Welsh Journals

THE WELSH OUTLOOK Where there is no vision the people per/sA." NOTES OF THE MONTH. 143 A NOTE ON ALLUSIONS TO PAGE THE SOUTH WALES PACE WALES IN ENGLISH ANTHRACITE COAL A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY HISTORY BOOKS 153 INDUSTRY 163 FOR WALES 146 THE WELSH MINT 156 ^ST™^ 167 SLAVERY AND THE REVIEWS o.. o.o. 167 LEAGUE 150 DICK OF ABERDARON 160 POETRY 149, 155 JUNE, 1927. Annual Sub.cription, 7/6. Half Year, 3/9 (post free). NOTES OF THE MONTH WE WONDER whether the experts in w education who are devoting their attention to the problem of safe- guarding the Welsh language are giving to the international aspect of the question the consideration which so vitally important a matter deserves. It is greatly hoped that they are alive to the necessity of so doing, otherwise their conclusions, however admirable in themselves, will soon turn out to be inadequate, and behind the times. Unfortunately we see no indica- tions that the international aspect of the language difficulty in Wales is being con- sidered at all. It is a difficult matter indeed, and we lay no claim to the posses- sion of a suitable solution. The enormous difficulty of the whole problem is the very reason which we have for wishing that our ablest educationists would, without further delay, devote their attention to it. Here we can, at least, state the problem briefly and clearly, so that any person who is now apt to imagine that the preservation of Welsh is a question for Wales and England alone may see the folly of such a thing. It is now generally recognised that language is one of the toughest barriers between the Englishman and the inhabitant of one of the European countries. For some reason or other the Englishman is a wretchedly bad linguist; indeed he very rarely knows any language save his own sufficiently well to make real conversation CONTENTS: PAGE PAGE PACE in it possible. This has led to aloofness and insularity. When he goes abroad he is cut off from all intercourse with the people of the lands he may be visiting, and con- sequently persists in emphasising their foreignness." In France, Austria, Ger- many, the Netherlands, and the Scandin- avian countries it is not so. Every French- man or German who can lay claim to the least education knows one language in addition to his native tongue. Now not much progress can be made in international government until the civilised nations of the world come to possess one common medium of expression. We devoutly hope that Esperanto will soon be finally dismissed to the limbo of forgotten things; for an artificial creation can never be a true language, nor can it have a litera- ture. If a man is to be put to the trouble of learning a foreign tongue for the purpose of talking to other people, let him at any rate have the added compensation of com- ing thereby into a wealthy literary heritage. For civilised nations in general the problem will probably be solved by the adoption of English, French, or German as the inter- national language. The advantages of such a choice are obvious: each of these languages is already very widely diffused, each is highly developed, and each possesses a magnificent literature. Now it is not necessary, nor is it desirable, that any nation should abandon the use of