Welsh Journals

There was no Dublin castle, no coercion acts, no real Welsh party in politics. There was poverty, but not a whole nation of poor such as de Beaumont found in Ireland-worse, he reported, than the poverty he had seen in India. Perhaps the difference is clearest in the leaders nurtured by the two countries: Ireland's, Parnell and Carson, both architects of ruin, those of Wales, men like Tom Ellis and Lloyd George, who advanced to the heights of power in Great Britain as to the manner born. C. L. MOWAT Bangor GWLADFA PATAGONIA, 1865-1965: THE WELSH COLONY IN PATAGONIA. By R. Bryn Williams. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1965. Pp. 77. 3s. 6d. This little book is one in the University's well-known, and often distinguished, series of bilingual essays which are published annually for St. David's day, and are intended primarily for schools. Its author, Mr. R. Bryn Williams, of the National Library of Wales, is our leading authority on the Welsh settlement in Patagonia, and his standard history of it, Y Wladfa (1962), was reviewed by Professor David Williams in this journal (ante, I, 447-9). This short account tells the adventurous and stirring story with a well-compounded blend of lively and arresting narrative and of poetic skill. The English translation (by the author's daughter and son-in-law) has purposely kept close to the original Welsh in order to help those who are learning Welsh as a second language; it is fluent as well as faithful. While there are occasional references to more recent times, the story which Mr. Williams tells is virtually that of the first fifty years of the settlement. As he says, these pioneers deserve to be remembered with pride, and the occasion was one for paying tribute. He is, therefore, not much concerned in his short account with the changes which have taken place during the last half century when there has been much erosion of the old society, and a decay of some of the traditional values. Who will now undertake to write this more recent history of the settlement? In these days of expanding Latin American studies at our universities, the opportunity would seem to have come. ALUN DAVIES Swansea RELIGION IN THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN SOUTH WALES. By E. T. Davies. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1965. Pp. viii, 202. 21s. Whether one is interested in religious sociology, in the sociology of religion, in ecclesiastical history, or in just plain political and social history, this book is essential reading. It is short, pithy, challenging,