For the sake of convenience let us refer to them and works of a similar character as "problem plays" although that useful term got spoilt some years ago by acquiring a secondary meaning, and became applied almost exclusively to pieces concerning fallen women. In respect of this rather rare branch of drama there is one matter worthy of notice which has not been quite sufficiently discussed. Yet the point is one referred to several times in criticisms contained in these articles. This is the author's duty to write in such a fashion as to seem impartial. It is needless to suggest that he ought to be impartial, since no one ever takes a real interest in any debatable matter without ceasing to be impartial, and nobody will ever write a play worth seeing unless he takes a deep interest in his subject. Now, looking at the four plays already mentioned, one may see to some extent how this impartiality operates. There is a difficulty connected with _An Englishman's Home_, for it was alleged--and also denied--that the author had no intention when writing it of dealing seriously with the question of national defence and invasion, and it must be recollected that some alterations were made without his knowledge, which included the addition of a vulgar clap-trap ending, that may do him real injustice. It has generally been regarded as a problem play, as intended to exhibit to us dramatically the fact that we live fondly in fancied security. As drama, it was seriously injured by the obvious bias, by the want of impartiality; it was taken by some to be a warning that we must not trust to the Territorials; but, although the conscriptionist party has welcomed it as establishing their view, its manifest injustice to the citizen soldier has actually caused it to be used as an argument the other way. Moreover, the feeling of insincerity caused by the bias seriously diminished its acting value in the eyes of the critical. The fact of its use as an argument by people of almost opposite views does not prove its impartiality, but rather that its injustice has bred a reaction. The next of the four is _The House of Bondage_, which had less success than it deserved. The piece manifestly was intended to prove that a woman ought to be entitled at law to a dissolution of marriage on the single ground of her husband's infidelity; the proposition was put in the form of a claim to equality of rights in the sexes to divorce. The question has more than one side, and there is a good deal to be said against Mr Obermer's contention; unfortunately, the author did not attempt to put forward the other view, or even to suggest that there is one. The result was that only those who share the opinion of the author were in sympathy with the piece; to others it seemed manifestly unfair; in fact, the author appeared anxious to convince those who favour his own views, and not those opposed to them.