Censorship and Art | Page 4

namely the
Censorship of Plays, a bulwark for the preservation of their comfort
and sensibility against the spiritual researches and speculations of
bolder and too active spirits--it has become time to consider whether
we should not seriously extend a principle, so grateful to the majority,
to all our institutions.
For no one can deny that in practice the Censorship of Drama works
with a smooth swiftness--a lack of delay and friction unexampled in
any public office. No troublesome publicity and tedious postponement
for the purpose of appeal mar its efficiency. It is neither hampered by
the Law nor by the slow process of popular election. Welcomed by the
overwhelming majority of the public; objected to only by such persons
as suffer from it, and a negligible faction, who, wedded pedantically to
liberty of the subject, are resentful of summary powers vested in a
single person responsible only to his own 'conscience'--it is amazingly,
triumphantly, successful.
Why, then, in a democratic State, is so valuable a protector of the will,
the interests, and pleasure of the majority not bestowed on other
branches of the public being? Opponents of the Censorship of Plays
have been led by the absence of such other Censorships to conclude
that this Office is an archaic survival, persisting into times that have
outgrown it. They have been known to allege that the reason of its
survival is simply the fact that Dramatic Authors, whose reputation and
means of livelihood it threatens, have ever been few in number and

poorly organised--that the reason, in short, is the helplessness and
weakness of the interests concerned. We must all combat with force
such an aspersion on our Legislature. Can it even for a second be
supposed that a State which gives trial by Jury to the meanest, poorest,
most helpless of its citizens, and concedes to the greatest criminals the
right of appeal, could have debarred a body of reputable men from the
ordinary rights of citizenship for so cynical a reason as that their
numbers were small, their interests unjoined, their protests feeble?
Such a supposition were intolerable! We do not in this country deprive
a class of citizens of their ordinary rights, we do not place their produce
under the irresponsible control of one not amenable to Law, by any sort
of political accident! That would indeed be to laugh at Justice in this
Kingdom! That would indeed be cynical and unsound! We must never
admit that there is no basic Justice controlling the edifice of our Civic
Rights. We do, we must, conclude that a just and well- considered
principle underlies this despotic Institution; for surely, else, it would
not be suffered to survive for a single moment! Pom! Pom!
If, then, the Censorship of Plays be just, beneficent, and based on a
well-considered principle, we must rightly inquire what good and
logical reason there is for the absence of Censorship in other
departments of the national life. If Censorship of the Drama be in the
real interests of the people, or at all events in what the Censor for the
time being conceives to be their interest--then Censorships of Art,
Literature, Religion, Science, and Politics are in the interests of the
people, unless it can be proved that there exists essential difference
between the Drama and these other branches of the public being. Let us
consider whether there is any such essential difference.
It is fact, beyond dispute, that every year numbers of books appear
which strain the average reader's intelligence and sensibilities to an
unendurable extent; books whose speculations are totally unsuited to
normal thinking powers; books which contain views of morality
divergent from the customary, and discussions of themes unsuited to
the young person; books which, in fine, provide the greater Public with
no pleasure whatsoever, and, either by harrowing their feelings or
offending their good taste, cause them real pain.
It is true that, precisely as in the case of Plays, the Public are protected
by a vigilant and critical Press from works of this description; that,

further, they are protected by the commercial instinct of the Libraries,
who will not stock an article which may offend their customers--just as,
in the case of Plays, the Public are protected by the common-sense of
theatrical Managers; that, finally, they are protected by the Police and
the Common Law of the land. But despite all these protections, it is no
uncommon thing for an average citizen to purchase one of these
disturbing or dubious books. Has he, on discovering its true nature, the
right to call on the bookseller to refund its value? He has not. And thus
he runs a danger obviated in the case of the Drama which has the
protection of a prudential Censorship. For this reason alone, how much
better, then, that there