Transfer subsidies
Lord Eccles's proposals for charging entrance fees for our national museums strike me as being sensible: so I suppose there will be a great hullabaloo from the idiots about them. My only quibble is that I fail to see why British Museum library readers and scholars should not pay the £1 a year season ticket for
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admittance to all the institutions like the rest of us. It is El rare bargain.
I note that the estimate is that £1.3 million will be produced a year from these charges. This, it so happens, is the precise amount of the Arts Council subsidy last year to the Royal Opera House. If those who shout loudest against the proposed admission charges for our great national museums and galleries really feel that an important issue of educational and cultural principle is at stake, they could do worse than suggest transfer- ring the subsidy from the bourgeoisie's operatic and balletic delights at Covent Garden to the museums and galleries (which do, after all, unlike Covent Garden. perform valuable educational and cultural func- tions).
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