For that matter, some of them would rather take their
chance with the Lord Chamberlain than with either. And though
this is no reason for depriving the whole body of authors of the
benefit of Magna Charta, still, if the right of the proprietor of
a play to refuse the good offices of the Privy Council and to
perform the play until his accusers had indicted him at law, and
obtained the verdict of a jury against him, were sufficiently
guarded, the proposed committee might be set up and used for
certain purposes. For instance, it might be made a condition of
the intervention of the Attorney-General or the Director of
Public Prosecutions that he should refer an accused play to the
committee, and obtain their sanction before taking action,
offering the proprietor of the play, if the Committee thought
fit, an opportunity of voluntarily accepting trial by the
Committee as an alternative to prosecution in the ordinary course
of law. But the Committee should have no powers of punishment
beyond the power (formidable enough) of suspending performances
of the play. If it thought that additional punishment was called
for, it could order a prosecution without allowing the proprietor
or author of the play the alternative of a trial by itself. The
author of the play should be made a party to all proceedings
of the Committee, and have the right to defend himself in person
or by counsel. This would provide a check on the Attorney-General
(who might be as bigoted as any of the municipal aldermen who are
so much dreaded by the actor-managers) without enabling the
Committee to abuse its powers for party, class, or sectarian
ends beyond that irreducible minimum of abuse which a popular
jury would endorse, for which minimum there is no remedy.
Pages:
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93