Welsh Journals

HOME RULE ALL ROUND SELF-GOVERNMENT, said Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman on a famous occasion, is better than good government. This is a sound democratic doctrine which the Labour Party is prepared to carry into practical effect in national as well as in international affairs, and in the field of politics as well as in that of industry and social life. In the international policy to which the working class parties of the allied countries stand pledged the doctrine figures as the right of national self-determination. To apply this principle in the coming peace settlement and to ignore it in the period of political and social recon- struction upon which we shall enter when peace is signed, is a manifest impossibility from the political point of view it is perhaps the most important phase of the problem of reconstruction. It is, therefore, a perfectly natural development of Labour policy that a comprehensive scheme of separate legislative assemblies for Scotland, Wales, and even England-as well as for Ireland-is put forward as an integral part of its general programme of reconstruction. At the Labour Party conference which meets in London on June 26th and two following days the delegates will be invited to adopt a scheme of Home Rule All Round in harmony with the principle of national self-determination. The scheme involves a very much larger issue than that of self-government for Ireland alone. It has a wider significance than a scheme of devolution for Wales, for Scotland, and for England. The Labour Party asserts the right of these communities to self-government, as part of that larger scheme of constitutional change which reason and experience have shown to be both practicable and necessary. The Labour Party is, of course, pledged to the widest and most generous measure of Home Rule for Ireland that can be devised. It asks for a scheme of self- government for Ireland on the lines indicated by the pro- ceedings of the Irish Convention which has recently reported and it unhesitatingly declares that no Order in Council applying conscription to Ireland ought to be put forward until it has received the sanction of an Irish Parlia- ment. That is our policy in relation to Ireland. But we regard the claims of Scotland, England, and Wales to self- government on these lines as strictly analogous to those of Ireland. There are three reasons why the Labour Party advocates important constitutional changes of this character. The first reason is that the House of Commons under existing conditions is incapable of dealing with the urgent public business it is required to handle. The chronic congestion of the parliamentary machine is a notorious fact which calls for a radical remedy. We have been trying to administer the affairs of a vast and ever-growing community of peoples with methods and machinery which have long been obsolete. Labour proposes to set the Westminster Parliament free for its proper business of controlling the affairs of the whole Britannic Federation, or commonwealth of British self- governing communities. We advocate the devolution to separate statutory legislatures in Wales and Scotland both of legislation and administration in matters that are ex- clusively their own concern. We suggest that these legislatures will establish autonomous administration in matters of local concern while the Parliament at West- minster will be retained in the form of a Federal Assembly for the whole of the United Kingdom exercising control over the Ministers responsible for the departments of the Federal Government, who would form, along with Ministers representing the Dominions overseas and India, the Commonwealth Cabinet responsible for the administra- tion of the Britannic Federation as a whole. The second reason for advocating these changes is that local legislatures on the federal plan will help very materially to deepen and strengthen the national spirit in each of these self-governing communities. In Wales the nationalist sentiment is already a powerful influence, the effects of which are visible in the Welsh system of education and the quickening of interest in the literature and language of Wales. But nationalism means a great deal more than the intensive cultivation of race pride and the preservation of ancient customs the Eisteddfod is not the last but the first sign of the revival of the national spirit in Wales. Nationalism means the vigorous development of the material and moral resources of the whole people it means a keener interest in the social, political, and indus- trial problems which await solution. In my judgment, the Welsh nationalist movement has not yet fully faced its political and economic responsibilities. It is more con- cerned with the sentiment of nationality than with the practical concerns of Wales. A local parliament such as the Labour Party hopes to see established in Wales will encourage Welshmen and Welshwomen to take an interest in their own affairs and to seek speedy and safe solutions of the economic and social problems that Wales, like every other community, must handle. Wales in this respect is a microcosm it is hardly possible to conceive an area in which a scheme of parliamentary self-government on the federal basis could be established with better chances of success. All the problems that embarrass statesmen and challenge the imagination of reformers are to be seen in Wales reduced to manageable proportions Wales has its industrial problem, its agrarian problem, its housing problem, its problem of education and literary culture, its social problem, its religious problem it is an economic unit, and within its geographical boundaries it presents a small-scale picture of modern civilisation. There is literally no question of reform of which the Welsh people cannot find an example in their own community. The development of capitalism and of modern trade unionism in Wales proceeds side by side, and it is impossible to name a community where the conditions are more ripe than they are in Wales for a bold experiment in the direction of com- plete political and industrial democracy. Given self- government Wales might establish itself as a modern Utopia, and develop its own institutions, its own arts, its own national culture, its own ideal of democracy in politics, industry, and social life, as an example and an inspiration to the rest of the world. There is a third reason why the Labour Party advocates this policy of constitutional devolution. We are part of a great and powerful empire which comprises many races, many languages, many religions, many communities in