Welsh Journals

There is still a call to define the word politics. Aristotle writes that it is the necessary sequel to Ethics." In Wales our ethics grow from our religion. "Politics," then, as one great writer puts it, "is the application of a man's religion to the life of the state." And by religion is meant not necessarily the Christian religion, but any religion, for far down in the deeps every man has a God. In Cardigan- shire-and by the process of induction, the same, con- clusion applies to other Welsh counties-Liberals fought for Disestablishment and Disendowment, not because they wanted the money of the Church, but because they wanted freedom. In 1868 when the Liberals of Cardiganshire invited E. M. Richards, of Swansea, to contest the seat with a Vaughan of Crosswood, they defied their landlords in an open booth, not for a reduction of rent, but for the right of private judgment, and in that memorable fight, they made their captivity captive. Chamberlain came down to Highmead and offered Disestablishment as a prize for apostacy, but the Liberals of Cardiganshire preferred Gladstone and Home Rule. In 1885, David Davies, of Llandinam, was returned by a majority of thousands. In 1886, David Davies had seceded to Unionism, and he was defeated at the polls by Bowen Rowlands, then a comparative stranger who was pledged to Home Rule for Ireland. David Davies was then a beneficent philanthropist. He subscribed largely THE PRESENT STATE OF WELSH DRAMA THE dramatic Eisteddfod, held at Swansea in October, Ã may perhaps, at some future day, when we come to write the history of this revival, prove an important date. For at a swoop it restored to the drama all the enthusiasm which had been distracted during the war, and it made clear with what zest the Welsh language and Welsh mind were re-adapting themselves for this all but abandoned form. To praise the Swansea week is surely superfluous nor is it less wasteful to insist on what gropings after a forgotten manner, what baffled efforts to recapture a tradition, were nightly revealed as each new company tried to finger its unaccustomed tool. Indeed, this sur- prise at the instrument was a part of the charm. For just as a less practised etcher, by his very uncertainty about the limits of a burin's skill, may achieve some fresh delicacy of line which an older craftsman would be too knowing to attempt, so actors, not over-schooled in the definitions of the play, can reveal to us expressive moments which a trained performer would not venture. That is why an artist, perfect in technique, who yet paints with an amateur's pleasure, and a finished dancer who still has some air of a debutante, are of all people the most graceful to watch. I hope that when these Cwm Tawe companies have grown confident and happy on the stage, they will also keep some of the gentleness they showed at Swansea, and will not allow the footlights to separate them from the friendliness of their hearers. to every kind of fund within the county, and largely financed the Liberal Association. To a certain class of politicians such a result must appear to be absurd and fanatical, but it is the stuff out of which the Liberalism of Wales used to be made. These are samples out of the common stock. A paid Conservative Agent has addressed to me the question, seemingly, in bewilderment- What is the spirit of Liberalism?" The concrete instances given should convey the information. It may be claimed that the axiom of Liberalism has been that the good of the whole community is to be the aim of all laws and all government. Its sustained struggles for popular educa- tion is proof that it held that the wealth of a country consists in its manhood. Another principle it has con- tended for is the one of Carriere otwerte aux talens," and, lastly, that the will of the people is the ultimate authority. Why should its quondam friends falter in their allegiance? Liberalism has broken down class barriers and privileges, has purchased freedom at a great price. Is it to be scrapped because the war has for the time disturbed our equilibrium ? It will yet be a powerful force because it seeketh not its own, because it is un- selfish and disinterested and heroic, and because it can be applied with the same efficacy to the reconstruction of the world, as it was applied to the gigantic tasks of the last seventy years. By J. S. Lewis. And och, that horrible word and those horrible things- footlights. They had them at the Albert Hall. And behind them Lord Howard de Walden twice stood blinking. And after the audiences (with that servility so sudden in us that I sometimes wish myself a naked Hottentot rather than a Cymro clothed), had paid him honours even in England reserved for royalty, Lord Howard had courage to hope we should not make the popular English theatre our model. And the footlights, crude as when in a third-rate music hall they shine on the strangely pressed trousers of American patter duos, glared up at him and gave him the lie direct. Nor could I find any reason for their being. For the players, guided by a proper instinct, ignored them. They did not paint for the footlight, and their acting stepped easily over it and took our sympathy. And this matter of lighting is fundamental. That the footlight is often vulgar, that it has become the essential feature of the picture stage, and that with it dress and make-up and a dozen other distractions have imposed themselves beyond bound on the theatre, these are common places but for the Welsh drama they are the lightest charges. With us there is a more vital issue which I must try to make plain. The Welsh critics who have written constructively about the drama seem to me to hold the right end of the stick. They have said that our plays must be village