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FRANCE 467
of motion picture production and exhibition, and would disturb the existing conditions of film production.
American producers were experimenting with a number of alternative plans in attempting to satisfy in part the requirements of European countries in the new type of motion picture. While the development of the talking picture presented grave problems to the American company desiring to produce films for international distribution, the same problems were intensified for the foreign producer. For the American distributor, a market of approximately 20,000 theaters in the United States and Canada, and, to a certain extent, similar markets in English-speaking countries, were available for initial exploitation. In addition to England, Australia and New Zealand were relatively important film markets; the United Kingdom rated in 1928, among foreign countries, as the largest quantity market for American films. The French producer, on the other hand, was immediately limited to a market of perhaps 5,000 theaters. Previously existing inequalities in competitive conditions between the United States and foreign producers would become even more strongly favorable to the American producer, particularly during the period when foreign countries would be dependent upon American product.
Satisfaction with the form of legislative restriction varied with the different interests in the French industry.
At the time of the announcement of the 1929 agreement, American film officials expressed the belief that the agreement presaged the end of the quota principle in legislative restrictions, not only in France but in other countries of Europe. During the negotiations preceding the return to the seven-to-one quota plan, it was evident that the French government had no intention of abandoning the quota principle for the proposed frontier import duty.
The objection on the part of the French government to any plan involving the import duty, no matter how stiff a duty might be accepted, might well rest in the precedent of subsidizing an industry from import revenue and the difficulty of determining a satisfactory distribution of such a subsidy in the trade. The indirect subsidy effected by the quota plan presented fewer difficulties in administration and in many ways permitted a greater control by the government of the operation of the industry. It was the belief of the officials of the Motion Picture Producers