Welsh Journals

to go to Ireland. As a matter of fact it was arranged at Neath, where Mr. O'Brien gave an invitation on behalf of the Gaelic League, that the 1920 Congress be held in Dublin, and at the meeting of the Irish Committee held in June, 1919, details were gone into and ways and means discussed. Mr. John was then, as now, eager to have a Congress held in Ireland. Owing to the railway strike last September the Edin- burgh Congress had to be postponed till 1920, and it took the place of the Dublin Congress. As to the 1921 meeting, which, in the natural course of events should be held in Dublin, there were two obstacles which neither Dr. Hyde nor I could over- come. One was that our Secretary (of the Irish Com- mittee) was in prison a great part of the year and right down to the time of the Edinburgh Congress. The only other body which might be expected to extend an invitation was the Gaelic League, and it was not represented at the Congress. Under these circum- stances, and considering the difficulties under which we are placed in Ireland by the military occupation, both Dr. Hyde and I fully approved of the acceptance of the warm invitation received from the Isle of Man. If there was a feeling amongst the Scotch Gaels against going to Ireland I am unaware of it. On the contrary, I got the impression the whole Congress wanted to come, and I felt rather ashamed we were not in a position to invite them yet. Why did not Mr. Henderson and his friends attend the Congress and give voice to their views They cannot have it both ways. I have no doubt whatever the majority of the Scotch delegates I met in Edinburgh are decidedly Conserva- tive, and for that reason I thought it a pity Mr. Erskine and his friends were not there to equalise things. But as a language worker I have nothing to do with the Conservatism or the Radicalism of members of the Con- gress as long as they do not obtrude their politics on the work of the Congress, and this was not done at any meeting at which I was present in Edinburgh, except at the closing meeting at which the Duke of Athol, I know a valley hidden mid shining mountains fair, It seems always early morning and a lonely thrush sings there. There are three lofty cataracts upon the rocky wall, And a clear, bright rainbow hovers above each water-fall. The feathery woods all glitter upon the dark hillside, Like emeralds and like rubies as the dawn-shafts wander wide. There are golden oak-trees folded, high up in storm-dark pine, And canopied, plumed hestnuts along the river shine. The scent of dawn and dewdrops rises softly from the hill, And the breath of giant cedars, but the heavy woods are still. There are hillsides of wild hyacinths, blue as sheets of air, And, 'mid the sombre cedars, green lawns daisy-fair. The fir-trees hang pale fingers, strange as some missal old, And the very pines are gilded with a wash of water-gold. I shall always see that valley with its leaping mountain-streams, They ring in silver unison for ever through my dreams. in the one hurried visit he paid the Congress, made a decidedly jingo speech, which was resented by many of the delegates, and which had really no direct bear- ing on the work proper of the Congress. There Mr. Henderson, if present, could have touched on a real grievance, instead of working up an imaginary one. With regard to this non-political side of the inter- Celtic movement, I hold with Mr. Henderson, that the introduction of politics would be fatal to the success of the Congress. The cleavage we see so evident in the Scotch Committee confirms me in this opinion. But my reading of non-political is not non-national." An emasculated Inter-Celtic debat- ing society would hold for me no appeal. Bereft of vitality from its very nature, such an organisation could never benefit the language movement in any of the countries concerned. I would give the largest inter- pretation possible to this non-political clause. drawing the line only at actual party politics. But I cannot see why I should be dragged into this discussion at all It almost makes one forswear all enthusiasms. I am in this movement for an ideal- something I want to keep clean and sweet and apart from the sordidness of contention, and-Io I I run up against Mr. Henderson pounding with a battering ram. Sore from the contact, I ask myself are movements greater than the machinery by which they are run, or are they not? Personally I have no desire to get tangled in the machinery. Having visualised a great forward movement of the Celts basing itself on a language revival-a movement noble in conception and broad in outlook, founded on a common need among various groups of people speak- ing the remains of a common language for a re-casting of values-and a comparison of methods of work,-a coming together, as it were, in a material age, of the scattered relics of an essentially spiritual minded people. Having visualised all this-and more, it is a deranging shock to stumble over what is evidently a two-year-old quarrel in the Scotch household. HAFOD. L. Winstanlcy.