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New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 418, 27 June 1947, Page 18

Sir,-Of all the literary and other headliners who have expressed their opinions, M. H. Holcroft seems to me to have given the soundest and most level-headed judgment. As he states, political and cultural democracy cannot be separated. The term political freedom is usually restricted to mean the right of a people to choose their own goverriing bodies, no small right when the larger responsibilities of modern government are considered. But the danger of taking the right to choose his own form of music, of theatricals and of literature from the man at large is in the fallibility of human judgment concerning what is best for the world. Mr. Holcroft carries the argument so far, but it could logically be taken still further. I would be inclined to survey

the scene from the more lofty and disinterested pedestal of the scientist. It must be accepted’ that we live in a changing world. In other words, we have not yet come to the end of the evolutionary road. Tastes in art have changed and wil! continue to change, so that the experts and scholars of to-day who would have us think this way and that in connection with music and literature may, (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) in half a century, be, not only as extinct as the dodo, but completely wrong according to the standards which will then rule. There can be no absolute authority for right or wrong. Therefore the best procedure for those who fear for the future of the arts should be to ensure that the "younger fry," as Isobel Andrews suggests, are not left in ignorance of the present accepted best in music, art and literature.

E. W.

de ROO

(Gore).