Welsh Journals

shrift. What does emerge is a credible human being, surrounded by other credible (and often extraordinary) human beings, living in a world where social and literary matters were important as well as political ones. There is not a great deal of specialist interest for the Welsh historian. Disraeli had some personal connection with Wales. He was friendly with (and even considered marrying) Lady Charlotte Bertie, who subsequently became the wife of Josiah John Guest of Merthyr and translated the Mabinogion. He did marry Mary Anne, the widow of his fellow M.P. Wyndham Lewis, who originated from Glamorgan and had been a partner in the Dowlais iron-works. But Wyndham Lewis left his Dowlais interest to his brother, so Disraeli did not, as he well might have done, derive his income from Wales. Disraeli, unlike Gladstone, never interested himself in the principality. Wales, like Scotland, usually voted Liberal and it was a centre of agitation over the Bulgarian atrocities. Disraeli averted his eyes. M. E. CHAMBERLAIN Swansea SOUTH WALES MINERS: GLOWYR DE CYMRU: A HISTORY OF THE SOUTH WALES MINERS FEDERATION (1898-1914). By R. Page Arnot. George Allen and Unwin, 1967. Pp. 390. 60s. R. Page Arnot, already well known to students of labour history as the author of a three-volume history of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, as well as a separate volume on the Scottish miners, has now turned his attention to South Wales. His first instalment deals with the vital period between the disastrous strike of 1898, which led to the formation of the South Wales Miners' Federation, and the outbreak of war in 1914. To this work, Mr. Page Arnot has brought those qualities which have earned him respect: a deep sympathy for the miners and an ability to describe detailed negotiations in a readable way. He has written a book which will contain much that is new to the general reader, and one which will form a useful work of reference for the researcher. Having said this, it must be admitted that in many ways this is a disappointing book. The author has deliberately avoided giving footnote references and a bibliography is to follow in a further volume. Neverthe- less, it is clear that the main sources used are the printed minutes of the M.F.G.B. and the S.W.M.F. Very rarely does Mr. Page Arnot get beyond these sources, and as a result their limitations have become the limitations of the book. Inevitably, it forms a synopsis of negotiations and technical discussions; it is a history of the miners written from the standpoint of the national conference and the executive meeting.