Welsh Journals

IN the last number of the Welsh Outlook the response was given from the children of the Transvaal in 1928 to the children of Wales. Uii the morning of May 18 of this year the first cablegram to reach us was from Johannesburg. "Johannesburg," it read, "sends greetings to Welsh boys and girls." During the day and on every day since, greetings, messages and letters arrive with every post and from all over the world. It is now becoming more and more the custom for countries to follow the precedent set by the children of Wales in 1922. Here are three of the wireless broadcasts on May 18, 1929. (1) Through the station at Tokyo, Japan:- Another year has passed and the 18th of May brings again to our minds world wide fellowship. We, Japanese children, express to-day our good- will to all little friends in different parts of the globe. We are learning every day in our schools and in our homes that the world is getting smaller and our love for others growing stronger. We stand loyally by the League of Nations. We know that it is working to make our lives hap- pier and safer. We know that it is trying to help us to think and act for international peace. We shall be glad to join the children of other lands in giving a jolly birthday party to the League in rojo when it becomes ten years old. The text of our children's message was read from the Tokyo station by a Welsh child living in Japan. In a charming letter Mr. S. Okuyama asks for photographs of Welsh children and Welsh places. Will readers of the Welsh Out- look send photographs and picture post cards to Mr. Okuyama at the offices of the League of Nations Association of Japan, 12, Nichome, Mar- unouchi, Tokyo? (2) Through the station at Warsaw at 5-55 p.m. on May 18 :— The children of the Polish Republic from the shores of the Baltic to the Karpathian mountains, from the valleys along the Vistula, the Warta, the Bug and the Niemen rivers, from the Polish villages and towns, from the centres of Polish economic life Upper Silesia, Lodz and the capital city of Warsaw send their heartful greetings to the children of fair Wales. They join with them in their profound love for universal peace and their hope that it will be firmly established by the efforts of the League of Nations. (3) Through the Ljubliana station. Yugo- Slavia, on May 18 We, the boys and girls of Slovenia, thank the vouth of Wales for their message of goodwill. WALES AND THE WORLD by Rev. Gwilym Davies, M.A. We hereby assure you of our whole-hearted assistance in the fulfilling of your great task-a task worthy to be compared with the deeds of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. We agree with you that every boy and girl is a knight or lady vowed to fight and destroy the Dragon of Hatred and Discontent. Therefore let us solemnly bind ourselves to work together for the establishment of the Kingdom of Peace and Goodwill among men. The co-operation of broadcast authorities in all the five continents has, this year, been splendid. It is true that one broadcast authority struck a discordant note, oddly enough the one authority which has taken to itself the motto-"Nation shall speak peace unto nation. There is also some humour about the fact that while the 1929 message of the Welsh children could be heard, for example, all over Belgium from Brussels, all over Holland from Hilversum and all over Lithu- ania from Kovno, the B.B.C. decided to restrict the message "locally" to Cardiff and thus de- barred North Wales, Mid Wales and West Wales from hearing it The technical reason is that Wales has no high power station of its own; it must be Cardiff through Daventry for a broad- cast to be easily heard in Wales and Monmouth- shire. At Savoy Hill the programme makers resolved this year against a "national" transmis- sion of the Welsh Children's Message from Car- diff through Daventry on the ground, inter alia, that if Wales wants to continue its now seven- year-old practice of sending an annual goodwill message "to all the world" it ought not to be permitted any longer to do so until England and Scotland are ready to join in. To the pro- gramme makers of the "British" Broadcasting Corporation may be commended some wise words by M. Briand, the French Foreign Secretary. "Those," said M. Eriand, speaking on the deli- cate problem of Minorities at the last meeting of the Council of the League of Nations, "those who only think of reducing a country to one com- mon pattern by suppressing individual character- istics of each of the elements of its population are doomed to many reverses." And what can the B.B.C. hope to gain by its refusal if, as the years go by, it succeeds in creating a prejudice against itself in the minds of thousands upon thousands of growing boys and girls? Members of the Welsh School of Social Service who were at Coleg Harlech last year will be glad to know that Dr. Paul Dengler of Vienna has