Welsh Journals

it is salutary that we should be reminded of one of 0 M Edwards' most well known essays, in which he wrote: 'Let us not lose sight of the nation's soul, lest among much fine building and enthusiastic committee work, it vanish from sight.' THE BOWLER BOYS IN ITS CHEQUERED career it did as well as it was allowed-and it was allowed to do practically nothing. In his resignation Alderman Edwards levelled a few strictures at the men of Whitehall, those careful, discreet and rather ignorant boys of the bowler hat brigade whose inability to understand the nuances of Welsh life should bring them the 0 B E. Surely the blame does not lie entirely with them. They ought to be taking the orders and not giving them. It's an indication of the whimsical attitude of the Establishment towards Wales that the Civil Servants have been allowed to become our Civil Masters. Mr Edwards' resignation seems to have come as a bit of a shock. The wonder to me is that he didn't pack in the job some six years ago. What effect all this will have upon the Government, I couldn't say. But they ought to know that this withdrawal of the alderman from the Council has been the most serious blow yet to Welsh confidence in the present administration. One could see in recent pronouncements that Alderman Edwards was grow- ing increasingly tetchy about the official English attitude towards Wales. A few days ago he was shaking an angry fist at Liverpool, whose Tryweryn plan has angered Wales. But that plan has not angered us half as much as the high-handed and brusque manner in which the Merseyside administrators have brushed off every attempt to have a reasonable discussion. Mr Edwards dropped some dark hints about retaliatory methods and al- though he was careful to say that he didn't wish to incite anything or anyone he made it clear to Liverpool that she wasn't going to get away with Tryweryn without some semblance of a fight. It would, I think be wrong to link the alderman's resignation with his growing irritation about the way things have been allowed to go in Liverpool's favour over Tryweryn. Some people believe that Mr Edwards, by resigning from the Council, wished to be free from official encumbrances so that he could lay about him on the matter of Tryweryn. I shouldn't think so. Huw Tom has never been one to pay too much attention to the refined and tea-cup niceties of official behaviour. At this moment, Mr Edwards' bulky figure, angry and brooding, personifies Wales, which is extremely irritated by all the frustrations with which it is confronted.-Glyn Griffiths.