Welsh Journals

THERE is no doubt that the Government is feeling uneasy and annoyed on the subject of Welsh Nationalism. It took readily all Wales's services and heavy sacrifices in the war, but it never seems to have given a serious thought for her in its plan of reconstruction. In the old days we were told that if the Young Wales party in the House of Commons had not secured a Welsh Parliament, at least they had permeated the English Civil Service with Welsh influences. To judge from the report of the Government's Committee of Reconstruction, it would seem that the attempt to permeate English bureau- cracy with Welsh Nationalism has ended in a tragedy like that which befell the Irish Established Church in the 18th century. According to Dean Swift, the British Govern- ment of his day selected men of high learning and piety for vacant Irish Bishoprics. Unhappily these good men, on leaving London, were invariably murdered by high- waymen on Hounslow Heath, and these brigands, disguised in the sacerdotal vestments of their victims, crossed the channel, took possession of their Sees and worked the ruin of the Irish Church and nation. If a similar fate has befallen these earnest Welsh Nationalists, who at various times have been sent to inspire various bureaucratic offices at Whitehall with Celtic sympathies, the explanation of the Committee's report is clear. Otherwise how are we to explain a passage like this We think that the whole powers and duties of the English and Welsh Insurance Commissioners should be transferred to the Ministry of Health on its establishment. Some adjustment would be required in the case of the Scotch and Irish Insurance Com- missioners. The recognition of Scotland's and Ireland's rights to nationhood is not very generously expressed, but it is there. The claim of Wales to be anything but thirteen counties of the Kingdom of England is positively denied. Let us suppose that during the war a reconstruction commission in Austria had reported that there should be one Ministry of Health for Austria and Bohemia, but that some special readjustments should be made in the case of Hungary, or that some German Committee had proposed a single Board of Health for Prussia, Alsace and Loraine, with special arrangements on national lines for Wurtenburg and Bavaria, how the British Press would have raged with horror at such an insult to every principle of nationalism. Consider how in Wales, Sir Herbert Roberts would have saddened and Mr. Towyn Jones waxed eloquent! The fact is that for thirty years Welsh Home Rule has been a political question, and that its principle as embodied in Mr. Edward T. John's Bill has been approved by the House, of Commons. It was the duty of the Government to have carried out the wishes of the people as expressed by their Parliamentary representatives, and to have arranged that Wales should have been treated for the purposes of reconstruction, if not as a separate unit for legislation, at least as a separate administration district. At least the Government should have brought before the Committee the injustices which Wales suffers in taxation and admini- stration, through being treated as part of England. These THE OUTLOOK THE GOVERNMENT OF WALES grievances have been well exposed by Mr. John and other writers in the columns of the Welsh Outlook and in other periodicals, and some of them have been considered by the Welsh Committee on Reconstruction, but the Welsh advisers of the Government would not trouble themselves to raise them. The Government come heroic the world as the champions of freedom in Bohemia and Poland to Wales they offer the policy of Edward the first. At the eleventh hour it would seem that some little nervousness has come over our rulers. In a Sunday newspaper, supposed to enjoy the Government confidence, we are told that Wales cannot have Home Rule now, because of the difficulties of the Irish question, but that a Chief Secretaryship for Wales on the lines of the Scottish Secretaryship, may be conceded, and a gentleman, not unknown in Whitehall, has been addressing the Cardiff Cymmrodorion on the subject. Now, on this proposal we wish to say that what we demand for Wales is in Tom Ellis's words a Legisla- ture elected by the manhood and womanhood of Wales and to them responsible." In days when Bohemia and Poland are being reconstituted as democratic republics, Wales cannot accept as a substitute for self-government a new Court ol the Marches set up in the backroom of some dingy office in Whitehall. If it is supposed that such an office will lay the Welsh demand for self-government, the sooner the delusion is laid aside the better for the happiness of Government and Parliament. As a means however to obtain self-government, the pro- posal should be judged on its merits and on both sides there is a good deal to be said. The supporters of the scheme argue as if the Scottish Secretaryship, an institution which only dates from the eighties, was a complete success. Many Scotchmen, including Scottish M.P's., do not take this view. It is said that the office is reactionary in its policy, and that it stands in the way of Scottish Home Rule. A Welsh office would have similar danger. It would be the rendezvous of jobbers and grant hunters, and would undermine rather than encourage the self-respect of Welshmen who had dealings with it. Under Tory Administrations, it would be a centre of reaction. Its staff would view the coming of Welsh Home Rule with anxiety, for they could not foresee how it would affect their status and salaries. These are grave objections, but we still think that the advantages of setting it up outweigh them. If Wales were in the constitutional position of Scotland, if she had like Scotland always possessed a system of law, local government, and education entirely different from that of England, it might justly be argued that the proposed office would be an obstruction to progress. In fact, however, the distinction for legal and administration purposes which have always prevailed between England and Scotland has not existed between Wales and England since the days of Henry VIII. English government offices have always treated a Welsh county like Cardiganshire in the same way as they treat an English county like Berkshire; and as the report of the Committee on Reconstruction shews, it has never