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VOLUME XVI WELSH OUTLOOK Where there is no vision the people perish NOTES OF THE MONTH GEORGES CLEMENCEAU will be en- shrined for ever in the memory of the French people as the man who saved them in a desperate hour. He transformed their con- fusion into order, their doubt into certainty, their fear into courage. He rescued them not only from the Germans but from themselves. Herein lay the real greatness of his service. The war might, perhaps, have been won by British and Americans, despite a French collapse, but France would never have been France again. By com- pelling the fainting people to play their part to the end, he preserved their self-respect and saved the country's honour. His whole career and character fitted him for the supreme effort which won him fame. Through- out his long life the nature of the man had hurled him into conflict after conflict. He was destruc- tion personified, enerev incarnate. Nothing was sacred from him. Implacable as fate, hard as the nether mill-stone, vehement, fierv. relentless, he crashed his wav through life. Defeat he never acknowledged. It was a ½thing beyond the pale, unthinkable. Might was his right; force his ultimate arbiter. As a member of the National Assemblv at Bordeaux in 1871. he voted for fighting on. When trouble arose in the Cour- rière mines, he put it down with the bayonet. His answer to the agrarian riots in the wine- growing districts was violence and bloodshed. To personal attacks his reply was a duel, and he fought many in his long career. Religion rocked under his materialist attack, Government after NUMBER XII THE DECEMBER 1929 government fell before him. He made a holo- caust of politicians-Ferry, Freyincet, Boulanger, Grery, Millerand, Briand, Viviani-these were only a few of his victims. His very wit was mordant. Destruction was his joy. He was born and bred for the task to which France called him in 1917-a fighting man to the finger tips. POOR South Wales. First, poverty and dis- tress then, more poverty and distress. And now, devastation by floods. And the worst part of the winter is at hand. Brave South Walians For, in spite of the appalling misery and hardship, the fortitude and courage of the unfortunate victims are beyond all praise. Need- less to say, there is urgent need of money to assist the workers on the spot to cope with the situation. A Rhondda Central Fund has been formed. The sums contributed up to the time of writing amounted to only 23,000. There is need for much more. Funds have also been opened in other parts of South Wales, including one by the Mayor of Swansea, which amounts to about 21,500. The Lord Mayor's Fund is attempting to deal with certain aspects of relief; the Ministry of Health has granted money for the payment of cer- tain engineering works designed to prevent the likelihood of a recurrence of flooding; the Society of Friends is interested in finding homes, and means of transport, for children and families to be housed outside the area; the Welsh Board of Health and the Board of Education are endeavour-