Judgments in Vacation

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

And as Garrick is one of the high sounding names in the world of the theatre, so Gladstone may not unfairly be taken as a type of English politician, and it is curious that the whole evolution of his mind is chiefly interesting in its gradual discovery of the fact that the Box Office is the sole test of a statesman’s merit, that the vox populi is indeed the vox Dei, and that the superior person is of no account in politics as against the will of the nation. As in the theatre, so in politics, it is the people who pay to come in who have to be catered for. In 1838, Gladstone was as superior—‘sniffy’ is the modern phrase—about the Box Office as any latter-day journalist could wish. He complimented the Speaker on putting down discussions upon the presentation of petitions. The Speaker sagely said ‘that those discussions greatly raised the influence of popular feeling on the deliberation of the House; and that by stopping them he thought a wall was erected—not as strong as might be wished.’ Young Mr. Gladstone concurred, and quoted with approval an exclamation of Roebuck’s in the House: ‘We, sir, are, or ought to be, the élite of the people of England, for mind; we are at the head of the mind of the people of England.’

It took over forty years for Gladstone to discover that his early views were a hopeless form of conceit, and that the only test of the merit of a policy was the Box Office test. But when he recognised that the élite of the people were not in the House of Commons, but were really in the pit and gallery of his audiences, he never wearied of putting forward and explaining Box Office principles with the enthusiasm, and perhaps the exaggeration, of a convert.

Take that eloquent appeal in Midlothian as an instance:

We cannot (he says) reckon on the wealth of the country, nor upon the rank of the country, nor upon the influence which rank and wealth usually bring. In the main these powers are against us, for wherever there is a close corporation, wherever there is a spirit of organised monopoly, wherever there is a narrow and sectional interest—apart from that of the country, and desiring to be set up above the interest of the public, there we have no friendship and no tolerance to expect. Above all these and behind all these, there is something greater than these: there is the nation itself. This great trial is now proceeding before the nation. The nation is a power hard to rouse, but when roused, harder and still more hopeless to resist.

Now here is the Box Office test with a vengeance. Not in its soundest form, perhaps, because the really ideal manager would have found a piece and a company that would draw stalls and dress circle as well as pit and gallery. For Bacon says: ‘If a man so temper his actions as in some of them he do content every faction, the music will be the fuller.’ But Gladstone at that time had neither the piece nor the company for this, and, great artist as he was, his music did not in later years draw the stalls and dress circle; but having mastered the eternal Box Office principle, this did not disconcert him, for he knew that of the two the pit and gallery were sounder business for a manager who wanted to succeed in the provinces and was eager for a long run.

This recognition by Mr. Gladstone of the Box Office as supreme comes with especial interest when you consider that his education and instinct made it peculiarly difficult for him to appreciate the truth. Disraeli jumped at it more easily, as one might expect from a man of Hebrew descent, for that great race have always held the soundest views on questions of the Box Office. As a novelist, the novels he wrote were no doubt the best he was capable of, but whatever may be their merits or demerits, they were written with an eye to the Box Office and the Box Office responded. His first appearance upon the political stage was not a success. The pit and gallery howled at him. But this did not lead him to pretend that he despised his audience, and that they were a mob whose approval was unworthy of winning; on the contrary, he told them to their faces that ‘the time would come when they would be obliged to listen.’ A smaller man would have shrunk with ready excuse from conquering such a Box Office, but Disraeli knew that it was a condition precedent to greatness, and he intended to be great. He had no visionary ideas about the political game. As he said to a fellow-politician: ‘Look at it as you will, it is a beastly career.’ Much the same may be said in moments of despondency of any career. The only thing that ultimately sweetens the labour necessary to success is the Box Office returns, not by any means solely because of their value in money—though a man honest with himself does not despise money—but because every shilling paid into the Box Office is a straight testimonial from a fellow-citizen who believes in your work. Disraeli’s Box Office returns were colossal and deservedly so—for he had worked hard for them.

When you come to think of it seriously, the Box Office principle in the drama of politics is the right for that drama’s patrons to make its laws, a thing that this nation has contended for through the centuries. Indeed, there are only two possible methods of right choice open: either to listen to the voice of public opinion—the Box Office principle—or to leave affairs entirely to the arbitrament of chance. With sturdy English common sense we have embodied both these principles in an excellent but eccentric constitution. We allow public opinion to choose the members of the House of Commons, and leave the choice of members of the House of Lords entirely to chance. To an outside observer both methods seem to give equally satisfactory results.

In political matters we find that for all practical purposes the Box Office reigns supreme. No misguided political impresario to-day would plant some incompetent young actor into a star part because he was a member of his own family. We may be thankful that all parties openly recognise that any political play to be produced must please the pit and gallery, and that any statesman actor, to be a success, must play to their satisfaction. No one wants the stalls and dress circle of the political circus to be empty, but it would be absurd to let a small percentage of the audience exercise too great an influence on the productions of the management.

As in politics, so in business, for here no sane man will be heard to deny that the Box Office test is the only test of merit. If the balance sheet is adverse, the business man may be a man of culture, brain-power, intellect, sentiment and good manners, but as a business man he is not a success, and Nature kindly extinguishes him and automatically removes him from a field of energy for which he is unfitted. It is really unfortunate that one cannot have a moral, social, and literary Bankruptcy Court, where, applying the Box Office test, actors, authors, artists, and statesmen might file their petitions and be adjudged politically, or histrionically, or artistically bankrupt, as the case might be, and obtain a certificate of the Court, permitting them to open a fried-fish shop, to start a newspaper, or to enter upon some simpler occupation which, upon evidence given, it might appear they are really fitted for.

It is the vogue to-day for those claiming to possess the literary and artistic temperament to shrink with very theatrical emphasis from the Box Office. They point out how the Box Office of to-day overrules the Box Office of yesterday, forgetting that the Box Office of to-morrow may reinstate the judgment of the inferior Court. Even if the Box Office is as uncertain as the law, it is also as powerful as the law. Of course a painter or writer has the advantage over the actor—if it be one—of appealing to a smaller Box Office to-day, in the hopes of attracting a large Box Office to-morrow. A man can write and paint to please a coming generation, but a man cannot act, or bring in Bills in Parliament, or bake or brew, or make candlesticks for anyone else than his fellow living men. Not that, for myself, I think there have ever been many writers or artists who wrote and painted for future generations. On the contrary, they wrote and painted largely to please themselves, but in so far as they cared for their wives and children, with an eye on the Box Office, and in most cases it was only because their business arrangements were mismanaged that their own generations failed to pay to come in. These failures were the exception. The greatest men, such as Shakespeare and Dickens, were immediate Box Office successes—others were Box Office successes in their own day, but have not stood the test of time. Nevertheless, it is something to succeed at any Box Office, even if the success be only temporary. Every man cannot be a Prime Minister, but is that any reason why he should not aspire to a seat on the Parish Council? When one turns to the lives of authors and artists, one does not find that the wisest and best were men who despised the test of the Box Office.