BRITISH RESTAURANTS AND FEES t.i
—Mr. A. R. Young accuses the Ministry of Food of having made a bargain with the Performing Right Society in regard to fees for the ermance of copyright music by wireless receiving sets in British
urants. He also accuses the Society of exploiting the. national crisis " private gain," calls it a " commercial organisation " demanding ortionate profits " " against the public interest," and in his eagerness
to condemn the Society by the generous use of these entirely unjustified expressiOns, he betrays the fact that he cannot have read one word of the explanatory literature which the Society has issued during the twenty-eight years of its existence. Surely it would have been wiser to take this elementary precaution before rushing into print?
The scale of fees agreed with the Ministry of Food is the loweit under the Society's tariff for restaurants—in other words it is the rate applied to third-class cafés and tea-rooms. This modest basis was accepted by the Society as one of the many similar concessions it is making by way of a contribution to the national effort. Mr. Young thinks that the total fees paid by British Restaurants will be a " very large sum," but even if it amounted to a few hundred pounds per annum, the aggregate amount is not what has to be considered—it is the few shillings or pence receivable by the thousands of composers and authors entitled to share in it. If Mr. Young had any notion of the small addition it represents to the modest annual income of the average composer, perhaps even he might not find it a " very large sum."
It might be urged, with justice, that as music is of such value to the national effort, the composer ought to be paid more highly than in normal times, particularly in view of the diminution in his income caused by the cessation of so many peace-time entertainments. Actually, however, the composer, through the Society, is accepting lower rates than the normal where some special war-time use of music is involved. The scale Mr. Young mentions works out at about threepence per day per restaurant. That threepence has to be divided among the composers, authors and publishers of the many tunes played during the day, and the Society is quite content to leave impartial judgement to decide whether
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