Welsh Journals

guile. The author is at pains to defend them against the charge of drunken- ness, and, if they were improvident, such improvidence was forced upon them. Above all, he urges, 'the worker must always be viewed against the moral and intellectual background of his own age and place'. No such indulgence can be extended to the coalowner; age and place are of no relevance in considering his moral obligations. Despite one's sympathy with the miners, it is regrettable that so obvious a bias should distort this admirable book. DAVID WILLIAMS. Aberystwyth. MY BROTHER AND I. By William George. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1958. Pp. 323. 30s. William George's reminiscences of his brother, David Lloyd George, make an attractive book, not least for the picture it conveys of its nonagen- arian author, still practising as a solicitor in Criccieth and active in his concern for church matters, education, the Welsh language, the National Eisteddfod. It includes extracts from a great many letters of Lloyd George, and from diaries kept for a time by him and by 'Uncle Lloyd' — extracts which make one regret that Dr. George has transferred title to his papers to the omnivorous Lord Beaverbrook, so that future biographers will presumably have to journey to New Brunswick to consult them. As might be expected, the best parts of the book relate to Lloyd George's early days in Llanystumdwy and Criccieth; and of the years after 1917 it has very little to say. We are given once again a picture of life in a Welsh village in the late nineteenth century, that remote, arcadian time when life moved at the pace of horse and cart and the Cambrian Railways. Village games, village characters, the weekly round at 'Highgate' and Pen-y-maes chapel, are recreated for us. It was not a life of poverty, either material or intellectual. Nor did the National school at Llanystumdwy, for all its uncompromising Englishry, do badly by its Welsh-speaking, chapel-going pupils. What hardships the George family endured came later, after the move to Criccieth and when Lloyd George was preparing for his law examinations. The family budget at this time (1880-84) was 14s. 7d. a week, and we are told how it was spent (p. 84). We are reminded, also, of the old spirit of neighbourliness: on several occasions friends gave money or, coming to call to wish Lloyd George success in his examination, would hand him a pound towards his fare to London (pp. 82-3). Later the family fortunes became easier again, as the brothers opened their solicitors' office at Portmadoc, with branches at Criccieth, Pwllheli, and Blaenau Ffestiniog (how one envies Lloyd George those distant journeys up the Festiniog Railway!). When his parliamentary career