Welsh Journals

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Much nonsense L talked these days about com- pulsion. It ill becomes teachers to gird against compulsion in Welsh, while accepting it without demur in things English." — Mr. J. Phillips, President of the Union of Welsh Teachers, at Pontypridd. Welsh audiences are easy-going, amiable, and lovable, and do not seem to mind whether meet- ings start two hours late and finish at one a.m.- Sir WALFORD Davies at a conference of local eis- teddfodwyr at Bangor. The hearth in Wales to-day, more than in any country, depended for its culture on our national system of education, and the language would die on the hearth if it was not encouraged and taught in the schools and colleges.-From report of a speech by Professor W. J. GRUFFYDD at the Court of Governors of Cardiff College. LOCAL GOVERNMENT. A conference of local authorities representing Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, which had been considering grounds for an appeal for assistance to the Ministry of Health, met at Cardiff to re- ceive the report of a deputation which had been appointed to wait on the Ministry. The deputation reported that the Ministry could offer no assist- ance. On the following day a conference of Poor Law authorities of South Wales and Monmouth- shire, said to be the forerunner of a national move- ment aiming at Government assistance for all necessitous areas, was held in the same place. In a statement sent to the Welsh Relief Con- certs Fund in connection with its appeal for sup- port in assisting the wives and children in unem- ployment areas in the Welsh coalfield, Colonel D. Watts Morgan, M.P., chairman of the Glamorgan County Council, says "There are to-day close upon 100,000 men and boys totally unemployed. Of those who are nominally in employment, 50,000 are employed irregularly owing to the lack of trade and loss of exports. Women and men are collapsing for want of food. The Guardians endeavour to feed and protect the kiddies, as far as they can, but the effort is lamentable. The tradesmen are now unable to give food to those who receive vouchers from the Guardians, as the latter body has exhausted the money." The Welsh Nationalist Party has addressed a resolution to local authorities urging them to con- sider schemes of town planning, and suggesting the holding of conferences to discuss regional planning. At the Aberystwyth Town Council, where the matter was referred to the Public Works Committee, the discussion was carried on in Welsh. The Pembrokeshire County Council protested strongly against the action of the authorities in directing that the recent Winter Assizes for the county of Pembroke should be held at Carmarthen instead of at Haverfordwest. It was decided to make representations to ensure that the ancient custom of administering justice in each county should be preserved. In the House of Commons, during a discussion on an address to the King for the appointment of two additional judges to the King's Bench Divis- ion, Mr. Hopkin Morris made an appeal that the custom of appointing for Wales County Court judges with a knowledge of Welsh should be ex- tended to the High Court, on which there should be one conversant with the Welsh language. MUSIC. The first of a series of meetings organised by the Welsh National Council of Music to establish a federation of local eisteddfodau was held at Bangor. The object is to improve the status of the local eisteddfod in Wales, especially in the direc- tion of better organisation and better selection of test pieces. Mr. E. T. Davies said his experience had been that patient audiences had to sit at an eisteddfod four and five hours listening to a pro- gramme which really had no musical interest. Speaking as an adjudicator, he said a great deal of the music chosen was not worth analysis. On the question of improvement in organisation, he said that midnight competitions were musically demoralising. Singers and choirs were tired, and their efforts consequently were uninspired. EDUCATION. The Breconshire Education Authority unanim- ously adopted the Cambridgeshire scheme of re- ligious instruction for use in the provided schools of the county. It was also decided to call the attention of the Federation of Education Authori- ties to the desirability of having a uniform scheme for the whole of Wales. The Bureau International d'Education has sum- moned an International Conference on Bilingual- ism in Luxembourg next April. In the Bureau's memorandum special attention is called to the in- vestigations of Messrs. Saer, Smith and Hughes in Wales, and the last, who is a lecturer at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, is mainly responsible for the programme of the con- ference. At the first meeting of the Executive Committee of the Glamorgan Playing Fields Association the county was divided into districts, and steps were taken to form committees in these districts. Arrangements have now been completed for the 1928 session of the Welsh School of Social Ser- vice which will be held at Coleg Harlech on Aug- ust 13th-17th. The objective of this session will be the preparation, with a view to early publica- tion, of a volume bearing the title "The Leisure of the Adolescent in Wales." The draft form of the proposed volume will be the basis of the dis- cussion.