Cylchgronau Cymru

A Constructive Policy for Wales By T. P. Ellis M.A., F.R.Hist.S. §1. W\LES is a disillusioned country. She has often been disillusioned in the past, and the experience is no new thing for her. She seems to us more disillusioned to-day than she has ever been in the past; but that is simply because our vision is apt to be limited to the present. She is disillusioned in politics, in religion, in everything that comes under the name of education," which, in these days, has become synonymous in Wales with culture, a peculiar perversion, which identifies the end with the means, and makes of means the end. For many years Wales has banked on the Liberal Party in politics, confusing Liberalism with the party that usurps the name, just as the Conservative Party usurps the name of Conser- vatism. In religion she has banked on an ex- treme form of Protestantism, making a fetish of protest," and in culture on something which is called Welsh education," which, whatever else it is, is not Welsh. Everyone of these seems to have failed her; and there is a searching of hearts in the land, and with it some bitterness of spirit, and, occa- sionally, intemperance in speech. There is a cleavage, a distinct cleavage, be- tween the younger generation and the older. The one is somewhat impatient and irritable,-youth generally is,-the other lacking in understanding of new forces. The former professes to despise the leaders of the generation that has passed or is passing, men like Tom Ellis and Owen M. Edwards; the latter seems to think that the day of giants has gone, and that the future can not produce men equivalent to those whom it has fol- lowed. Both are wrong. The young men and women of Wales, in whose hands the immediate destinies of the land lie, are looking round for new foundations on which to build. Some are looking towards Rome, some towards Russia, some towards England and America, some, strange to say, to the Orient; some few (and they are right in part) to their own country's past. They are intensely critical; they are at the same time inconclusive and in- decisive; and many of their elders, quite mis- takenly, sneer at them accordingly. They are groping for light; and the peculiarity -a peculiarity which springs from the course of Welsh history-is that when they do look into the past of Wales, the young people of Wales search for new foundations in the very distant past of Wales; while those who are older cling pathetic- ally to the immediate past, and shake their heads sadly. Both young and old appear to be mistaken. They both forget that the past is infinitely long, the future perhaps infinitely longer, and the present a thing of a second. A study of the past is essential: but it must be of the whole past. It is impossible to divorce the distant past from the immediate past, or either from the future. It is only if we regard the past as a continuous whole, and the future as a continuity of the past, that we can hope to find that on which this land of ours can be sustained in years to come. That past must be studied objectively and with fair- ness, and when that is done, it may be possible to ascertain the lines on which it is likely that Wales will develop in the future. Wales has, too often, been impatient of its past. A hundred years or so ago, men and women were told that the past was pagan and idolatrous, and that new foundations must De made for a new nation to stand upon. The youth of to-day adopts a somewhat comparable attitude, condemning the immediate past, and rejecting such lessons as it may have to give. There are no such things in the history of a nation as new foundations; what there are have been laid once and for all. If they are defective or unable, by process of time, to uphold the weight put on them, they can be repaired; but to lay anew, you must demolish that which is already on them, and cease to be what you are. The mere fact that Wales is, for the time being, disillusioned gives no reason for despair. As already remarked, she has been frequently dis- illusioned in the past; she will be disillusioned in the future. Disillusion and criticism are the necessary preliminaries for advance, provided always they are temperate. But we must not stop at disillusion and critic- ism it is as equally important to try and create, on the lessons of the past, some constructive pro- posals for the future. The question "Quo Vadis?" will be repeated in all times, and, if we can, we must try to find an answer to it periodic- ally. The object of these articles is to furnish, in outline, some constructive proposals for the con- sideration of those who are to lead the land in the near future. Has the writer any special qualifications for the task? None whatever, save one. He has lived most of his life away from Wales, but he has been a student of the past of Wales for more years than he cares to count, and he has tried to study it philosophically. The late Dean Howell once remarked that the more he learnt of the past of Wales, the more he learnt to love the land that was his. That is exactly what the present writer feels. The past of Wales has many dark patches in it but through all the dark patches a light shines; and it is just that light, dim enough in all conscience to-day, which Wales must re- capture and use as a beacon for the future. The writer feels strongly, and may w rite strongly at times; but he would ask those who