Welsh Journals

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WALES AND ITS PROGRAMME TO appreciate accurately the magnitude of its oppor- tunity, the imperiousness of its obligation, the gravity of its mission, Wales must needs look very much beyond its own restricted limits. In Paris, the nations, guided by the superb statesman- ship of President Wilson, are being brought reluctantly, almost mutinously, to contemplate a future condition of international relations, based mainly upon moral authority, reducing to negligible dimensions, if not wholly abolishing, armaments of whatsoever nature. While Chauvinists of all nations clamour for strategic frontiers, economic barriers, indemnities, and all the ill-starred mechanism of racial exacerbation, the workers of the world increasingly per- ceive that in the final discontinuance of the appeal to physical force, lies their economic salvation. The nations, great and small alike, but the minor nationalities in par- ticular, see with equal clarity that assured and permanent peace is the essential condition of the untrammelled development of their distinctive genius and aptitudes. At Paris, as elsewhere, the triumph of a practical Pacifism is equally the triumph of all sane and salutary Nationalism. The first interest of Wales then is to assist in securing an international settlement based upon the principles of nationality, of mutual disarmament and of unfettered economic intercourse, the three essentials of an enduring and effective League of Nations. In Ireland, we discern a sister Celtic nation, with unpre- cedented emphasis, rejecting in toto the continued domination of Teutonic England, and declaring sans phrase for unqualified independence-a Celtic renaissance of unparalleled significance. Discarding a Home Rule Bill, originally feeble to futility-long languishing in a state of suspended animation-to-day hopelessly derelict, Ireland rejects alike Federal and Dominion Home Rule, and un- equivocally demands its independence-the immediate creation of an Irish Republic-a claim which can no more be legitimately resisted than that of Poland or of Bohemia- the interest and convenience of England being no more sacroscant than those of Germany or of Austria. However disturbing to conventional politicians this spectre of an independent and Republican Ireland may be, Paris may readily rob the grisly vision of all its terrors, for general disarmament, and complete free trade between Great Britain and Ireland, would make Irish independence at least absolutely innocuous in all probability highly advantageous to Britain by the complete abatement of ancient animosities. The second duty of Wales then is to ensure for Ireland, if needs be, by the intervention of the Peace Conference, the immediate satisfaction of all her just claims, and to obtain for itself simultaneously and in similar unstinted measures the status and privileges of rail nationhood, wholly con- tent, of course, that Scotland and England should pursue identical courses. At Paris, the Overseas Dominions have largely achieved recognition as separate and independent States-the portentous W. M. Hughes at one time, virtually threatening Britain with the secession of Australia, if its By Edward T. John. visions of territorial expansion were not fully realised. The British Empi e is happily being converted almost unconsciously into a Federation of Free Nations at home and abroad-the Imperialist, Militarist and Protectionist House of Commons, returned at the last election, stimulating enormously democratic, pacifist, Republican, Nationalist, and even separatist sentiment, but separation itself need in no wise disturb the balanced political observer,-it is but the legitimate assertion of the individualism of nations, with force eliminated, as salutary in the relations of nations as of individuals. The disappearance of war-the aim and outcome of President Wilson's statesmanship-makes dubious schemes of Imperial unity superfluous, the voluntary federation of Commonwealths being all that is needful or desirable. These considerations have obviously an intimate bearing upon the aims and action of Welsh Nationalists. There is no longer any occasion for the advocacy of hesitant half measures. On the contrary, the time has arrived for the formulation of.the requirements and ideals of a thorough going and outspoken nationalism. Throughout there has been no legitimate ieason why the autonomous powers to be granted to the four nationalities should not, so far as domestic affairs were concerned, be virtually complete, modified only by considerations of mutual convenience. In effect, the really distinguishing features both of Dominion Home Rule and of Independence lie in the realm of fiscal policy and external relations. In either case, Ireland would claim to stand aside from the aggressive Imperialism of England, a disposition which Wales most profoundly shares. Ireland unhappily shares with England some measure of belief in the fiscal fallacies now so fashionable, but it is, on the contrary, the vital interest of Wales to decline to be drawn into the maelstrom of Protectionism, towards which the State is now being so steadily steered. Wales certainly should control its own fiscal and foreign policy. As regards Ireland, the Sein Fein movement will indubitably ensure to the Irish people one financial advan- tage of surpassing importance. It will obtain for them virtual exemption from contributing towards defraying the cost of the war, as embodied in future taxation. For this there is much justification, for Mr. Redmond clearly went much beyond his mandate in endorsing, on behalf of Ireland, the participation of the United Kingdom in the war. It will be more difficult for Wales to repudiate the action of its representative, although the bias of the Principality up to August, 1914, was unquestionably and most pronouncedly anti-militarist- T olstoyan, not to say sincerely Christian. What Wales can however claim is, that its contribution shall be strictly proportionate to its accumulated wealth- an axiom of unquestionable equity, but wholly unrealisable except by means of complete self-government. It thus becomes pertinent to state more or less succinctly the probable-it may be the ideal-policy of the Welsh Parliament when constituted. Comprising, as it almost inevitably would, a substantial Labour majority, it would