Welsh Journals

WHAT is the difficulty about winning Welsh Home Rule? The question has suffered from its easy success in its earlier stages. When it was first proposed by men like Tom Ellis, the present Prime Minister, and Sir Ellis Griffith, it seemed to the Welsh people so reason- able and just a proposal that hardly anyone on the Liberal side ventured to criticise it. To have criticised it adversely would have been to upset the case for Welsh Disestablish- ment. But the years have passed and the question has not matured. Indeed, the late election has, if anything, been a set back. The War has settled most of the national- ist questions in Europe. Anti-nationalist Empires like Austria and Russia have collapsed. Poland and Bohemia seem to have secured not Home Rule, but independence but it seems highly probable that some time must elapse before even the humblest measure of Welsh devolution finds its way to the Statute Book. The subject found no place in the Premier's political programme, while the late elections in Wales have been fatal to some of the best Welsh Nationalists, Sir Ellis Griffith on the one side, Mr. Llewellyn Williams, Mr. E. T. John, and Mr. Ellis Davies on the other. Practically the old Cymru Fydd party is a thing of the past. Yet the position of Welsh Home Rule, even after the elections, is far from hopeless. In the House, Welsh Labour is sound, if not enthusiastic on the question. It has its supporters among Welsh Liberals, and of them Major Davies made it one of the most prominent issues in his appeal to the electorate. The Prime Minister is still at least a theoretical supporter. Indeed, no one ventures to attack it openly. Its opponents only hope is to keep it an academical question for years, which they believe they can do if the English Tories can be restrained from repealing the Welsh Church Act. The Welsh M.P.'s, these opponents know, are personally exceedingly comfortable at the Reform and National Liberal Clubs, and, unless strongly pressed from Wales, they will not move in the matter. Meanwhile, to put it plainly and brutally, Wales is to be kept quiet by corruption. C.B.E.'s and 0 B E 's are cheap J P.'ships are even cheaper. Whitehall and the Whips Office are words that cajole and terrify. In a word, the position of Welsh Home Rule to-day is very like that of Woman Suffrage in 1906. Public opinion is convinced. It holds that Wales ought to have some sort of Home Rule, exactly as it believed that in 1906 some sort of Parliamentary Franchise ought to be granted to women. But, as in 1906, official party men did not wish to take up the suffrage question, and plotted to shelve it, so our rulers to-day do not wish to touch Welsh Home Rule. The question presents many technical difficulties. It would not make a good stunt on the English political platform. It might even (so it is wrongly supposed) complicate the Irish question, for the Ulster men are believed to be as much opposed to Home Rule all round as to Home Rule for Ireland alone. What policy then should the supporters of Welsh Home Rule adopt? The success of the women's agitation THE OUTLOOK TO WIN HOME RULE suggests the inevitable question, whether the cause would be helped by any sort of militant tactics. Putting aside the moral question involved, it may be said that to be effective such tactics would have to be put into force in London rather than in Wales, and that, if put in force in London, they would fail of effect. The best proof of this is that the Irish, who have not shrunk on occasions from armed rebellion, have never tried them. For a number of Welshmen and Welshwomen to go over London interrupt- ing public meetings and breaking windows at Downing Street would be utterly ridiculous until the Welsh M.P.'s had been aroused to fight the question seriously and, when the M.P.'s had been aroused, such tactics would be un- necessary. On deeper grounds it may be said that militant tactics, like armed rebellion, are never justifiable, until all constitutional means have been exhausted. And it would be absurd to say that on this question all constitutional means have been tried. What then should be done? In the first place Welsh nationalists of both sexes should draw together, in the chief towns and industrial centres of Wales, and seek to create a public opinion. Whenever the local member comes down, he should be invariably asked what he has done to promote Welsh Home Rule. In the second place, such organisations should lose no opportunity of bringing before public opinion what Wales suffers from the denial of local liberty. When temperance advocates press their views, they should point out how much more easily they could be realised in a Welsh than in an English Parliament. When nervous educationists insist on the necessity of a fresh grant, and tell how Principal this or Professor that intend to see some worthy official in Downing Street, they should point out how dishonouring it is to Wales that Welshmen should beg as suppliants for English money, when their own national resources, if administered by a local Parliament, would provide a far better system of education than Wales possesses to-day. Self respect could in this way be taught to some Welsh educationists and some other Welsh public men. Similarly, in regard to taxation. There will be no doubt plenty of talk in Wales in season and out of season on taxes, when the bill for the War comes to be paid. Nationalists must bring it home to the people that Wales, as compared with England, is over taxed. Other questions, such as Irish Home Rule, Welsh Land Reform, and the proposed alterations in the Disestablishment Act, should also be watched, and Welsh- men should not be allowed to forget that, but for the Irish Nationalists, Welsh Disestablishment would never have been passed into law. A sympathetic attitude to Ireland on the part of Wales might do much to solve the Irish question on reasonable lines. Side by side with such organisation in Wales similar groups should be formed in London, Liverpool, Manches- ter, and other large English towns with a large Welsh population. Such organisations might impress on English political parties the claims of Wales. Nor should the older political associations be ignored. Welsh Nationalists should