The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1913. MOVING PICTURES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 237, 25 February 1913, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1913. MOVING PICTURES.

The moving picture i.s ;i development of modern dramaturgy that would have been inconceivable a few years ago. but it has undoubtedly come to stay. For this reason the appearance of trusts and monopolies in the motion picture business is a matter of very serious public import. It lias become almost a platitude that the kinemato,!>raph is destined to play a great part in file moral and intellectual development of the race, which is learning already to look to the picture halls for news of the world's happenings, for its humor and its drama, and even for pictorial expressions of its i beauty. The influence that the kine-

matograph is having upon ihe minds and characters of the young people cannot yet be thoroughly gauged, but few teachers or parents are prepared to make a low estimate of its importance. I'nder these circumstances, it is a little alarming to learn from our cablegrams yesterday that one of the great film manufacturing linns in Europe is threatened with a boycott by a powerful group of middlemen, because it has tried lo deal direct with exhibitors, while in Australia a Showman's Association is pro-

testing against the organisation of a monopoly by certain manufacturers. The danger is the concentration of the control of the kineinatograph business in the hands of a few enormously wealthy syndicates, which will be' able to dictate terms to (lie community. The picture halls of the United Kingdom alone represent capital to the amount of £13,000.0(10, and they are patronised every week by 25.000.000 of people. The figures in New Zealand, in proportion to population, must be even larger. It is idle to say that the people can stay away from these entertainments if the wares submitted do not please them, the fact being that the development ot the public taste in any particular direction is within the control of the. men who make, sell and show (he films. Competition is not a guarantee that tde pictures will be an influence for good and not for evil, but it at least does give the people some latitude of choice, and its disappearance will hasten the apparently inevitable day when this form of entertainment and instruction will he undertaken by the State and the municipalities. The picture industry has grown to extraordinary proportions in a few years time, and is giving employment to hundreds of thousands of people the world over. It has become really part, of our domestic life, and the people would do well to jealously guard against any encroachment on their privileges m this respect. . The moment a monopoly is cieated the price of films will go up, and the proprietors of the theatres will be compelled to raise their prices. In this event the picture show will become a luxury instead of the cheap and satisfying "evening commodity" it now is.