Cylchgronau Cymru

"The Pioner' is a newspaper and in this capacity it will form a record of passing local events. Special attention will be paid to the Trade Union movement, the Socialist movement, and every other effort for the uplifting of mankind.Our policy will be frankly the advancement of the cause of Labour." There were some more dramatic claims on the front page where the new editor, George Thomas, promised that the Pioneer was "commencing a career destined to be of in- calculable usefulness in the Cause of Humanity." He announced that "the days of wage slavery are drawing to a close and the dawn of industrial freedom approaches" but even this rhetoric was topped by one colourful correspondent who urged fellow-readers to "unfurl our banners, and march triumphantly out of industrial Egypt, past the mount of Pisgah into Social Canaan" The evidence of the close connection between the Pioneer and the miners of Merthyr was abundant in every issue of the paper. From the outset, the paper supported the rank-and -file of the South Wales Miners' Federation, especially the emergent leaders of the militant left, men like Hartshorn, Stanton and Barker.11 The established leaders, Mabon, Brace, Onions and others, were violently attacked in the Pioneer for their moder- ation and their conciliatory policies. In the months between the appearance of the Pioneer and the ending of the Cambrian strike in July 1911, the miners were urged to fight on, to resist the temptation to surrender through exhaustion, and to struggle for even greater demands. Undeterred by the failure of that particular dispute, the Pioneer continued to advocate industrial militancy. When the Minimum Wages Bill was introduced in the Commons in 1912, for example, the Pioneer urged miners to reject it lock, stock and barrel. The defeat of the Bill would produce "a revolution in the condition of labour in this country such as few dream to be immediately possible Whatever happens, the power is with the workers."12 When the Executive of the SWMF decided to hold a ballot on the issue, the Pioneer's anger was unconcealed. It accused the leadership of a "dereliction of duty" and members of the Executive, such as Hartshorn, were accused of "bungling". 13 Yet the Merthyr Pioneer was by no means a miners' paper even if the interests of miners tended to influence a great deal of the content of the paper; when the Titanic sank, for example, the Pioneer pointed out that vastly more miners died every week as a result of avoidable accident. The Pioneer was very much a local newspaper and in this respect it was something of a rarity among Labour newspapers which tended to deal exclusively with political and moral questions.. The first issue of the Pioneer showed that it served a wider audience. The eight pages, selling for Id, consisted of a mixture of local news and political comment and even the political comment was confined largely to local matters. The issue which generated the greatest heat, for instance, was a proposal before Merthyr Borough Council to build £ 90 concrete houses for the 'poorer working classes', a scheme which prompted the paper's correspondent to remind readers that even the rain shelters in Thomastown Park had cost just as much. Other pages contained items of district news from Dowlais, Abercanaid, Troedyrhiw and Tonypandy. There was a full account of the deliberations of several Borough sub-committees. The Welsh section was edited by Rev. T. E. Nicholas (Nicholas y Glais) who, in this period, was