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THE WELSH OUTLOOK The Editor does not necessarily identify himself with the opinions of contributors to The Welsh Outlook." Editorial responsibility is limited to the views expressed in the Notes of the Month," and in the unsigned article immediately following. NOTES OF THE MONTH The National Eisteddfod. This issue appears in the week of the National Eisteddfod, held this year in a place of great national traditions historical, literary, and eisteddfodic. We believe that this will be the fourth time for the National Eisteddfod to visit Carnarvon during the last thirty years and it is no wonder. We remember the Prime Minister saying in his inimitable way at the National Eisteddfod in London in 1907, that the old institution in that city reminded him somehow of the eagle in the Zoological Gardens. This year it has returned to its natural Eryri home, and its flight should be strong. If accounts be true, the Carnarvon air will be full of reform and rumours of reform. We shall probably hear a great deal about the deficiencies and imperfections of the Eisteddfod (and particularly of the National Eisteddfod Association), but when all is said and done, it is a great national institution, of which any people on earth would have a right to be proud, and an everlasting credit to those who have laboured on its be- half. Very probably it is not a tenth of the age which some people would like to claim for it; it is very likely that we have taken Matthew Arnold's Olympia compliment about it too much to heart, and that it is hardly sufficient proof of the something Greek about us, but it is, at any rate, an outstanding proof that in Wales our intellectual life is not in suspense, and, to adapt the words of the great Irish prophet, A.E., that the national spirit is in our case continuing to assert itself in art, in music, and in literature. Although the big railway companies in granting travelling facilities may favour Newmarket and Epsom rather than the quiet town of Carnarvon, yet Welshmen will find their way there in their thousands, and will give a week of the year to the things of the mind and the soul. We can start the week with pride-but we trust that, as it goes on, we shall see and hear things which will save us from vanity. There are many things amiss; we want more and better criticism; we want more self-control and mental as well as moral AUGUSTk21921. discipline; we have, perhaps, been learning too readily and easily to know as much as is necessary. We are yet before our dawn, in a period comparable to Egypt before the first of her solemn temples con- strained its people to an equal mystery, or to Greece before the first perfect statue had fixed an ideal of beauty which mothers dreamed of to mould their yet unborn children, "—but we are not without an ideal, and some passion in its pursuit, which, after all, is the beginning of great wonders. Ireland and Peace. The agony of Ireland has haunted hundreds of thousands of Welshmen and Welshwomen for months, and when it became known that Mr. Lloyd George had approached Mr. De Valera, and in a generous spirit, they felt as though a long plague had been lifted. Of course we hear of caves formed against him on account of his meeting the Sinn Fein leader, but he has done no more than Charles James Fox did in 1782, and it was the only possible course for a statesman to take. Those Welshmen who have most strongly condemned the Government coercion policy in Ireland (and we proudly count ourselves among them) revel in the knowledge that the Premier is working whole-heartedly for peace in spite of all opposition. At the time of the Irish Conference of 1916-17 we wondered whether it would be given to a Welshman indirectly to bring peace to his kinsmen in Ireland-and he very nearly succeeded. Here is another great opportunity for one of the race who gave Ireland St. Patrick to hand it another blessing. One of the most remarkable facts in the situation is Mr. De Valera's position. He has behind him not only the democracy but the aristocracy of Southern Ireland. No Irish leader since Grattan ever accom- plished anything like this, and no Welsh leader since Glyndwr, and this makes us feel less nervous about the Belfast enclave. The Prime Minister has also with him the overwhelming majority of the United Kingdom in his determination to settle. We believe that we are