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CORRESPONDENCE NATIONALITY AND PATRIOTISM. To the Editor of The Welsh Outhok, Mr. Idris Bell is not quite sure whether he has understood me. Mr. Zimmern does not think I have understood him. I may add that neither of them has quite understood me. It would not surprise me were they to tell me again that I have not quite understood their letters. It is the lot of men to fail to understand each other, and most of them seem to be quite proud of it. If Mr. Bell, Mr. Zimmern and myself-I think we represent three nationalities-were to follow the ways of Patriotism," we ought by this to be in a promising fury In spite of all this, I hope we have a unity which is above mere Tribun-ity. and I venture to think they will agree with me that our differences are relatively small. In using the terms Nationality and Patriotism as I did I knew that, in spite of all efforts to be clear. I should be open to misunderstanding. Mr. Bell seems (1) to define patriotism as love of home, of native place, of clan. of country (2) to claim that such love is natural and in itself not evil (3) that it is not necessarily fostered and (4) that if subjected to spiritual control it becomes a valuable factor in human life. I am not disposed to deny, nor have I denied (I), (2) or (4). but I certainly cannot accept (3). It would be vain to deny that this kingdom. like other governmental units, is full of organisations designed to foster Patriotism. It then becomes a question whether the Patriotism fostered is the sentiment which Mr. Bell defines in (1) and (2) and conditions in (4). I am satisfied that it is not, and in my article gave instances of the poetical Patriotism to which I referred. After recent events, perhaps I need only mention the Irish Sinn Fein. with its English equivalents and cause. This fostered patriotism does, most assuredly, lead to distorted views, to hatred of other countries, or, if the expression be preferred, to undue insistence upon the infallibility of our own. With Mr. Bell's statement that our instincts can be good or bad as we make them. I agree, of course. But I believe we are somewhat mixed, and that we are capable of improvement. Mr. Zimmem's two points are (1) that I am still a Nationalist, and (2) that Nationality may be surrendered for a mess ot pottage." I do not know that my article involves a denial of either of these points, unless by Nationalist in (I) am to understand what is meant by the cry of Patriotism I said that the war had cured me of my nationalism. It might have been clearer had I said my Patriotism." resisting the temptation of verbal antithesis to Verhaeren's internationalism." Still, there is. after all. a difference between nationality and nationalism. I know scores of Welsh peasants of whose nationality there can be no doubt, whereas of political nationalism they know nothing. I have just read Mr. Zimmem's admirably helpful article, in the last number of the Sociological Review on Nationality and Government." in which I find it stated Nationality has. in fact, become a matter of propaganda, like religion, and the wars that it leads to partake of the aimless and blundenng brutality of religious wars. in which men try to save other men s souls by offering them the alternatives of conversion or the stake. Here. I think, Mr. Zimmern must have meant organised nationalism. That is what I protest against. Mr. Zimmem would be quite entitled to say, as I did say myself, that my nationality is such that it has never occurred to me that I could be anything else." I will repeat that, tempera- mentally, my sympathies go out to Sinn Femers, partitioned Poles and Schleswig Danes, but happily. reflection teaches me that political nationalism or patriotism, however momentarily and physically natural it may be in actual origin. is ultimately and morally stupid. It is the perpetuation of that savage moment in which the blood leaps into your head like a shot and bums like fire in your nostrils. It keeps open old wounds which the fellowship of nationality would naturally heal. It is always on the look out for insults. Mr. Zimmem assumes too much when he says that I do "not even know what the dangers are to which the sentiment of Nationality are exposed." I have known personally some of the Jews, Germans and Welshmen referred to by Mr. Zimmem. who have abjured their nationality." I may say that I have even known Englishmen of the same type, and may repeat here that much of the education which the State provided for me was an attempt to make me one of that class of persons. Nationality is undoubtedly denied for a mess of pottage, but it is rather more frequently and quite as contemptibly proclaimed for it. This » perhaps to some extent in the nature of things, but if man is really a rational creature, there is no absolute necessity why he should always have the patriotic skeleton in his cupboard, either for shame or for show. Let us hope and believe that a man can be an Irishman or a Welshman, an Englishman or a German, without being less or claiming to be more than a man, and without making of his few years of life one constant proclamation of the fact that he is Irish, Welsh, English or German. A family in England, for some reason-sheer ignorance of paleography. I believe--once took it into their heads that their surname should be written without a capital letter, whereupon it became their one concern in life to detect and to protest against violations of their rule. Why should we laugh-merely at them? If there really be anything at all in human progress, this will ultimately have to go, struggle against it as we may, and the sooner it go, the better. When it has gone, nationality will still remain, open, perhaps, to some new vice, but it would seem that it is our business now to get out of the grip of this one. May I thank my critics for their courtesy, and their assistance to one who is actuated at least by the desire to prompt the libera- tive thought we all stand in so much need of? Yours, &c.. GENTLEMAN (well-connected) desires congenial companionship of Welsh Student, well read and interesting man, now or later; few hours or during holidays. Object Study of Welsh and for reading aloud and discussing every-day topics and literature. References.—" H," Cambrian News, Aberystwyth. THE Calvinistic Methodist Health Insurance Society. (Joint Approved Society No. 375.) Office REGENT CHAMBERS. WREXHAM Genera/ Secrdarj, Mr. T. W. THOMAS. Organizing Secretary Rev. W. W. LLOYD. Centra! Treasurer Mr. J. S- LLOYD (Wrexham)