IT WAS A MISTAKE, I would have thought, to suggest
that the present trouble in the Football League should be referred to a Royal Commis- sion : it should be sent to the Restrictive Practices Court. The managers of the League, just like other restrictive practitioners, have got it into their heads that the way to ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number, producers and consumers alike, is to prevent competition. Theoretically their design is estimable; but all that it has succeeded in doing is creating a new underprivileged class of men who are not allowed to hawk their own services—to exploit their own skill. It is all very well to argue that the really great player can always make money on the side : if the money has to be made by advertising a hair cream, this solution is apt to be undignified. What amazes me is that the bubble did not burst long before the Sunderland affair, and the pur- chase of John Charles by an Italian club. It only requires the threat of emigration by Stanley Matthews to make the League's discomfiture complete : I almost wish he would take this step, just to show them.
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