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318 THE NEW SPIRIT IN THE CINEMA
friends and opponents of the Quota, and war on England by America, and marchings and countermarchings of forces on both sides. Looking closely at this contemptible effect it is not hard to discover that there was a strong political as well as an economic motive underlying it. Both attack and defence centred round the principle of protection included in the Quota Bill, and there were doubtless many attackers and defenders who justified their action by the political motive while relating it to an economic one. While English critics complained of interference with the liberty of the exhibitor and the incentive offered to the production of cheap and bad English pictures; the American Film Kings objected to a sort of tariff wall being put round the English market with the aim of excluding their goods. Accordingly they employed every means to overcome the Act, or evade the fulfilment of its terms. By all accounts, some at least of the most violent attacks were made in concert by representatives of the two nations in a manner agreed upon between them. Others were strongly influenced by the Americans. " The campaign against the Cinematograph Films Act is avowedly of American origin."1 . . . " The reason for this campaign is that Americans fear the power of the great circuits of cinemas which have come into being as the result of the Act."2
For a considerable time attacks and counter-attacks continued to be made with more or less violence. Then came the Talkie to give a new orientation to the war on the two Fronts. And one of the effects of the coming of the Talkie has been the change of opinion concerning the Quota. Critics and writers who a year ago were so eager to exalt the Quota are now as eager to have it revised or abolished altogether. Headlines that announced the " Success of the Films Act " are now replaced by others announcing the " Failure of the Films Act."3 The
i " Spotlight," in Sunday Referee, June 19, 1929.
2 Ibid.
3 An " Analysis of the Present Position of the Motion Picture Industry in England," by Sir Gordon Craig, reviewed by " Spotlight," in Sunday Referee, March 3, 1930.