Welsh Journals

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Ash Cottage, Frimley, Nr. Aldershot, Hants. 14th September, 1944. Dear Sir, WELSH' NATIONALISM. I have just read the two issues of Wales for the spring and summer of 1944 with consummate interest, and was especially struck by Mary Coldwell and G. Illtyd Lewis's criticisms of your leader in the spring number. I find myself in agreement with them rather than with you. Are these the times for a nationalist movement on the lines of the Irish tragedy ? Are aerodromes in North Wales to be burned again by fanatics after the fires of hate in the rest of the world have died down ? God forbid If Prof. W. J. Gruffydd thinks post-this-war Wales may become another post-last-war Ireland, then Welshmen are more foolish than I think they are. If he advocates, in any way, such a solution, then God forgive him for he knows not what he does. No, we have had enough of rabid, exclusive nationalism and the blight it brings upon mankind. Surely the struggle of the future is for men and not merely Welshmen or Czechoslovakians or Poles. What does it matter in what language a man may think, or write, or pray, or sing, or make love ? What does matter is what there is in his heart. By all means let us preserve Welsh Culture-both of the pure bred type and the Anglo-Welsh type, but not by coercion and dictatorship, nor by any suggestion of superiority by one or the other. There seems to be a tendency in Wales to make the new Wales one for Welsh speaking Welshmen only. The Anglo-Welsh are made to feel that they have no right there-that they are in some way inferior-that they are interlopers. This is a deplorable attitude. It is the man himself, whether he speaks Welsh, English or Double Dutch that matters, not some specialised man even if he be a Welshman. I think that this obvious tendency towards cliqueism (if there is such a word) in our citizenship of Wales is a great danger not only to the unity of the country socially and culturally, but to the very purpose, for which the extreme nationalists themselves profess to stand. Cenhadaeth Cymru, Cenhadaeth Hedd. Perhaps after this, I shall be dubbed as a middle class stooge by people who consider their own opinions sacrosanct, but those that differ from theirs, contemptible Wishing all success to the revived Wales," Yours faithfully, MICHAEL GARETH LLEWELYN. Pantybeiliau, Gilwem, Nr. Abergavenny, Mon., Wales. November 27th, 1944. Dear Sir, If Mr. Woodcock would read the official literature of the Welsh Nationalist Party, he would find that the Party most emphatically wants something more radical than a.government at Cardiff instead of at Whitehall." He would find that it is strongly opposed to bureaucracy (he might, indeed, have gathered that much from my article) and aims at building up a society in the genuine Welsh tradition, based on the maximum of decentralisation and co-operation-the very things which he advocates. It seems a -pity that people who are apparently aiming to a great extent at the same ideals should misunderstand and attack each other,'instead of combining to realise those ideals in face of the stiff opposition which they will certainly meet from vested interests both in Wales and elsewhere. Yours faithfully, J. Davies. D. J. DAVIBS.