ART AND THE CENSOR

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6494, 14 April 1908, Page 6

ART AND THE CENSOR

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 28. The dramatic authors -who are crying for the abolition of the Censor of Plays—and most playwrights favour his abolition—sent a deputation to the Homo Office this week to see Mr Gladstone on the subject. It will bo remembered that some seventy playwrights and authors recently signed a memorial calling for the abolition of the censorship, and the Prime Ministoi consented to receive a deputation on the subject. In view of the Prime Minister’s ill-health, the deputation was postponed, and then “ jiasscd on ” to Mr Gladstone, the Homo Secretary, who listened very sympathetically to the arguments brought, forward by Mr J. M. Barrie, Mr Pinero, Sir IV. S. Gilbert, and Professor Gilbert Murray. Of course, they had an exceptionally strong case. Almost the only argument in favour of the censor is the fact that ho is an institution, and, therefore, difficult to got rid of. Institutions die liard in England, however antiquated and absurd they may be. The censorship of plays was created by Walpole in 1737 in order to gag Henry Fielding, who did not like the Walpole Administration, and lost no opportunity of saying so. There’ arc no qualifications stipulated for the office of censor, and the official is responsible to no one for his decisions. There is no appeal. It is claimed that tho rules by which ho judges the morality of plays are so ineffective that unscrupulous authors find no difficulty in circumventing them, and so indefinite that nobody knows at any given moment exactly what they are lor how much of thorn tho censor is ! still determined to enforce. In recent 1 years tho censor has licensed a host of I adaptations from salacious French [plays, e.g., “ The Cuckoo,” ” The ; Spring Chicken,” “Tho Giddy Goat,” “ Divoroons,” and “Dear Old Charlie,” and ho has refused to license serious clays like “ Monna Vanna ” (Maeterlinck). “Maternito” (Brieux), “Mrs Warren’s Profession” (Bernard Shaw), “Wa/srte” (Granville Barker), “Ghosts” (Ibsen) “ The Cenci ” (Shelley), “ Ardipus Hex.” and several plays in which scenes and from Scripture were introduced. Again, plays written before the creation of the censorship are presumed to he licensed, so that nnv manager is free to stage the most ’’ndcoent of the Restoration comedies! One of the worst features of the system is that the censor is not hound clown to any time within which to make known his decision. Therefore, it may happen, and has happened, that when a play haw been advertised, a cast engaged, and prepared for, the Lord Ohamherlain intervenes and tho work of months is wasted. And, to complete the absurdity. the censor will take “ no official cognisance ” of the author whose work ha judges. , , . If the affairs of men were ruled by logic, an unconstitutional autocracy like the censorship of plays would long since have disappeared from a constitutional and democratic country like England. Rut life is full of logical absurdities, and Fhgland has its fair hare of them. They are only removed when the public find them intolerable, and rise up in wrath against them. Now, the public—the groat mass of the public—are not in the least concerned about the censorship of plays. They have not learned to take tho drama seriously. They go to the theatre merely to ho thrilled or amused for an hour or two, and they do not in tho least realise limy humiliating to the English stage it is to have an official set up to judge and condemn the morality of dramatic moralists like Shaw, Brioux, Ibsen, and other famous playwrights who have looker] to tho drama as an instrument of social reform and intellectual progress. But the public da not care, and so tho censor remains to make the stage ridiculous. Tho most' that tlae dramatists can hope to secure in tho near future is the right to appeal from the censor’s decision to a higher tribunal. This suggestion was put forward by the deputation, and the Homo Secretary promised that it would receive the fullest consideration. There, for tho present, the matter rests.