London, June 29.
There are two theatres, and two theatres only, paying in London at the present time—''Loyalties" at the Ambassadors, and "Tons of Money" at the Shaftesbury. Every other one is Josing money, and it is put down to high rents, summer time, the entertainments tax. graduated artistes' salaries and enormous payments io labour. By the way, as regards the Jast named, the theatres have cut the salaries of all labour employees, but there is no possibility of a musicians' Jightning strike because there are too many unemployed. Most of these explanations of the slump in the theatre world usually ignore the fact that the public, which has not enough money to pay for beer, can- hardly be expected to spend much on the entertainment tax, and so fine is the margin cut that the mother, who, to get them out of the way, will send her children to a 2d. gallery in a suburban hall, will not pay the extra penny which is demanded by the entertainment tax.
At the present time, we have still 1,500,000 people out of work and we pay £4,000,000 a week in unemployment benefit. Income tax is £64,000,000 in -arrear, and there are any number of firms which owe vast sums in excess profits, 2 tax which has long since vanished but left its trail of indebtedness behind.
Nor will people buy anything if they cam do without it. This week coal prices in London were cut 9/- a ton, and this despite the fact that for weeks we have been assured by everybody concerned that no one engaged in the industry was making more than about 5d. a ton profit and many were not: even making that. In these circumstances it is not surprising that the aumers, Who are. miserably paid at the present moment, even as low as 36/- a week for a full week's work, and considerably less for a part week, are meeting to discuss whether they will strike this winter or whether they shall put forward an entirely new policy with respect to the working of mines. At present, after the payment of wages and the ear-marking of a sufficient sum to meet the working charges of the mines, the owners take 17 per cent. of the profits and the miners 83 per cent.—a very good deal for the latter if there were any profits, but, as you probably know by this time, labour will never face any system of working which presents the possibilities of financial stress, even if by holding on till better times vast profits are assured.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.