Film Company went into voluntary liquidation, and in the Autumn, Hepworths, one of the longest established producing concerns, went bankrupt. At the close of the year, however, a new company, the Millar-Thompson Productions, was formed, which proposes to make three big pictures in 1925.

The British producers were very hard hit by American competition. The Americans could undercut in price, and had popular stars and a steady output to offer the exhibitors. In an attempt to break into the American market English companies tried the experiment of importing American stars, and during the year a number of them worked in this country. Nevertheless, not many English pictures were sold in the United States, these included "The Great Well; "Chu Chin Chow;" "This Freedom;" "The Passionate Adventure;" " "A Royal Divorce;" and "Quality Plays." The call of the United States also affected British artists and many of them went to America.

The tendency for American companies to acquire picture houses in this country for the exploitation of their goods showed itself during the year. The Tivoli is owned by Metro-Goldwyn Co., the Rialto by Universal, and there are rumours of others to come.

The royal family have helped towards making pictures fashionable. The Prince of Wales officially attended the first presentation of the English war picture "Reveille," in June. The King and Queen, in November, attended at the Marble Arch Pavilion, a showing of the Admiralty film "Zeebrugge."

Permission to open the cinemas on Sunday lies with the local authorities, and is being vigorously fought for by the Cinematograph Exhibitors Association, which is a very strong organisation.

The exhibitors have their grievances against the renters, who are the middle men of the trade and stand between the producer and the exhibitor. Two especially emerged during the year. One is the habit of showing big pictures first in theatres instead of hiring them straight to the cinemas. This forces the exhibitor to pay more for his picture and lessens his potential public. The second is that a super-production can often only be obtained if the exhibitor agrees to take a certain number of bad pictures as well.

The renters, especially the independent men working in a small way, have a grievance against the exhibitors for their habit of "block booking." That means that the exhibitor agrees with one of the big American firms that he will take their output for the next six or twelve months, even though he has never seen the pictures. The exhibitor's programme being then already full, no matter how good a picture another renter may have, it cannot be squeezed in. Grainger, a firm that did considerable renting trade with the Continent, and Walturdaw, another independent renting firm, were both this year obliged to close down.

In November, English production was at its lowest ebb, and early in the month every English studio was closed. Undue importance must not be attached to this, for though it was a serious sign of the condition of the industry, and though it threw a great many people out of work yet the English winter weather conditions are very unfavourable. The

year before, a great deal of money had been wasted in waiting for the clearance of fog, which prevents even interior work from going forward.

A number of important pictures were made during the year. From America we had Charlie Chaplin's first effort as a serious producer in “A Woman of Paris." Ernst Lubitsch, imported from Germany, made two successful pictures in America, in "The Marriage Circle" and "Rosita." The latter starred Mary Pickford who later returned to Marshal Neilan, under whom her early pictures were made, and gave us "Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall." Douglas Fairbanks expended largely on an Eastern "super-film" "The Thief of Bagdad." Cecil de Mille was equally spectacular in "The Ten Commandments," and "Monsieur Beaucaire" marked the return to the screen of Rudolph Valentino, after his long legal quarrel with Lasky's. D. W. Griffith's "Love and Sacrifice" was only shown here after considerable trouble with the censor, who found it anti-British in sentiment.

The big English pictures were nearly all of the "costume" variety. We had "Comin' Thro' the Rye;" Eugene Aram;" "Claude Duval ; and "Decameron Nights." A fine picture of war-time London was "Reveillé," produced by George Pearson and starring Betty Balfour. Among the travel films of the year "The Epic of Everest" was the most outstanding.

The Germans undoubtedly have made the most important experiments in technique and the most artistic pictures yet seen. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," though made some years ago, was only shown here this year. "The Street gave us a real attempt to photograph thought. "Destiny" and "The Nibelungs" were outstanding pictorial successes, but best of all was "Warning Shadows."

Colour films are still being much talked of, and Mr. Claude Friese Greene, an Englishman and a son of the pioneer film inventor, has perfected a process which is finding considerable favour. In July we were shown the first all-natural-colour film made in America, in "Wanderer of the Wasteland."

Sound-pictures seem to be becoming practical. Dr. Lee de Forest's "Phonofilms" have had a number of successful demonstrations.

IV. MUSIC.

In regard to Music the year 1924 was in some respects busier even than its immediate predecessor, but it failed signally to produce any specific composition or even performance that can be described as marking an epoch. There was much the same weary round of concerts and occasional opera in London and the provinces as before, a general level of mediocrity, and the changes were rung on much the same programmes. Possibly there were signs in the autumn of a veering in the public taste from the somewhat extravagant utterances of the younger contemporary composers, whose names and works have vanished from the programmes of most of the established series of concerts. In consequence these programmes so far have shown a tendency towards reaction, towards a return to the classics. Whether this is to become permanent remains to be seen.

In the beginning of the year there were persistent rumours of the advent of the whole of the chief opera company from Vienna to Covent Garden for a spring season. But owing to the attitude of the Orchestral Association, the Vienna orchestra was not permitted to play here, and the project fell through. Nevertheless a season was organised at Covent Garden during which were given two cycles of "The Ring" in German, Strauss's "Ariadne auf Naxos," "Salome," and "Der Rosenkavalier." The two latter works enjoyed a considerable triumph owing to the interest in the performers; there followed a short season of opera in Italian, of no particular moment.

For a time the British National Opera Company held a season at Covent Garden during which they produced Rutland Boughton's "Alkestis," a work that failed to come up to expectations; a capital version in English of Puccini's little masterpiece "Gianni Schicchi;" and also "Parsifal," "Tristan," "The Mastersingers," Verdi's "Othello," "Hansel and Gretel,” and other familiar works. The Company's later season at His Majesty's Theatre was artistically an even greater success, but afterwards it be. came known that the financial results were deplorable. Frederic Austin had become artistic director of the concern, and his hand was clearly visible. "Pelleas and Melisande " was among the chief operas revived, Maggie Teyte in the latter rôle, and the English version of "The Golden Cockerel" (Le Coq d'Or) proved deservedly popular. But the season is memorable largely for the initial production of Vaughan Williams's comedy opera "Hugh, the Drover." A more thoroughly British opera than this remains to be composed. Sir Alexander MacKenzie's little opera "The Eve of St. John," produced in Liverpool, also saw the light in London where it was played in conjunction with Holst's "Perfect Fool." Bantock's "The Seal Woman" was also produced.

If novelty was rare in the operatic world, it was still rarer in the concert world. There was an abundance of orchestral music to be heard, but little of it was either new or even approximately so, for reasons suggested above. It was a case of conductors first and music second. There were seen during the year at either the Philharmonic or the London Symphony Concerts (the Queen's Hall Symphony Concerts went their accustomed way under the direction of Sir Henry J. Wood as for many years before), Furtwängler, Nikisch's successor at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Weingartner, Bruno Walter (in concert as well as in opera), Koussevitzky, Albert Coates, Sir Thomas Beecham, Sokoloff from America, Fritz Reiner (from Cincinnati), and Eugene Goossens. At various concerts Sir Henry Wood gave us first hearings of compositions, but, taking them all in all, they were a poor choice. Max Reger's Romantic Suite, and Leos Janacek's symphonic poem "Sumarova Dite made no deep impression, and are already forgotten. On the other hand, it was good to hear again Dame Ethel Smyth's Mass in D, after it had been ignored for thirty years. A rhapsody by E. J. Moeran, Arnold Bax's E Flat Symphony, J. B. MacEwen's Solway Symphony were products of the year. In the autumn the Halle Orchestra from Manchester gave several concerts in London, one of which was remarkable for a fine performance of Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" under Hamilton Harty's direction. A "British Women's Symphony Orchestra" was founded during

the year, but it failed to come up to the requisite level; and Robert Meyer's delightful series of concerts for children was a splendid venture, directed as were the concerts by Walter Damrosch from New York, where he has long been a pioneer in such matters, Adrian Boult, and Malcolm Sargent.

A vast number of choral concerts took place at various times during the whole year, and Bach's "St. Matthew" Passion and the B Minor Mass were heard, as was Stanford's "Stabat Mater," while a worthy performance of Elgar's "The Apostles" was given at the People's Palace. Coleridge-Taylor's "Hiawatha" was performed in the Albert Hall several times in dramatic form. The Bach Choir, the Royal Choral Society, the London, the Langham, the Westminster Choral Societies all gave concerts of ephemeral interest. There were festivals of the old kind at Norwich, where the centenary of the Norfolk and Norwich Festivals was celebrated in October, and at Hereford.

It is not possible to enumerate all that was accomplished in the realm of chamber music. Eugene Goossens directed a series of concerts at which many unfamiliar works were performed, including Schönberg's second string quartet, Stravinsky's "Histoire du Soldat," Milhaud's "Catalogue de Fleurs," and Armstrong Gibb's "Pastoral." But it is not wrong to suggest that these works were a primary cause of the return to the classics already referred to. Arnold Bax wrote a new oboe quintet, Delius a new violin sonata, John Ireland a cello sonata, Herbert Howells a quartet, and among our visitors were the Quartets Rose, Hungarian, Lener, Tourret (Paris), Dutch, Philharmonic, and Roth.

Of singers and instrumentalists who were heard there is no end. Towards the close of the year Galli-Curci set the public agog by preliminary puffing; her public success was undoubted. Then Elena Gerhardt, Frieda Hempel, Giannini, a newcomer who made good, Battistini, Chaliapin, Clara Butt, John Coates, John McCormack, Claire Dux, Thibeaud, Suggia, Szigeti, Rachmaninoff, Hofmann, Cortot, Arthur Rubinstein, Buhlig, Irene Scharrer, Myra Hess, Gil-Marchex, Solito de Solis, and Rummel, all were heard in London.

The Diaghileff Russian Ballet gave a season with some distinction, and the British Broadcasting Company initiated a series of international concerts of real interest.

FINANCE AND COMMERCE IN 1924.

THE economic recovery which began in 1923 became much more marked in 1924. Indeed, the progress made was surprising in its ramifications, and tends to show that invention, which has speeded up virtually all forms of economic activity, may wipe out the scars of war much sooner than after the Napoleonic wars. There are certain similarities in the conditions which followed the close of Bonaparte's career and those after the great European war. Debt, as now, had been multiplied ten times; inflation, as now, had reduced the value of the currency; severe depression and distress, as now, followed the post-war "boom," rendering it necessary to institute a system of "doles," succeeded, because of its abuses, by subsidies on wages, which led to other abuses resulting in the final abandonment of all exceptional unemployment relief. Abnormal unemployment lasted, however, about twenty-five years, the "hungry forties" marking the beginning of the more or less permanent improvement which continued, with slight interruptions, until the catastrophe of 1914. It is doubtful whether, but for the introduction of machinery into industry, twenty-five years would have sufficed to get rid of the distress which followed Napoleon's defeat. In 1924, six years after the termination of hostilities with Germany, we find that Great Britain's economic position has greatly improved, thanks to new inventions of various kinds-notably the internal combustion engine, wireless telegraphy and telephony, electrical development, more intense specialisation and division of labour and mass electrical production. This speeding-up of economic processes seems likely to shorten the period of convalescence, after the European conflagration, by possibly several years. At any rate that seemed the prospect at the beginning of 1925. At the end of 1924 the figures of unemployment had been reduced to 1,100,000 approximately, as against a maximum of about 2,500,000 at one time in 1921. There are many tests by which to measure the economic improvement in 1924. A further advance occurred in English commodity prices, amounting to 6 per cent., following a rise of 63 per cent. in 1923. Our overseas trade expanded by about 12 per cent., so that it follows that the real increase in overseas trade was substantial. Short-time working was further reduced, especially in the cotton industry and in the shipyards. Unemployment was reduced materially, the decrease on the year being about 127,000. As this followed upon a decrease of 350,000 in 1923, obviously there was a considerable increase in national production at the end of 1924 as compared with the figures at the end of 1922. We reproduce below as usual The Times index number of commodity prices since January, 1924, based upon the price of sixty