CRITICS UNDER FIRE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9669, 7 December 1909, Page 6

CRITICS UNDER FIRE.

Mr Kennerley Rum ford is not the first person to retaliate against criticism in "The Times,"' though he is perhaps the first to assault a critic of the most famous paper in the world. A few years ago the theatrical critic o: "The Times" was excluded from a leading London theatre oecause of his attitude towarcls ,sorne of Mr henry Arthur Jones' plays. The dispute was amicably settled by the withdrawal of the management from their untenable position. When the last mail left England a pretty quarrel was going on between Mr George Edwardes and he "Westminster Gazette." Mr George Edwardes is the greatest musical comedy magnate in England, and his success in persuading the public that acquaintance with "The Country Gild" and their aerated works is part of the whole duty of man (and woman) seems to have turned his head. After a phenomenal run "The Merry Widow" gave way to "The Dollar Princess," and a fiw days later the critic of the "Westminster,"' in his notice of "The Mountaineers" at the Savoy, made some disparaging remarks afbout the "book" of "The Dollar Princess." In face of the fact that the critic had commented very favourably on "The Dollar Princess."

Mr Edwardes was very angry. To be attacked in a ziotice ot a rival production—it was too much! So he trained his guns on the offending paper. "It appears to me to be an anomaly to advertise in one column and to be attacked in another," he wrote to the "Westminster," nnd therefore he had "instructed the managers of my various theatres *to withdraw my advertisments and to cease my connection with your journal; as it has now become a menace to me." The "Westminster/' of course, stuck to its guns, and was backed up by other papers, while Mr Edwardes' rivals no doubt enjoyed the quarrel immensely. "It the musical plays which Mr Edwardes produces at his various theatres are half as funny, as his ideas aoout the newspaper Press," wrote the critic of "The Times" ( in an article that mu<»t have made Mr Edwardes squirm, "we do not wonder at their popularity." Doubtless by this time Mr Edwardes has realised that he has been very foolish and has given the "Westminster" a good advertisement.