Cylchgronau Cymru

EARLY EXCAVATION-PAVILAND CAVE Thomas y Lan The Welsh Pioneer of Open Spaces by Tom RIDD NOTHING is MORE REMARKABLE IN municipal history than the growth of civic pride and the homogeneous expansion of municipal activity and competence which occurred in the late nineteenth century. When, in 1864, John Bright, the famous leader of the Anti-Corn League, exhorted the municipalities to expend more money on those things which are found to be essential to the health, comfort and improvement of our people he was hardly abreast of the more progressive elements in local administra- tion, if ahead of the more conservative. The development of the nobleness and liberality amongst the people of our towns and cities for which he appealed was greatly assisted at the close of the century by the growing complexity of municipal government and the breakdown of the middle-class monopoly which had been exercised over it since the inception of modern municipal govern- ment in 1835. This second factor, which assisted the nobleness and liberality of which John Bright had spoken in 1864 was, perhaps, the more important of the two.