Welsh Journals

profits. It was never a completely happy alliance and, with the very definite advance of Nonconform- ity in Wales during the early years of the nine- teenth century, signs of actual separation could be observed and the politics of Wales became more and more, within certain limits, the politics of the Welsh people, and ultimately the expression on the political side of the Welsh Nonconformist con- science, with the Disestablishment and Disendow- ment of the Church of England in Wales as its primary purpose. But, all the time, it was developing slowly in the direction of a somewhat nebular nationalism. Nebular is the right word, as an instance from the life of Dr. John Thomas, Liverpool, one of the great leaders of the "Nonconformist Conscience" Liberalism will show. In 1877 he had laid down fervently that in future those who represented Wales in Parliament must be Liberals (the party that had eight years previously passed the Irish Church Act), Nonconformists, and Welsh-speak- ing Welshmen. Eleven years later, when in 1898 it was proposed to form an independent Welsh Party with a very definitely nationalist pro- gramme, but with disestablishment as its first objective, he soundly denounced the project and without qualification condemned the demand for Welsh self-government and any attempt to form a new Welsh Party on the fashion of the existing Irish Party. But by that time the nationalist nebula was de- finitely condensing, and in spite of his denuncia- tions and those of many others (even Thomas Gee was at first hesitant) in 1898 a Welsh Party was formed, united with the 'Cymru Fydd' movement, with an additional programme provid- ing for special legislation on all Welsh affairs, for direct provision to be made in all Welsh legislation for the preservation of the Welsh language, for Welsh Land reform, for the improvement of the condition of agricultural workers, and ultimately, but within a reasonably short period of time, for a substantial measure of Welsh autonomy. Nevertheless, the real centre of the liquefaction or solidification of the nebula was the issue of the State Church. As Victor Hugo puts it, it was the fathers' battle which had in honour to be pur- sued and won first­and in that purpose there could be no misgivings on the part of the sons. The sons and grandsons observed the trust, perhaps towards the end with no great zest. In 1906, a solid phalanx of Welsh Liberationists ap- peared at Westminster with no dissentient repres- enting a Welsh constituency, and in the Parli- ment elected in 1910, which finally disposed of the issue in 1914, there were only three out of thirty-four who were opposed to it. Since 1885, the number of anti-Disestablishment members elected for Wales had never exceeded nine out of thirty four. It is far too late in the day, and in any case it is not for me, to comment on the merits or demerits of the struggle, particularly in its later stages, but one or two perfectly dispassionate observations can be made. Firstly, that after the weary length of the dispute, it had in its final stages brought into the political arena, in a small country of only two million people, a most re- markable group of Welshmen on the one side, Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Samuel Evans, Sir Ellis Griffith, Sir Herbert Lewis, Sir David Brynmor Jones, Mr. William Jones, Mr. D. A. Thomas (afterwards Lord Rhondda), and Mr. Llewelyn Williams-five of whom deservedly held high office in the Government of the day; on the other side, the present Archbishop of Wales and the late Bishop Owen of St. Davids. In 1865, the 'Go- hebydd' had written that Wales had "had enough and more than enough of Nobodies representing it in Parliament. We in Wales have produced sportsmen rather than statesmen, gentlemen more interested in fox hunting than in political affairs." That fussy old dyspeptic would have agreed that in 1914 the personnel of iWieilsh politics stood higher in intellectual quality than it had ever done before, and assuredly higher than ever since. Politics in Wales had for two generations been real, though very narrow, but they had attracted the very best of the national intellect, and as the '98 programme shewed, there was really construc- tive political thinking going on in the country. Secondly, the prolongation of the old controv- ersy and the lukewarmness in its prosecution of the party which had espoused it, had made it an obsession with some of the leaders, to the exclus- ion of every other national political issue, while the younger and more virile politicians found re- lief in their ambition and in their successes in the general arena of English politics. Apart from the one issue, we had between 1906 and 1914 drifted back virtually to the old Tudor position. The conferment of honours, dignities, high offices, magistracies and jobs generally had in eight years sapped our political virility. The great Liberal victory of 1906 with its consequences did more to undermine the political morale of Wales than any other single event since the accession of Henry Tudor. Mr. Birrell's Education Bill of 1906 had included a provision for a National Council for Wales-a fundamental part of the '98 pro- gramme-but when it had to be dropped owing to some fatuous features, it was hardly heard of again for many years as an imminent practical political issue. In May 1914, Mr. E. T. John introduced into the House of Commons his Government of Wales Bill, incorporating the whole essence of the '98 programme, but, before