Results.

It may be mentioned here that very “nice” and particular were some of the many points we were called upon to decide. Thus, a firm of publishers declared that they were ready to publish the winning novel whatever it might be, and then endeavoured to induce us to open the competition to all Mss. sent in, whether previously accepted (or published) or not, on the ground that as “any” Ms. might win and would thus, ipso facto, be accepted, page 30 page 31 “all” Mss. received could be regarded as accepted, and therefore be eligible for consideration. The Committee were somewhat taken aback by this ingenious argument; but, believing that common sense was with them, and preferring that the publishers' “readers” should tackle such a Herculean task rather than themselves, decided against it. However, it was pressed, and so the opinion of counsel learned in the law was taken (at considerable cost), and as it agreed with that already expressed by the Committee, the matter was dropped.

The competitions proved extraordinarily successful: 26 novels, mostly in published form, were received; 110 long essays; 151 full length plays; 262 short essays; 435 short stories, and 628 poems! To deal with this immense mass of material in the short space of three months (for the results in all classes except one had to be announced by the 1st of April, 1938, and in that one exception—the full length play—by the 1st of March, so that the play, if desired, could be rehearsed and staged before the termination of the Celebrations on the 30th April) meant hard work on the part of the Committee, and most of them were kept with their noses very consistently to the grindstone. It was impossible for all members of the Committee to read and judge all the different entries in all the different classes, so we divided the Committee into sub-committees of one, two or three members, and to each sub-committee was allotted one section of the competitions.

Each sub-committee was allowed to engage from three to five preliminary readers (who were paid from £5/5/-to £7/7/- for their work) to read the entries and to reduce them, by the elimination of such as were clearly “impossible,” to such numbers as could be handled by the final judge.

Take the case of the plays, for example, with which I was appointed to deal and of which therefore I am particularly competent to speak. In view of the number of entries, their individual length, and the particularly short time available for their judging, I was permitted to engage five preliminary judges; to each of whom I entrusted twenty-five plays, taking the remaining twenty-six myself. Each of these preliminary judges—and let me say, they were chosen for their particular knowledge of, and experience in, dramatic literature and production—was asked to reduce the entries to three if possible and certainly to not more than five. This procedure left me with a little over twenty plays upon which to pass final judgment. A careful re-reading reduced these to five, and on these five I again took the advice of two of the preliminary judges who were specially qualified for the job. In the final issue we were all agreed upon the first prize winner; as to the other four there was a difference of opinion; so that I had to shoulder the responsibility and award the minor place-winners myself.

Much the same procedure was, I believe, followed by the other subcommittees, and, so far as I have been able to gather, with as much general satisfaction as is possible for any such judgments to achieve. Certainly I have heard no objection—except one of a technical nature which we were easily able to answer—and I think that if there had been much dissatisfaction, the Chairman of the Committee would have heard of it.