THE STORY OF THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE

Let me now tell the story of the Committee in greater detail,
partly as a contribution to history; partly because, like most
true stories, it is more amusing than the official story.

All commissions of public enquiry are more or less intimidated
both by the interests on which they have to sit in judgment and,
when their members are party politicians, by the votes at the
back of those interests; but this unfortunate Committee sat under
a quite exceptional cross fire. First, there was the king. The
Censor is a member of his household retinue; and as a king's
retinue has to be jealously guarded to avoid curtailment of the
royal state no matter what may be the function of the particular
retainer threatened, nothing but an express royal intimation to
the contrary, which is a constitutional impossibility, could have
relieved the Committee from the fear of displeasing the king by
any proposal to abolish the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain.
Now all the lords on the Committee and some of the commoners
could have been wiped out of society (in their sense of the word)
by the slightest intimation that the king would prefer not to
meet them; and this was a heavy risk to run on the chance of "a
great and serious national drama" ensuing on the removal of the
Lord Chamberlain's veto on Mrs Warren's Profession. Second, there
was the Nonconformist conscience, holding the Liberal Government
responsible for the Committee it had appointed, and holding also,
to the extent of votes enough to turn the scale in some
constituencies, that the theatre is the gate of hell, to be