The pretensions of the Syndicate are one thing: its proceedings are quite another. Equitable conduct has not been the spring of its prosperity. Not by fair means has it become rich and powerful. Aside from having somewhat facilitated the making possible of economically practical routes over the country for travelling companies and the transaction of business between resident theatrical managers and representatives of travelling companies, it has done, literally, nothing for the good of the Theatre; but it has done everything for the good of itself. It is not to be supposed, for example, that because the making of economical routes is _feasible_ through the booking agency of the Syndicate, once such routes have been booked they are inviolate. “Dates” are cancelled and “routes” are changed, when such change is requisite to the advantage of the Syndicate, with total disregard of any other consideration. “Where,” exclaimed Gladstone, “can you lay a finger on the map of Europe and say, ‘Here Austria did good’?” Where can you lay a finger on the map of progress in the Theatre in America and truthfully say, “Here the Syndicate did good”? THE RIGHT PRINCIPLE. That the Theatre, to exist, must be self-sustaining; that its administration “must show a profit,” is a proposition so elementary in its truth and so universally conceded that it would be folly to restate it, if there were not so much stupidity in the generally attempted exposition of Commercialism in Art. But as a matter of right and duty (and this is what, apparently, the Syndicate and congenial managers _cannot comprehend_), theatrical managers are under distinct obligation to consider the public good _before_ they consider their individual prosperity. In other words, when a man assumes to make use of one of the fine arts as a means of “doing business,” he assumes to wield an indirect educational power; he undertakes,--whether he knows it or not, whether he means to do so or not,--to affect the public taste, the public thought, and the public morals. Therein, accordingly, he assumes a responsibility much broader and much more important than that which is incurred in an ordinary “business” pursuit; and, as it happens, he assumes it under less restriction, by law, as to the possible effect of his conduct than is imposed on the speculator in almost any other “business.” THE OBLIGATION OF INTELLECT.