CONTROL OF FILM INDUSTRY
SIR,—Is it enough that Mr. Dalton for the Board of Trade has asked Mr. Rank, the flour miller, not to extend his control still further over the British film industry without consulting the Government? Would it not be wiser to request Mr. Rank to give up, say, three-fourths of the control he already holds? I am not acquainted with Mr. Rank, nor do I know anything of his politics or artistic tastes except that I see him described in the Press as a strict Methodist. But I do not like dictator- ships either abroad or at home. I do not think any human being, whoever he is or whatever he is, it fit to wield power of such dimension. I have no quarrel with the dictum that all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
No doubt derisory cries will be heard that, in suggesting that Mr. Rank Mould have part of his control taken away from him, I am pro- posing to interfere with the liberty of the subject. Quite so. Too much liberty is the negation of liberty. Supposing Mr. Rank were to say: "I will not permit—so far as I can stop it—any film to be made or shown which puts such and such a point of view "—would that be consonant with a liberty-loving country? But there's no need to labour the point. To permit wealth coupled with energy to be all that's needed to secure a very considerable control of the film industry, or indeed any other industry which influences in like degree the opinions and lives of this nation, seems to me to be nonsense.— fours.
J. L. HODSON.
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