At the St. Martin's Theatre on the afternoon of Thursday,
June 21st, there was a debate as part of the Playbox scheme of the Reandean management. The house was filled to hear Mr. G. K. Chesterton, Com- mander Kenworthy and Mr. Bernard Shaw argue about the meaning of the play R.U.R. Mr. Chesterton, taking for granted the .symbolical reference of the play to industry and capitalism, was at his most amusing when he talked about the " headlong yet casual " rise of capitalism. To him Bright and Cobden were reckless, romantic figures who committed their country to—they knew not what. Those " rollicking blades " evidently had no suspicion of the truth that the directors of an over-mechanized life might cause a super-Robot to produce exactly what he liked and starve out every- body else. The only culmination to such a process would be that the people would rise up and remove the super- Robot. Mr. Kenworthy saw in the play lessons on the madness of war and the need of internationalism. That was why the men of science, in one act of the play, became alarmed by what they had created and tried to break down the cohesion of the Robots.
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