Fire at Will Following this year's Edinburgh Festival, some newspapers
in Scotland have published whole shoals of letters from indignant rate- payers who want the entire thing scrapped at once. This always happens. Its importance mustn't be exaggerated, especially since many of the abolitionists wrote from addresses well outside Edinburgh, and so were hardly entitled to complain about the waste of 'their' money on fripperies like Shakespeare and Beethoven. But this year's routine narking does have some of the aspects of a concerted campaign, and ought to be noted as a precaution. A friend who shared a hospital ward with some pleasant Edinburgh citizens recently was startled at their anti-Festival malevolence. He asked them how they would feel if the Festival made a thumping profit for the city and actually reduced their rates. Im- material, they frothed, it should be scrapped in any case. .We still have in our midst the most baleful of all anti-ists. They're not content not to like culture, they can't stand anybody else liking it behind their backs.
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