The censorship, then, provides the manager, at the negligible
premium of two guineas per play, with an effective insurance
against the author getting him into trouble, and a complete
relief from all conscientious responsibility for the character of
the entertainment at his theatre. Under such circumstances,
managers would be more than human if they did not regard the
censorship as their most valuable privilege. This is the simple
explanation of the rally of the managers and their Associations
to the defence of the censorship, of their reiterated resolutions
of confidence in the Lord Chamberlain, of their presentations of
plate, and, generally, of their enthusiastic contentment with the
present system, all in such startling contrast to the
denunciations of the censorship by the authors. It also explains
why the managerial witnesses who had least to fear from the
Censor were the most reluctant in his defence, whilst those whose
practice it is to strain his indulgence to the utmost were almost
rapturous in his praise. There would be absolute unanimity among
the managers in favor of the censorship if they were all simply
tradesmen. Even those actor-managers who made no secret before
the Committee of their contempt for the present operation of the
censorship, and their indignation at being handed over to a
domestic official as casual servants of a specially disorderly
kind, demanded, not the abolition of the institution, but such a
reform as might make it consistent with their dignity and
unobstructive to their higher artistic aims. Feeling no personal
need for protection against the author, they perhaps forgot the
plight of many a manager to whom the modern advanced drama is so
much Greek; but they did feel very strongly the need of being
protected against Vigilance Societies and Municipalities and