Royal Show Dilemma
By ROBERT, HODGE The more one sees of it the more obvious it is that the Royal is too big and too repetitive. Next week's show covers 157 acres, exclirive of 140 acres of car parks. To see it all will be a feat of stamina, as many of us know to our co: t, whim rewards only the experienced Royal-goer who knows what he wants to see and where to hunt it cipwri. Hundreds of stands will exhibit tractors, Ploughs, combine harvesters, and dairy equipment identical except in the name of the retailer. The stockyards will contain thousands of cattle, sheep, Pigs, and even a few farm horses, of which some Will be fit to grace the occasion on their merits While others will be present only by reason of the Wealth of their owners. At journey's end the visitor, gin in hand and vitality creeping back, will tell himself as usual that he has seen it all before. This is the primary weakness of the Royal. It has .become a gigantic exposition of the familiar. Agricultural shows are not now rare. Each year there are half a dozen others, vast enough to be compared with the Royal, which serve differing regions. Each county has a big one, and within most counties there are numerous small ones. The only respect in which the Royal differs from any other show is in being disastrously bigger, and in showing a greater quantity of the same things. This is hardly a formula for pre-eminence. Britain, we say with the faith born of constant repetition, is the stud farm of the world, and the Royal is the shop-window of British farming. Surely, then, the Royal should have something, in addition to the Sovereign's presence, which other shows have not. Indeed, the Sovereign's presence might be deemed a reason for presenting a more representative demonstration of our real farming achievements.
In seeking a new 'formula for the Show, the Royal Agricultural Society is in a difficult posi- tion; for an organisation less straight-faced, it would be an embarrassing one. Nearly all the objects which formerly made it agriculture's supreme authority have now been taken out of its hands. The National Farmers' Union represents, with greater initiative, agriculture's economic interests. The Ministry of Agriculture promotes the industry's health, with the aid of much public money. Apart from the award of a few medals and scholarships, which no longer attract much atten- tion, the Society has little left to do except to organise the Show. Aloof both in constitution and by nature, the Society is following the now accepted course of charging the public money to see its stately home and wondering how it can make the attraction continue to pay.
Viewing the several courses open to it, the Society's once native hue of resolution seems somewhat sicklied o'er. It can continue, as at present, to move up and down the country each year. Recent balance sheets suggest that this may lead to an annual loss of £10,000 or so, against which the Society can be sure of pleasing the local community in the area visited each year—and it is nice to be sure of pleasing somebody. But the process obviously cannot long continue, despite the present ample reserve funds, unless 'economies can be made on a corresponding scale.
A permanent show site might be chosen. This would save the annual cost of dismantling, moving and re-erecting the Show's princely buildings, laying new roads, and providing new main ser- vices. But the saving would mean little unless the revenue of a static Royal Show approximated to that earned by the present peripatetic version. Would it? History's answer is discouraging. The Royal Show had a permanent site once before, at Park Royal, London, from 1903-05. The result was near-ruin. A static site would condemn most exhibitors to long and expensive movements of stock each year, and reduce the costs for only a few; many would cease to enter. The chance of meeting a largely new public at every Royal Show is a powerful incentive to renters of stand space which is, incidentally, far frOm cheap; their pat- ronage would undoubtedly decrease. The element of holiday looms large in the calculations of the turnstile visitors; a show in the same place in a setting lacking novelty would become pro- gressively less of a draw.
The most hopeful remedy lies in the Society's frank acceptance of its role as agriculture's impresario, rather than agriculture's high priest, and a corresponding determination to put on a show of high excellence, immediate significance, and less stunning in its size. Qualifications for live- stock entries would enable more to be seen of the best. If implements were shown by invitation only, and therefore also in smaller numbers, they could be demonstrated doing their job, instead of merely gleaming in all the glory of paint and paraffin polish. Recognition could be given to each year's developments of real moment in farming. This year's example might be the breeding of new horn- less strains of cattle for which overseas buyers are crying out, but which the Royal Show hitherto seems to have regarded as in some way indecent.
Such a revolution in attitude would mean that the Society would have to run the Show, instead of the Show running the Society. Obviously the idea would succeed better in a new venue each year, but it would be cheaper to stage than the present mammoth occasions, and if the Society were a little less grand and rather more practical it might even pay. Wit did not, the Society would at least have gone down fighting, a more creditable end than dying of paralysis induced by the sight of its balance sheets.
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