have been forbidden or withdrawn under pressure, and replaced by
coarse and vicious ones. There is not the slightest reason to
suppose that the Lord Chamberlain would have been any more
tolerant; but this does not alter the fact that the municipal
licensing authorities have actually used their powers to set up a
censorship which is open to all the objections to censorship in
general, and which, in addition, sets up the objection from which
central control is free: namely, the impossibility of planning
theatrical tours without the serious commercial risk of having the
performance forbidden in some of the towns booked. How can this be
prevented?


DESIRABLE LIMITATIONS OF LOCAL CONTROL

The problem is not a difficult one. The municipality can be
limited just as the monarchy is limited. The Act transferring
theatres to local control can be a charter of the liberties of
the stage as well as an Act to reform administration. The power
to refuse to grant or renew a licence to a theatre need not be an
arbitrary one. The municipality may be required to state the
ground of refusal; and certain grounds can be expressly declared
as unlawful; so that it shall be possible for the manager to
resort to the courts for a mandamus to compel the authority to
grant a licence. It can be declared unlawful for a licensing
authority to demand from the manager any disclosure of the nature
of any entertainment he proposes to give, or to prevent its
performance, or to refuse to renew his licence on the ground that
the tendency of his entertainments is contrary to religion and
morals, or that the theatre is an undesirable institution, or