Welsh Journals

than the Eisteddfod pavilion. There we have displayed all those things which, taken together, make up the Welsh spirit. There we have the delight in song, and in the apt use of words. There we see something of the carelessness of the practical and the material, which has been the source of so much of our weakness, as well as of all our strength. A visit to the Downs at Epsom on Derby Day, and to Pwllheli during Eisteddfod week, would reveal to the thoughtful on-looker the roots of so much that is dissimilar in the Englishman and the Welshman. As to the result of such a comparison the Welshman would certainly have no cause for alarm. It is a most significant thing that the patriotic energies of Welshmen have run in these particular channels rather than in political ones. And thus, while other nations have been building armies, and modelling senates, the Welsh people have been busy inventing intricate metres, and in composing prize essays. No doubt this tendency has been carried to excess, and in our present political ineptitude we are be- ginning to realise that it is so; nevertheless it was a mistake in the right direction. IT IS this insistence upon the supreme value of culture that is the great con- tribution which Wales has to make to the life of the world to-day. For we live in an age which idolises efficiency, prosperity, and success. We have discovered Comfort and called it Civilization. An American said, the other day, that he never read anything which did not fdirectly help him in his business. Against all that the Eisteddfod stands and in so far as it does so it represents all that is best and most valuable, not only in the world of the past, but likewise in the world of the present. Nevertheless let us not be too self-complacent: the haggling of owners and miners over the profits of the mines, and the hideous profiteering which goes on in our health resorts, are disgraceful betrayals of the teaching of all our greatest preachers and poets. HE Eisteddfod by its cultivation of music and poetry emphasises the non-utilitarian aspects of life. The great and central doctrine of the Darwinian philosophy is that everything is subservient to the maintenance of life; in other words, that it is utilitarian. But beauty obstinately refuses to take its place among the things that are useful. When we consider the lillies of the field and mar- vel at them, we do so not because we have some use for them, but simply because the mere act of considering them fills us with a joy that can never arise from the contem- plation of the most satisfactory banking account. We listen to an old Welsh air, or we read a lyric of Ceiriog's, and if the soul is not dead within us we feel that the pomp, the power, and the wealth of the world, are not arrayed like one of these. ry\ HERE continues to be an almost com- plete lull in the Welsh political world. We are suffering, like our friends in England, from lack lof interest in, if not from disgust with, party politics. Of late we have had a Labour Government, a Conservative Government, and a Government which claimed to repre- sent the best things in all parties; and to us it seems as if they were all equally regard- less of the/things which we care most about. Even the Nonconformist Conscience in politics appears to have slumbered heavily in these latter years, if we may judge by its feeble and uncertain protests against such vile atrocities as the official Reprisals in Ireland, and its half-hearted support of the League of Nations. We are badly in need of energetic, and inspired leadership. Among the poli- ticians there, does not seem to be a single voice capable of rousing the whole nation from its torpor. In the pulpit things are a little better; and it does seem as if, at long last, the few men who have the ear of the crowds are beginning to realise that it is their business to be teachers and prophets rather than entertainers. The most hopeful signs perhaps are to be found in the activi-