Welsh Journals

carried on his nefarious propaganda, with the result that, for the time being at any rate, the Union of the Breton forces has become a sheer impossibility. The Union Regionaliste, on the contrary, under the leadership of M. de l'Estour- beillon has remained faithful to the Breton ideals of the integrity of the country and is doing ex- tremely good work under difficulties that are not of its making. On the other hand, the narrow-minded attitude of the Government has embittered a section of young men, students for the most part, and who appears to have rather gone to extremes, I refer to the movement of "Breiz Atao" ("Brittany Always"), which certainly had "orthodox" views concerning French patriotism, when it was formed after the war, but which since has re- vised its doctrines and is becoming more and more anti-French, although I still believe that it would be wrong to describe it as really separatist. Their ideals appear to be rather vague, as they mock the tenets of the "Regionalists" or Bretons of the moderate party, on the one hand, and asso- ciate themselves, on the other, with the small group of partisans of the creation of a Western Region, which scheme they oppose, as far as can be made out. It would be interesting to know exactly where they stand, but, in the meantime, their movement deserves a sympathetic study. Goronwy Owen. (BORN 1723). By Professor W. J. Gruffydd, M.A. IT is surely to be expected that, when a poet's work survives the second centenary of his birth, the ordinary man should make some demand upon his memory, and fipd in the great name a symbol of something which is significant both to himself and to his nation as a whole. I am sorry to have to say it-but it seems to me that the work of no poet can be regarded as living unless it be literally as dead as a stone, unless it has, in fact, become a monument; because the man in the street has this peculiarity by which his degree of ordinariness may be gauged, that he can only understand life when that life is contemporary; to establish any relation between him and anti- quity requires an embalment as complete as Tutankhamen's. So do we particularly delight in our dead warriors, because their life can trouble us no more; they have become as un- resisting and as easily conformable to any cere- cloth of ideas with which we choose to deck them as Shakespeare or Dr. Johnson. They have, in fact, become symbols; they mark spots in our intellectual common land with a certainty which is both grateful and comforting. Their claim to dominate the situation in Brittany and to voice the real aspirations of our people must, of course, be brushed aside, as it is unsup- ported by facts and as the Breton movement was already a force in the land before they, or for that matter ourselves, were born. The great majority of the Breton Regionalists and Nationalists, however, only ask that Brit- tany should be a fully qualified partner in the great French nation and that her special rights, traditions, and interests should be duly respected and protected. In order to attain this, a certain real autonomy is necessary and must be obtained. And we mean to have it. We are quite prepared to discharge our duties, but request that our rights shall be recognised. In our fight, we are cheered by the examples of the Irish and the Welsh, and some of us follow very closely the events taking place in the countries of our brother Celts. We have lived amongst them and studied their languages; al- though separated from them, we have not for- gotten them and are glad to see that they still think of us as of brothers. We are now French in the same way as the Welsh are British, but from the house where we now live and hope to live in peace with honour, we look often and long. ingly across the sea which brought us here and left our brothers behind. In this respect Goronwy Owen stands eminent even among the Welsh writers; we need only cite two other names from Goronwy's century which have provided a reason for innumerable public dinners and commemorative orations- Elis Wyn and William Williams, Pantycelyn. Elis Wyn, indeed, can never be a symbol; how can that man become a symbol who insisted on turning every diafol out of the Prayer Book and putting "diawl" instead? His work is still contemporary with us if for only that reason. Pantycelyn will, in a few years' time, become a symbol, when the churches have given up the pretence of believing in Calvinistic theology; he will be the convenient symbol of a certain emotion poetically expressed which the respectable churchgoer of the future will not pretend to understand, but will reverently and dutifully accept as being possible-provided always that the man who felt that emotion be dead. All miracles happened long ago, and the miracle makers are all defunct:- King Pandion he is dead, All his friends are lapped in lead." How many of the men who acclaim this bi- centenary read the poetry of Goronwy Owen? About as many, I suppose, in proportion, as read the plays of William Shakespeare. But public opinion is a vastly robuster creature than public