In Paris there are three,
in addition to four theatres which are subsidised by the State. It is
estimated that there are seventy municipal theatres in the
German-speaking countries of Europe, apart from twenty-seven State
theatres. At the same time, it should be noted that in the French and
German capitals there are, at the side of the State and municipal
playhouses, numerous theatres which are run on ordinary commercial
lines. The prosperity of these houses is in no way checked by the
contiguity of theatrical enterprise of State or municipality.

All municipal theatres on the continent of Europe pursue the same
aims. They strive to supply the citizens with true artistic drama
continuously, and to reduce the cost of admission to the playhouse to
the lowest possible terms. But the working details of the foreign
municipal theatres differ widely in individual cases, and a
municipality which contemplates a first theatrical experiment is
offered a large choice of method. In some places the municipality acts
with regal munificence, and directly assumes the largest possible
responsibilities. It provides the site, erects the theatre, and allots
a substantial subsidy to its maintenance. The manager is a municipal
officer, and the municipal theatre fills in the social life of the
town as imposing a place as the town-hall, cathedral, or university.

Elsewhere the municipality sets narrower limits to its sphere of
operations. It merely provides the site and the building, and then
lets the playhouse out at a moderate rental to directors of proved
efficiency and public spirit, on assured conditions that they honestly
serve the true interests of art, uphold a high standard of production,
avoid the frivolity and spectacle of the market, and fix the price of
seats on a very low scale. Here no public funds are seriously
involved. The municipality pays no subsidy. The rent of the theatre
supplies the municipality with normal interest on the capital that is
invested in site and building. It is public credit of a moral rather
than of a material kind which is pledged to the cause of dramatic art.

In a third class of municipal theatre the public body confines its
material aid to the gratuitous provision of a site. Upon that site
private enterprise is invited to erect a theatre under adequate
guarantee that it shall exclusively respect the purposes of art, and
spare to the utmost the pockets of the playgoer. To render dramatic
art accessib