Welsh Journals

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A beginning has already been made with the Celtic Congress, which met, this year, at Bangor. We confess that we have not always felt at ease in our minds with regard to this institution. So long as it remains a meeting of scholars for the purpose of studying Celtic' matters in a purely academic way, it can certainly do no harm, even if its capacity for doing good is not particularly obvious; but the very moment it transgresses these limits, by inculcating a kind of Celtic self-consciousness in the people at large, it becomes a thing to oppose with all possible seriousness. This year the proceedings appear to have been harmless enough. Some first-rate historical addresses were delivered, such as those of Mr. T. P. Ellis and Dr. Hartwell Jones. That Celtic antiquities should be studied is all to the good; but that some sort of Celtic Culture should be fetched out of its museum, and galvanised into an imi- tation of life in order to do battle with something called English Culture,' would be wicked were it not too silly to be taken seriously at all. HARD upon the Celtic Congress comes the National Eisteddfod. We have, in past years, made general comments upon it; nor is there anything of importance to add. It seems to us that the real weakness of the Eisteddfod to-day is its inability to make up its mind about itself. Two paths lie before it, and com- plete success may well await it at the end of either. The one path is that of the past-the Eisteddfod as it used to be, encouraging things Welsh and those only, excluding all foreign productions however great. Thus it would revive a peculiarly Welsh institution, for good or bad. The other path leads to a radical transformation. The Eisteddfod becomes a brand new instrument for the promotion of culture. Nothing will be tolerated on its platforms that is not the very best of its kind. At present our Eisteddfod is halting between these two choices, with the result that all is confusion and lack of purpose. At one moment we are confronted with the mouldy jokes of the A rweinydd-a feeble and vulgar relic of the Welsh tradition; the next moment a young pianist is playing a piece by Debussy. In the afternoon some famous Welsh patriot will kindle our souls by appeals to the memory of Glyndwr and Llewelyn; while in the evening a wealthy English cotton merchant will discourse amiably about the possibility of converting Twll-y-Gornel into a Blackpool. Let us clear our minds, and decide what we really want. Personally we would have only the best music of the world at the Eisteddfod; for music is an international language; but the rest should be Welsh in every sense. It is an insult to our country to ask a man who cannot speak Welsh to preside at the Eisteddfod. In every depart- ment of literature and art there is latent talent, and possibly genius, in our midst. It should be the primary function of the Eisteddfod to discover it and to provide it with an opportunity for display. Above all it surely is the function of the Eisteddfod to be the chief bulwark of our language. In the olden days it was not so, for Welsh was not then so obviously in peril. Now, however, the need is great. We have frequently, in these columns, given expression to our disagreement with the political aspirations of the Welsh National Party; but we have always insisted upon the importance of our language. If Welsh were to disappear, Wales as a nation would not exist much longer. It is the one thing that keeps us united. No man who cannot read, write, and speak Welsh fluently has any right to meddle in Welsh affairs at all, for he does far more harm than good. Nothing could be more disastrous for us as a nation than for the belief to spread abroad that it is possible to be a good Welshman and not speak Welsh. The fatuity of such a belief be- comes evident at once if we try to imagine a good Englishman knowing little English, a good Frenchman knowing no French, or a good German unable to converse in the language of Goethe In words, the experiences of past generations, their hopes and their fears, their loves and their hates, their joys and their sorrows, are crystalised.