This first appearance of the theatrical censor in politics as the whipper-in of the player, with its conception of the player as a rich man’s servant hired to amuse him, and, outside his professional duties, as a gay, disorderly, anarchic spoilt child, half privileged, half outlawed, probably as much vagabond as actor, is the real foundation of the subjection of the whole profession, actors, managers, authors and all, to the despotic authority of an officer whose business it is to preserve decorum among menials.  It must be remembered that it was not until a hundred years later, in the reaction against the Puritans, that a woman could appear on the English stage without being pelted off as the Italian actresses were.  The theatrical profession was regarded as a shameless one; and it is only of late years that actresses have at last succeeded in living down the assumption that actress and prostitute are synonymous terms, and made good their position in respectable society.  This makes the survival of the old ostracism in the Act of 1843 intolerably galling; and though it explains the apparently unaccountable absurdity of choosing as Censor of dramatic literature an official whose functions and qualifications have nothing whatever to do with literature, it also explains why the present arrangement is not only criticized as an institution, but resented as an insult.

THE DIPLOMATIC OBJECTION TO THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN

There is another reason, quite unconnected with the Susceptibilities of authors, which makes it undesirable that a member of the King’s Household should be responsible for the character and tendency of plays.  The drama, dealing with all departments of human life, is necessarily political.  Recent events have shown—­what indeed needed no demonstration—­that it is impossible to prevent inferences being made, both at home and abroad, from the action of the Lord Chamberlain.  The most talked-about play of the present year (1909), An Englishman’s Home, has for its main interest an invasion of England by a fictitious power which is understood, as it is meant to be understood, to represent Germany.  The lesson taught by the play is the danger of invasion and the need for every English citizen to be a soldier.  The Lord Chamberlain licensed this play, but refused to license a parody of it.  Shortly afterwards he refused to license another play in which the fear of a German invasion was ridiculed.  The German press drew the inevitable inference that the Lord Chamberlain was an anti-German alarmist, and that his opinions were a reflection of those prevailing in St. James’s Palace.  Immediately after this, the Lord Chamberlain licensed the play.  Whether the inference, as far as the Lord Chamberlain was concerned, was justified, is of no consequence.  What is important is that it was sure to be made, justly or unjustly, and extended from the Lord Chamberlain to the Throne.