Welsh Journals

CORRESPONDENCE STATE PURCHASE. To the Editor, Sir,—The kindly courtesy which characterises the references of the Rev. J. T. Rhys to myself and my activities must be my excuse for further occupying your space, upon which I am elsewhere tresspasing so unconscionably. Mr. Rhys does himself injustice in disclaiming ability to comprehend the description of the policy of State Purchase as a counsel of despair," as he forthwith bases his advocacy upon the assumed impossibility of securing some more feasible and satisfactory solution. In Wales, at any rate, there is no insuperable obstacle in the condition of public opinion, the greatest obstruction to-day being the ill-starred agitation tor State Purchase. Mr. Rhys has forgotten much if he finds himself unable to understand the repugnance with which the mass of those associated with the Churches of Wales contemplate compulsory implication in the conduct of this devastating traffic. Their view of its operations was admirably ex- pressed by the distinguished American, who, when shewn in Dublin the vast commercial enterprises and the lavish benefactions to Churches and Schools of Guinness, exclaimed Remarkable man this- see he provides the city with education, salvation and damnation. Most Welshmen prefer to leave the purveying of the latter commodity to private enterprise: there will be many strenuous conscientious objectors to participation by the State therein. I am told that the list of ,200 supporters mentioned by Mr. Rhys is certainly representative, in that it includes many who have not hitherto been prominently identified with Temperance reform, and that. in many populous places, the meetings have often been equally marked by paucity of numbers and lack of enthusiasm. As to the Parliamentary support given to the movement, I shrewdly suspect my colleague, Mr. Sidney Robinson, was not very wide of the mark when, with genial cynicism, he attributed many conversions, lay and clerical, to the example and teaching of our distinguished countryman, the Prime Minister, whose success was reminiscent of the wholesale operations of St. Augustine among the Saxons, and Mr. Chamberlain among the quondam Free Traders of the Midlands. The various reforms mentioned as effected at Carlisle can be brought about quite readily without State Purchase Wales has not needed State Purchase to achieve Sunday Closing, for instance. To compel the trade to accept pre-war values, Mr. Rhys and his leaders will have to overcome the opposition of those very vested interests of which they stand in such utter awe. The attractions of the deal con- templated by the present Prime Minister in 1915 are not quite so obvious to men of fairly sound commercial instincts as they are to Mr. Rhys we all agree that the huge additional profits which the sagacious handling of this matter by the Government has enabled the trade to extract from the public should have been secured bodily for the nation's benefit, and, preferably, for the purpose of diminishing the number of licensed houses. Mr. Rhys unwittingly, I am sure, but persistently assumes that I desire to postpone all action until complete autonomy for Wales is secured. That has not been at any time the case, and I entirely disagree with the contention that nothing on the lines of the Scottish Bill could have been secured. No effort of any kind has been made to bring this about. Whatever may be the cost of purchasing or suppressing the public houses of Wales, the lattcr would be an admirable investment the former a most dubious expedient. Mr. Rhys is so continuously contemplating that which he imagines cannot he achieved that it would perhaps be well for him to turn his attention for a while to what has actually been done in Canada, recently described in the New Statesman in the following terms, viz. "The city of Toronto contains half a million people, and now it has no drinking place within its borders. Under very heavy penalties no club may have any liquor on its premises. When the new law first came into force September, 1916, private persons might import liquors, and in consequence many a cellar was well stocked. Now, by Federal enactment, after April 1st, 19!8, no intoxicating liquors may be sent from other provinces into the provinces which forbid the sale of such liquors within their own borders-the greater part of Canada. To this has been added the complete prohibition both to import alcoholic liquors and to produce them in the country. Medicinal and industrial uses are, of course, excepted. In all these changes the United States either has already done, or is likely soon to do what Canada has effected. From the frontiers of Mexico to the Arctic Circle there may soon not be a place in North America where a glass of alcoholic liquor can be had as a beverage, and it is largely the result of a war in Europe. Edw. T. John. NATIONALITY AND HOME RULE: A REJOINDER. To the Editor. Sir, The reply of Mr. Arthur Price, in your April number, to my recent article entitled Nationality and Home Rule," was in every way worthy of its author, a man whose patriotism is only equalled by his learning, and whose learning is surpassed only by his courtesy. My only com- plaint is that he has misapprehended, and consequently misrepresented my opinions. This perhaps is the result of some ambiguity in my article. The truth of the matter is that Mr. Price and I are in complete agree- ment on all fundamental issues. 1 would begin by stating emphatically that I am not an opponent of Welsh autonomy. So far as is compatible with complete loyalty to the great Commonwealth, of which Wales fortunately forms a part, I believe that the management of purely local affairs ought to be entrusted to the Principality itself. What I endeavoured to demonstrate in my article was the fatuity of the belief, so current amongst politicians, that legislatures are of the essence of national life. Put quite boldly my argument would run as follows Home Rule may be beneficial or baneful-that question we are not at present con- cerned with-but, in itself, it cannot preserve the soul ot the nation, and without it the nation can exist and increase in strength. The real things, without which the Welsh nation cannot survive at all, are its language, its peculiar institutions (of which Parliament has never been one) its literature, and its culture. A Welsh Parliament may safeguard these, but it cannot create them nor is it at all likely that an alien, or even hostile, Parliament can extinguish them. My suggestion was that politicians who talk so loudly about autonomy would be far better em- ployed in learning the Welsh language, and in teaching it to their children. Nor am I at all sanguine as to the aid which a national assembly, sitting at Cardiff, with the dragon banner waving above its head, would give in these matters. It would be composed, I take it, of much the same material as the present Welsh Party, and the Welsh County Councils. The total inadequacy of the former is too palpable to require proof. Many of the latter are universally known to be so corrupt that one has to go back to the 18th century to find anything analogous. Until we have succeeded in crushing out of existence this terrible propensity for jobbery and shameless wire-pulling, in truly educating our new masters, and in fostering within them a real love of the best and highest things in life, we should merely be erecting a wider stage for these evil actors to disport themselves upon, and with infinitely worse results, by creating a Welsh Parliament. Those of us who love our little country do not wish to see it become a European backwater. That, unfortunately, is usually the fate of small nations when independent. A small town, a small college, a small church, and equally a small nation, is liable to diverge from the main stream of civilization, and to become stagnant and infinitely poorer as a result. Let us have done with the cant of "small nations." It is but seldom that these have attained a high stage of civilization. There were scores of petty nationalities in the East in the 4th century, B.C., but it was not until three great empires had been built up as a result of Alexander's conquests that the magnificent period of Hellenic culture became possible. Christianity would have expired in the first century without the vast and well-organized Roman Empire. The history of pro- gress is to some extent the record of the achievements of great men; far more is it the record of the achievements of great empires. Every small nation does not deserve to live for a nation's sole title to existence is its contribution to the world's common store of culture and of spiritual wealth. Such a contribution Wales has made, and is able to make and if the possession of a separate Parliament will guarantee better con- ditions for the realization of our high ideals, let us welcome it. But do not let us forget that this assembly, however perfect, is but a means to an end, and not at all the most important means. Barmouth, William Watkin Davies.