The Ban on Foreign Talent The Ministry of Labour has
cut no very impressive figure in the matter of Gleich's Circus, an institution of European repute such as this country has little opportunity of witnessing. The decision to grant permits for a tour of the circus in Great Britain was duly announced in the House of Commons and justified on perfectly good grounds. It was ascertained that a good deal of British labour would be employed, and there arc not so many travelling British circuses on the move that the comparatively short Gleich tour could be objected to on the ground of unfair competition. Yet it is ostensibly on that ground that the permission definitely granted has been revoked after all arrange- ments had been made and some British performers had been not merely engaged, but had travelled to Hull to meet the circus on arrival. It would be interesting to know how much entertainment-tax has been lost thereby. The incident may be of no supreme importance in itself, but as one of a mass of examples of a progressively more narrow-minded and exclusive nationalism, against which Ministers have not the courage to make a stand, it is profoundly to be deplored. Having broken the Chinese ban on foreign devils, we are apparently to adopt it here.
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