Welsh Journals

in question. The first is the Tithe Act of 1891. This measure very properly removed from the tenant to the landlord the obligation to pay tithe, but it was introduced and carried through Parlia- ment for the special purpose of checkmating the Welsh Disestablishment agitation by depriving it of the advertisement of the disorder of the tithe sales. The Bill passed into law despite a strong Welsh protest. The second case is that of the famous Balfour Education Act of 1902. The Welsh members offered to that measure the most strenuous resistance, and when it was passed, the Welsh local authorities for a time set it at defiance. Apart from legislation hostile to the pre- dominant sentiment of the Welsh people the British Parliament for years refused to Wales the legislation that its people demanded. In 1868, Wales was ripe for Disestablishment. In every Parliament from 1885 to 1911 Wales returned supporters of Welsh Disestablishment at every election by overwhelming majorities, but it was only in 1914 that the Welsh Church Act received the Royal assent. A similar story can be told of the Welsh land question. If Mr. Emlyn Williams desires to know how English law has worked for four hundred years in Wales I can only advise him to study the Welsh Land Commission Report of 1895. He will find there plenty of examples of gross injustice and the explanation of much of the present unrest in Wales. Then, in addition to the agrarian grievances it may be remembered that for a century and a half no Welshman was appointed to a Welsh bishopric. It was all unintentional, Mr. Emlyn Williams may reply. But if the excuse is to serve for England may it not also serve for Austria- Hungary? I have no doubt that in days past The Need of To-Day. By W. Tudor Davies. IN these days of rapidly changing political values men are thrown back upon a close analysis of political ideals and ideas. There is, perhaps, now a greater tendency to classify people than hitherto. Life has developed into a systematic pigeon-holing, so that much of the virility and the zest of living has disappeared. In every walk of life there is inclination to collectivism. Leading men and women fail to inspire as they used to do. The stage is no longer dominated by Irvings and Trees-not because the histrionic ability is absent, for there is in these days a plethora of great artists-but simply because the mental attitude of the masses has so changed. Moreover, it is not the leading artist that so much matters as the ensemble or the collective effect of a play. The pulpit has still its giants, but they do not function as did there was considerable oppression of subject nationalities in the realm of the Hapsburgs. But even here oppression was not universal, and Tom Ellis considered that the constitution which the Tyrol enjoyed under Francis Joseph was exactly the constitution that Wales ought to possess. Austria, up to 1866, no doubt governed Hungary disgracefully, but as Hungary subse- quently obtained full self-government it is impossi- ble for foreigners to make much of this, especially as Hungary has herself been dismembered in the name of freedom. The charge brought against the German and the Magyar in the Austrian Empire is the charge of linguistic and educa- tional oppression, a charge that, in days before 1890, might with equal and even greater justice have been brought against the English regime in Wales. I do not, however, seek to put the two oppres- sions on a precisely similar plane. I can well believe that the militarism and feudalism of the Hapsburg rule made a linguistic and educational policy not unlike that which England adopted, consciously or unconsciously, in Wales, Ireland and the Highlands, so aggravating to nations with long memories. Substantially, however, if educational and linguistic freedom are desirable things in themselves, the case for self-government is as strong in Wales as in Czecho-Slovakia. And if it be the fact that young Welshmen gener- ally agree with Mr. Emlyn Williams and Mr. Simon and are prepared to throw over all the traditions of "Wales: a nation," then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Welsh educational system has been a more successful device for the destruction of nationality than all the armies of the Hapsburgs, all the guile of Castlereagh or Metternich. But two swallows will not suffice to make a Jingo summer. Spurgeon, Parker, and Hugh Price Hughes. There was a time when a visitor to London made the hearing of these Savonarolas an essential part of his programme. The late Lord Fisher even told us that he endeavoured to squeeze in as many visits to these preachers as he possibly could on a Sunday. The reason is not that the people do not require spiritual pabulum, but that they either need fresh cooking of that food or they must seek it elsewhere. Similarly in poli- tics, the party leader is not idolised as Gladstone or Disraeli were. The study of the life of Glad- stone is the review of the age in which he lived. Almost every home in Scotland, it is said, possessed a picture of the G.O.M. Neither Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Asquith, nor Mr. Ramsay Macdonald attract in quite the same way. It may be said that Mr. Lloyd George is the figure of the transitionary period. But we shall not witness the apotheosis of either in the same way as the Gladstone or Disraeli cult. This judgment