composed of Australian managers would do nemo of these things —at any rate, in the first instance—but we should be intensely sorry to sec them gain the power to do so, and hop© that if the formation of a trust is indeed in contemplation it will be long before it comes into actual existence.” The suggestion appeared rather an improbable o n e on the face of it. Inquiries made of Mr P. R. Dix, who controls theatres in the four centres of the colony, show that at any rate, so far as he is concerned, no attempt has been made to negotiate for any of his houses. The secretary of the Opera-house Company makes a similar denial; so another bubble has burst.