Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

customers. What this 30 per cent. more would have meant to the funds of the Depot a simple calculation will show. I hope my readers will make it. The offer was refused. Such facts tended to show to the general public the true nature of co-operative effort and its bearing upon the general welfare. A similar lesson will be learnt from our experience during the present war in regard to the problems connected with the furnishing of supplies for the Army and Navy. Every war in the past has had its after-crop of war contract scandals, and every war in the future will have the same after-crop, until the extended organization of our farmers makes it possible for the authorities to reconcile the two aims which they have in view that of dealing with the farmers direct, and that of dealing in large quantities and standardised qualities. Most important of all, the general public is be- ginning to realize that it is only through co-operation that the food supplies of the nation can be largely in- creased. Unless farmers and small holders can sell what they grow, and can sell it remuneratively, they are under no inducement to grow it. The Glamor- ganshire County Council has set an example to the country at large. They have initiated a scheme with a view to encouraging the production of fruit, vegetables, bacon, eggs, honey, etc., and, as an integral part of this scheme, have arranged for instruction to be given in co-operative methods to the producers, so that their labour may be undertaken on the most economic basis, and therefore may not be undertaken in vain. We have been told that the present war is a war waged in the cause of small nationalities. Whether or not this will prove to be the case depends, like everything else, upon what we will it to be. We should realize that a great Empire, won by the sword and kept by the sword, is not a necessary appendage to a nation which wishes to give its best to humanity. When we look back over history we cannot help recognizing that many of those nations which have left the most permanent and living influence upon In the silent woodland Where the slow leaves fall and the light Is grey and weary with the shadow of the night: In the sleeping woodland Where vague dreams moan In a hopeless undertone, our modes of thought and life, were quite small nations. We admire an elephant because it is big, but that is no reason why we should admire a country on account of its size. Indeed we have given up thinking that a king should necessarily be tall, recognizing that it is only too lamentably possible to be like the schoolboy who was tall but deceitful," according to the report of a schoolmaster who was brief but idiotic. Our barbarous notions of grandeur are slowly but surely giving way to juster standards of value. Who thinks of Switzerland with contempt because it is little ? Who does not think of Switzer- land with a thrill of admiration because it is great- great in its traditions of liberty and in the simple democratic customs of its noble peasantry ? This is what humanity demands of the citizen nations-not that they should impose their own characteristics by force of arms upon the world, but that, for the sake of the world, they should develop those characteristics to the fullest possible extent. And this is what the adoption of co-operative methods will render possible. Those who live in Wales --this nation not a little akin to Switzerland, which has also already made no small contribution to the cause of mankind-those who love its mountains, its hardy sons and daughters, its poetry, its idealism, have now before them a magnificent opportunity of making a still better future worthy of an inspiring past. What they can immediately do is to help to develop its national life through the bold extension of co-oper- ative organization. The foundation, as we have shown, is there to build upon. The impetus and enthusiasm, as we have tried to show, are there also. What is needed is that the patriotic effort, called forth by the war, should be directed into the most truly patriotic directions. If this can be achieved, then, and then alone, the glorious gain," which we will wrest from our present necessities, will indeed prove to be nothing less than a higher civilization. Eglantyne Jebb. THE GRAVE IN THE WOODLAND Where the Dawn is cold and white With the sorrow it has known In the haunted gloomfilled woodland Lies a small grave all alone,— In the shadowy, dim woodland Lies my Cbildbood-all alone. D. N. Bonarjee.