Welsh Journals

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Correspondence To the Editor of Wales. June 14th, 1946. Sir, APPOINTMENTS IN WALES. Is it not time for the Welsh University Colleges to realise that they were created and exist for the service and convenience of the Welsh people who pay for their upkeep, and not vice versa ? I am thinking in particular of the recent agricultural appointments at U.C.W., Aberystwyth, where three Chairs (Animal Health, Agricultural Economics, and Agriculture) have recently been filled by Englishmen, and the appointment of a fourth Englishman is virtually decided, and this has been done in defiance of the clearly expressed wishes of the people most closely concerned-the farmers of West Wales. I happen to know that a number of experienced and highly qualified Welshmen were passed over in the making of these appointments; but their names cannot be dis- closed, because there is an absurd rule that the names of applicants not on the short list may not be disclosed even to the members of the Council making the appointment, unless a two-thirds majority of the Council votes for the disclosure, and there are always enough yes-men on the Council to ensure that the requisite two-thirds majority is not forthcoming. At the recent meeting of Aberystwyth College Council to select a Professor of Agriculture only two applicants-both Englishmen-were short-listed, and the Council also had before it resolutions of protest from the Merionethshire and Cardiganshire Farmers' Unions because there were no Welshmen on the short list. Instead of paying the slightest attention to these protests, the Council contemptuously let them lie on the table without even according them the elementary courtesy of discussion. It then went on to add insult to injury by deciding that, as one of the English applicants had specialised in Animal Husbandry, and one in Crop Husbandry, a new Chair should be created and whichever of the applicants was not appointed that day to the existing Chair should be recommended to fill the new Chair as soon as it was created. The most noteworthy feature of this decision was that the new Chair was not to be advertised, so only the formal consent of the University to its creation is required to enable another Englishman to slip into another comfortable job in Wales, without having in this case to face the inconvenient competition of unwanted Welshmen. It is surely obvious that if a Welsh Department of Agriculture is to be of any us* to Wales, and not merely a playground for academic theorists, its staff must have first-hand experience of the background of Welsh farming, and a knowledge of the Welsh language which will enable them to win the confidence of Welsh farmers and promote that fruitful interaction and interchange of scientific knowledge and practical experience which is vital to the successful development of agriculture. The four new Professors will possess none of these qualifications, and they cannot attend any meeting of Welsh farmers or Young Farmers' Clubs without introducing an alien atmosphere which blasts the spirit of co-operation at its source. Moreover, the chief stronghold of Welsh culture is in the homes of rural Wales, and the slow but steady infiltration of English influence into this stronghold by means of such appointments is a deadly danger to the continued existence of Welsh culture, even if it attracts little notice at first because the infiltration is slow and sure and cumulative, and not sudden. One would have imagined that, of all institutions, a Welsh University should realise that Welsh culture is even more important to the welfare of Wales than agriculture, and that the latter can never flourish if the former is uprooted; but instances like those just mentioned suggest that unfortunately our University, which boasts so much of having been brought into being by the pennies of the Welsh people, is now Welsh only in name. Under present conditions, the light of publicity is our best weapon of defence against the machinations of anti-Welsh cliques and I hope that Wales will give full publicity to any future undemocratic decisions, like those of the Aberystwyth College Council, which flout the wishes and ignore the needs of the Welsh people. Watchman."