Welsh Journals

There are mentions of managerial viewpoints and Council minutes are very occasionally quoted, but there is no systematic analysis of the decision-making problems of employers or of their attitudes to- wards location within the Ammanford area. The tenor of the last part of the study is critical of regional policy, but there is no real positive attempt to offer an alternative. It is easy to say that local employment is crucial, much less easy to provide it. Discussion on sub-regional possibilities of commuting and improved transport systems is to the point, but is insufficiently developed in relation to its importance. The threat to 'community' is emphasised, but the survey itself contains no detailed investigation of the way in which community has adapted to the economic changes which have already taken place. This monograph is in many ways already out of date. It does, how- ever, provide another worthwhile record of industrial change and some of its consequences in a small part of South Wales. It reflects the problems, prospects and prejudices of a selected part of the pop- ulation in a coherent and persuasive way, but one is left with the impression that in àSWinfcered' treatment of this kind the picture cannot be complete andthe prescriptions for change and redirection are less than convincing. David Herbert Land and People in Nineteenth Century Wales. David W.Howell. Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1978), 207 pp. £ 6.95. The nineteenth century has always been recognised as a critical period for Welsh agriculture. The spread of new ideas on husbandry, changes in landholding and tenure, the growth of urban markets, the coming of the railways and an increasing concern for rural improve- ment all combined to stimulate change. But there has long been a need for substantive research which stripped the problem of its myths and invested our understanding with a critical appreciation of the precise nature and extent of change. This first book on the subject by David Howell does much to satisfy this need. After a general introduction in which he reviews the overall struct- ure of the agricultural economy in terms of landholding, employment, acreages, prices, and profitability, there follow a series of chapters examining trends in the pattern of landholding, in the roles of interest groups like landlords, tenants and labourers and in the relationships between them. These chapters contain the essence of the Welsh land problem. But far from endorsing the views of nineteenth-century radicals and non-conformists who blamed the shortcomings of Welsh agriculture firmly on landlords, Howell apportions the blame with more discrimination. Stress is placed on the general lack of invest- ment capital, notably amongst the small estate owners and tenant farmers. As a result, the progress of capital intensive improvements that were essential to the Welsh environment, such as draining and