Welsh Journals

In short, from whatever angle we approach Gladstone's extraordinary career, we shall find something of interest in this admirable collection. KEITH ROBBINS Lampeter Building JERUSALEM: NONCONFORMITY, Labour AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION IN Wales, 1906-1939. By Robert Pope. University of Wales Press (Studies in Welsh History No. 13), Cardiff, 1998. Pp. xiv, 269. £ 25.00. The development of organized socialism in Britain from the 1880s made an impact on many established associations and causes, including those of nonconformity. In Wales, the connections and differences between noncon- formity and the Labour movement were clearer in detail that anywhere else in Britain, because (unlike England and Scotland) both were majority movements at the same time. This was during the latter part of noncon- formity's clear ascendancy and the early part of Labour's. By the mid- nineteenth century a large majority of those attending places of worship in Wales attended nonconformist chapels. Perhaps a majority at the present day are still chapel-attenders, though the proportion has become very much smaller in relation to size of population, while nonconformists have been, strictly speaking, post-nonconformists since the implementation of disestablishment in 1920. In political complexion, Wales has consistently returned a Labour majority from the general election of 1922 to that of 1997. To a large extent, the Labour movement in Wales grew from non- conformist inspiration, while it seems likely that most nonconformists in Wales remained attached to Labour well after 1939. Nevertheless, the two movements have remained distinct. Nonconformity never, as a whole, surrendered itself to collectivism or to any political movement. The Labour party never intended to appeal only to nonconformists, but would accept the allegiance of people of any and of no religion. While it was by no means a professedly secularist organization, it had a secularist strand which held that Labour was a sufficient religion in itself, and it probably helped to provide an escape route into secularism for disillusioned and doubting nonconformists. There could be warm cohesion, but there could also be tension and even hostility, between Labour and nonconformity. The latter's traditional attachment to Liberalism hindered the growth of its links with Labour. From about 1906 many nonconformist ministers, whatever their own