a percentage of English pictures would also be acquired. Whether the burden of this measure was to fall on the renter or the exhibitor, or both, was never decided, nor was it made clear whether such British pictures must be shown as well as bought. As for blind and block booking, these are closely allied. The former refers to the exhibitors' habit of buying pictures which he has never seen, and which, in many cases, are not even made; the latter to his habit of buying a firm's whole output for six or twelve months.

Early in the year the Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association decided to shelve the quota system and approve the abolition of block booking and the creation of a central studio. When their decision was communicated to the Board of Trade, it was hoped that the Government would make a grant towards the studio, but in March Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister said that he could hold out no hope of a subsidy. He suggested that there should be a year of voluntary effort before any compulsory quota was introduced, but that the Government was willing to legislate immediately on the question of blind booking. They were, moreover, ready to consider any agreed trade scheme.

In order to arrive at such an agreement a Joint Committee, with representatives from all branches of the trade, met to consider the question. By July it was announced that agreement was found to be impossible. It was then decided to discuss the question of blind booking as a separate issue. A referendum was taken which resulted in a majority being in favour of its abolition. The figures were 1,704, as against 198. Of the Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association members 71 per cent. polled. As a result a Bill was drafted which was sent to the Government, and on which no action had been taken by the end of the year.

In October the Federation of British Industries presented a memorandum to the Board of Trade demanding a quota of 12 per cent. This memorandum possibly influenced the Board of Trade in drafting the Bill, which was laid before the Imperial Conference in the following month. It was anticipated that it would form part of the legislative programme of 1927, and would provide guarantees against blind and block booking. The quota was to be started at 5 per cent. For the rest the Imperial Conference confined itself to passing pious resolutions on the desirability of an increase in Imperial films.

Meanwhile a practical step towards a British revival had been taken by the completion of the super-studios which British First National have built at Elstree.

The standard of production improved during the year. A most promising young English director was discovered in Alfred Hitchcock. He made two excellent pictures, "The Pleasure Garden" and "The Lodger." Graham Cutts made two pictures on the American plan, "The Triumph of the Rat," an elaborate melodrama, and "The Sea Urchin," which did not show Betty Balfour at her best. She was more at home in George Pearson's "Blinkeyes." The Empire was represented in "Palaver," a picture of South Africa, and "Hine-Moa," a New Zealand film. War pictures proved popular. "Mons" made with the co-operation of the

Army Council, was an attempt to reconstruct what actually happened; while "Mademoiselle from Armentières" was a popular dramatisation of what might have happened. There were two big naval films, of which“ The Flag Lieutenant" was vastly superior to "Second to None." "Nelson" and "Boadicea " were moderately successful attempts to exploit the history of England. "London Love" was Fay Compton's only film in the year. Dorothy Gish has been working in this country and made "London," a picture which involved a dispute with Thomas Burke, who said that his story had been mutilated. The picture was only shown privately, but was badly received by the critics present. Travel films were a British speciality. "With Cobham to the Cape,' Across the Desert to Lima," "Through Wildest Africa," and "With Cherry Kearton in the Jungle" were all first-class pictures.

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America sent a number of outstanding pictures. Early in the year "Stella Dallas" made a big sensation, "The Sea Beast showed John Barrymore at his best, and Don Juan" showed him at his worst. The height of extravagance was achieved in the expensive production of “ Ben Hur;" but the best American picture of the year was Beau Geste," which made the Englishman, Ronald Coleman, the most popular of stars. "The Big Parade" was a war picture which proved deservedly popular. Mary Pickford's contribution was " Human Sparrows," in which she played another of her famous child rôles. Douglas Fairbanks used colour photography with great success in The Black Pirate." Harold Lloyd contributed "For Heaven's Sake," and Buster Keaton and Douglas Maclean, in a number of comedies, kept up their standard. Charlie Chaplin's picture, The Circus," was not completed, so that no picture came from his studio during the year.

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The year's best pictures came from Germany. "Vaudeville," with Emil Jannings, Lya de Putti, and the English actor, Warwick Ward, made both a commercial and an artistic success. The two German artists have since gone to Hollywood. In lighter vein, "The Waltz Dream" proved a fine comedy. For the exhibition of an exquisite film version of "The Rosenkavalier Richard Strauss himself came to London, and on the opening night at the Tivoli conducted the music which he had specially arranged.

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From France came two big productions, "Les Miserables" and Michael Strogoff." The last starred the great Russian actor Moujouskine, who has since gone to Hollywood.

The Plaza, Piccadilly's monumental cinema, was opened early in the year with "Nell Gwynn," a British film, starring Dorothy Gish. The picture was sold to America. The Plaza is owned by Famous Players, and is used as a shop-window for their goods. The Astoria, the big new cinema built with British capital and situated in the Charing Cross Road, was nearing completion at the end of the year.

Among the year's inventions must be reckoned the perfection of the de Forest Phonofilms, talking pictures, which were creating a stir in America, and the Vitaphone, an invention which has not yet been seen in England, but for which big claims are made; with its help the

smallest village hall will be able to have as good music as the West-end cinema de luxe, for it provides a perfectly synchronised orchestral record with the picture. Colour photography has also made steady improvement. In August the death of Rudolph Valentino led, in America, to extraordinary demonstrations of grief by thousands of persons who had never known him except on the screen. His last picture," The Son of the Sheik," was shown a few weeks after his death, and proved a great commercial success. Willard Louis, an excellent comedian, the creator of "Babbitt and "Beau Brumel" died in the following month. Another loss was Harold Shaw, an American producer who had made many pictures, including "Kipps," in England. He was killed in a motor accident.

IV. MUSIC.

Yet once more we had a year that busily occupied those professionally musical, but provided little first-rate attractiveness for the genuine amateur. The summer season at Covent Garden showed performances of the highest level of cosmopolitan excellence, but the repertory was entirely familiar. As to the British National Opera Company, there was no season at all. In London, at the Chelsea Palace Theatre, Mrs. Adela Maddison's opera, "Ippolita of the Hills," was produced for a week for charitable purposes by a specially organised company, and at Glasgow the British National Opera Company gave a first performance of "The Leper's Flute," the libretto by Ian Colvin, music by Ernest Bryson, but the work still remains to be heard in London. Rimsky-Korsakoff's opera Kitesh" was sung as a concert work at Covent Garden under Albert Coates's conductorship, under the auspices of the British Broadcasting Company, but that sums up the list of operas new to us.

As to the Covent Garden season, that was again in the hands of the London Opera Syndicate, and, at its close, it was found that though there was a financial loss, this loss was less than half that of the previous year, and was due largely to the fact that the Auditorium is too small to hold a sufficiency of modern prices. The season opened with "Figaro" (with Lotte Lehmann as a superb Countess) on the night on which the General Strike was declared, and later there followed "Der Ring," with Gertrud Kappel, Olczewska, a remarkable Fricka, Lauritz Melchior and Emil Schipper. Rudolf Laubenthal made a genuine success on his first appearance here as Tristan, but Jeritza's Sieglinde is worth recording only because of the position of the singer. Bruno Walter conducted the chief German operas, in which Elizabeth Schumann, Delia Reinhardt, and Frieda Leider took part. Boïto's "Mefistofele " was revived for Chalyapin, who failed to sing it into a success, but a new-comer, Mariano Stabile, made a deep impression on his first appearance here in "Falstaff," Don Giovanni," and "Otello"-this last bringing back Giovanni Zenatello after many years' absence to sing the title-rôle to the Desdemona of Lotte Lehmann. For Jeritza the tawdry Thaïs was revived, as were the delightful "L'Heure Espagnole " by Ravel, with Fanny Heldy, a new-comer, as Concepcion, and "Gianni Schicchi," with Badini, Marguerite Sheridan

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(an Irish singer from Milan and other Italian Operas). Dame Melba bade farewell to Covent Garden during the season at a performance attended by the King and Queen, at which were done the second and third acts of "La Bohème," and the Salce" scene from the close of "Otello." Incidentally, Dame Melba gave a farewell concert in the Albert Hall in June, but lent her services to the Old Vic opera on December 7 for the fund to acquire Sadlers Wells Theatre.

The concert world was stirred almost to its depths at one period of the year by the announcement of William Boosey (representing Chappell & Co., lessees of Queen's Hall) that unless musical finance improved Queen's Hall would possibly be converted into a picture house. No more, however, was heard of this by the close of the year. The Royal Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the New Queen's Hall Orchestra, proceeded, as often before, under various conductors (as to the first two) Weingartner, Walter, Beecham, Elgar, Rhené-Baton, Paul von Klenau, Shavitch and Arbos, the last under Sir Henry J. Wood. The Promenade Concerts, under Sir Henry Wood, seemed to grow in interest, and at them were produced Arthur Bliss's "Introduction and Allegro," Malipiero's "The Mill of Death," D'Indy's "La Queste de Dieu," Hindemith's Concerto Grosso, and Joan Manén's Concerto Espagnol for violin. The B.B.C. organised a series of large orchestral concerts in the Albert Hall under Richard Strauss, Elgar, Hamilton Harty, and Albert Coates.

Sir Henry Wood conducted the Handel Festival at which copious extracts were sung from Handel's operas, the Royal Choral Society performed Bach's B Minor Mass and Verdi's "Requiem," under Malcolm Sargent, and the Bach Choir held a Bach Festival under Vaughan Williams, and also produced his unsatisfactory "Sancta Civitas," the Philharmonic Choir, under C. Kennedy Scott, the London Choral Society (which revived Bantock's "Omar Khayyam"), the Westminster Choral Society, which revived Stanford's "Te Deum," and the Royal Academy of Music, who, under Sir Henry Wood, performed the "St. Matthew Passion" without cuts, all did well.

In chamber music the Flonzaley, the Lener, the Spencer Dyke, the Buda-Pesth, the Capet, the Rosé, and other Quartets visited us, as did the Czechoslovakian male-voice choir, the Emory University (U.S.A.) Glee and Madrigal Society; and among individuals were Rosenthal, Kubelik, Kreisler, Morini, Szigeti, Friedman, Josef Hofmann, Bauer, Gieseking, Gerhardt, Formichi, Josef Schwarz (who died later in the year).

FINANCE AND COMMERCE IN 1926.

THE year 1926 was an eventful period, and more troublous in Great Britain than any year since the signing of the Armistice. Its outstanding features in this country were a great Labour dispute which, beginning at the end of April, lasted until practically the end of the year. The dispute originated over a question of miners' wages, and in order to support their resistance to a reduction the Trades Union Congress called a General Strike, which, however, only lasted about ten days. But it did much economic mischief. The miners refused to follow the lead of the other unions and kept their men on strike until, in the end, they accepted the owners' terms, which included district agreements without any national settlement, such as they had previously enjoyed. The strike, however, had one or two valuable consequences, the principal being a stimulus to combination in industry. Just as the cottage industries were rendered obsolete by the factory in which the efficiency of labour was multiplied many times, so the single factory, working on more or less stereotyped lines on one particular process, is becoming obsolete and out of date by the creation of great units of production and distribution. Bigscale working in the United States and in Germany had shown that the future of industry lies with them and not with the small producer. The more complete the amalgamation of interests the more successful the result has proved. The new industrial theory, however, has made less progress in the unsheltered and world competitive trades than in the domestic trades and industries. But one result of the coal strike was to apply a marked stimulus to the movement in the heavy industries of this country, particularly in coal, iron, and steel, chemicals, dyes, and artificial silk. The Royal Commission on Coal used in its report a significant phrase-namely, that "no sacrifices should be demanded of those engaged in the industry " until it had been reorganised. Reorganisation has begun. A number of collieries have been amalgamated, particularly in the Yorkshire field, among the exporting collieries of Durham, and in the Welsh anthracite industry. Fusions are also under discussion in the iron and steel business; they have been stimulated in turn by the formation of a Continental steel cartel, which the British ironmasters were invited to join. The greatest amalgamation of the year, however, was in the chemical trade; Nobel Industries, Brunner, Mond & Co., the United Alkali Company, and the British Dyestuffs Corporation being merged into one undertaking through the medium of a holding company, entitled "Imperial Chemical Industries," which has a nominal capital of 65,000,0007., which is equal to that of the great German Dye Trust. Another remarkable event of the year was the firmness of the sterling exchange. In spite