The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard

CHURCHES AND NEWS- PAPERS. THE Rev RUSSELL WAKEFIELD, rector of St. Mary's, Bryanston-square, has been lecturing on the Church and the Press." He said that the Church had been foolish in not using the Press more-and urged that, the Press might be a great factor in helping the Church to promote harmony and goodwill, both domestic and inter- national, to develop a high social standard in society, to form an upright conception of business affairs, and above all to further social reforms. We have a somewhat long experience of newspapers and have fought many out-and-out battles on behalf of sanitation, education, municipal reform, and industrial development. During the whole of the past thirty years we have never been assisted by the churches in any battle. Individual members of the churches have been on our side or against us as the case might be, but the churches have always stood aloof on the ground, as far as we have been able to understand their position, that municipal, social, educational, political, and industrial move- ments are no concern of theirs. Most of the churches have some sort of halting newspaper or periodical of their own. We believe with Mr WAKEFIELD that if our churches were in the forefront of any battle, newspapers would help them, but they not only are not in the forefront, but they leave the newspapers to fight every battle alone and unrecognized. We do not blame the churches for their attitude towards newspapers, but it is well in the face of utterances like that of Mr WAKE- FIELD'S to do what is possible towards making the attitude of newspapers clear. The relation of newspapers towards the whole people differs widely from the attitude of the churches towards the whole people. A newspaper may call itself Liberal or Conservative, but if it is a well-conducted newspaper it is read by both parties and wields influence irrespective of its political bias, and if it is not well conducted it is not read, whatever it may call itself. The whdle people and the Press are in close mutual sympathy. This is not true of the churches and the people, and probably the reasons why the churches are out of sympathy with the newspapers are identical with the reasons why they are out of sympathy with the people. Just now we are anxious to improve local markets. We are not specially interested in markets in ways that ministers and deacons and vicars and churchwardens are not interested, and there is no more reason why a newspaper more than a church should seek the increased pros- perity of the people. We may succeed or we may fail in improving the local markets, but the people will more or less distinctly realize that we made the effort at some cost of labaur and money and thought. The result will be that on some other occasion when the people need help they will come to us as they do come, and the help will be given and will be given freely and without too close scrutiny as to whether the help given will be remunerative or not. This is the general attitude of the Press, but it is not the general attitude of the Church, and hence the difference in the relations between the Press and the people and the Church and the people. Anybody who wishes to speak through the columns of this paper is at liberty to utter himself. The newspaper belongs to the people. Anybody cannot speak in the churches, and the churches are not felt by the people to belong to them. There is no human being who is not reached by the newspaper, but there are millious who cannot be reached by the churches —millions whom the churches do not pretend to reach. Mr WAKEFIELD says the Press has a great and growing power. This is true, and it is true because in wider, deeper senses than the churches realize, the people themselves speak through newspapers. The writer and the reader are at the same standpoint and are in sympathy. This is not true of the churches. As a rule, the preacher is not at one with his people. He is apart from them. Either they are his master or he is theirs. He has thoughts which he dare not speak and opinions which it is not expedient for him to discuss. This is not the first time we have dealt with this subject, but the churches do not discuss it. They would not think it dignified. They are afraid of discus- sion. They have fenced themselves in until the rank and file of the people have lost sight of them as helpers, defenders, councillors, and champions. Mr WAKE. FIELD'S ideal paper is one which will assist the highest and suggest the best." There are many newspapers that reach his ideal. The sad thing is that they must assist the highest without help and sug- gest the beat without adoption. If the churches and the newspapers do not work together, it is the churches and not the newspapers who stand aloof. We will work with anybody for the good of the people. The churches insist on impos- sible shibboleths and will work with nobody who cannot pronounce them.

SHODD r PATRIOTISM. THE answer given to Mr D. A. THOMAS'S question in the House of Commons in reference to the costs of a Joint Committee formed under Clause 81 01 the Local Government Act, 1888, shows that the difficulties in the way of practical Home Rule in Wales are puiely imaginary. Sub-section six of clause 81 dealing with costs says—"The "costs of a Joint Committee shall he "defrayed by the Council by whom any of its members were appointed, or if "appointed by more than one Council in the proportion agreed to by them "and the accounts of such Joint Com- "mittee and their officers shall, for the purposes of the provisions of this Act, be deemed to be accounts of the County Council and their officers." Nothing could be plainer, nothing could be simpler, nothing could be more in- clusive. For the considerable period of fourteen years Wales has had this Act of Parliament under which any subject in which the county councils are jointly interested could have been discussed and dealt with. At the end of fourteen years, during which nothing whatever has been done to put the powers of the Act in operation, Mr FRANK EDWARDS, with exasperating impertinence, comes forward under the shield of a shoddy patriotism to introduce a Welsh Home Rule Bill, which he knows has no more chance of being passed than if it were a measure for the abolition of the multiplication table. If Wales is not jointly interested in any subjects, or the different counties are too jealous to work together, or the Welsh members of Parliament know nothing about the Act of 1888, let them say so, but do not let them insult the common sense of the constituencies by this sort of empty farce. If there had been even a few honest threads running through the shoddy patriotism which Mr FRANK EDWARDS so conspicuously and ludicrously champions, Wales would have taught even the dullest of Conservative Govern- ments, by means of a Welsh Joint Committee during the past fourteen years, that the need for Home Rule is real, and that the work to be done is for the lasting advantage of the people and for the strengthening of national law, order, and progress in every nation of the United Kingdom. We have no doubt whatever that if all the County Councils of Wales had formed a Joint Committee under the Act, that limitations would have been reached and difficulties would have been discovered, but we appea! to our readers all over the several counties where this paper mainly circulates, whether the mere assembly of a Great Joint Com- mittee of all the County Councils ef Wales would not in itself have done a great deal towards promoting Welsh interests. National questions could have been discussed. Ways and means could have been devised. Pressure could have been brought to bear upon the Imperial Parliament. National needs could have been revealed and explained. Unity of action could have been secured in education, sanitation, arterial drainage and water supplies, the administration of justice, the dealing with waste lands, main roads, Welsh afforestation, railways, the postal service, and scores of other import- ant subjects. The Political Pretenders and the Shoddy Patriots have done nothing for fourteen years but make themselves the laughing stock of the people by feeble stupidity of the sort that is now glaringly illustrated by Mr FRANK EDWARDS and his mockery of a Welsh Home Rule Bill. Wales has had more than enough of Shoddy Patriotism, and is no longer deceived by bogus Bills which mediocre Welsh members carry about the Principality as proofs of their imaginary statesmanship. It is bad enough for the Welsh members to have done nothing whatever since the passing of the Local Government Act to bring the powers of the 81st Clause of that Act into operation, but to ignore those powers and then to bring in a ridiculous measure which has no prospect of becoming law is a positive insult to the people, and must be resented in ways that can be felt through the thick cuticle of the Shoddy Patriot. We do not altogether blame the Welsh members for the Act of 1888 remaining a dead letter, but they are not free from responsibility. Thej have not the excuse of ignorance, for their attention was called to the powers conferred by the measure at the time the Act was passed. What we want our readers to understand is that Mr FRANK EDWARDS'S Welsh Home Rule Bill is a fair sample of the sort of thing that is played upon the too-confiding and too easily-pleased Welsh voter, who is laughed at and made fun of by Political Pretenders who are much nearer being found ut than they imagine. We wish to impress upon all Shoddy Patriots the fact that the Wales of to-day is not like the Wales of forty or fifty years ago, when a London Welshman could come down to the Principality and tell his countrymen any sort of balderdash if he only finished off in Welsh with Cymru am byth. Wales has altered very much since those days, and thousands of men who are themselves not strong enough to take the initiative in work like that of forming a grand Joint Committee of all the County Councils of Wales are quite intelligent enough to judge those who have the strength and the position to do the work, but who talk piffle instead, or bring in bogus Welsh Home Rule Bills. Our readers may reasonably ask us how it happens that nobody has sought in a county like Cardiganshire, for instance, to being these powers into operation. Many of our readers will still remember a series of lectures given on the Act in 1888, when this power to form a Joint Com- mittee of all the County Councils in Wales was fully dealt with. During the fourteen years that have passed from then until now the most stupendous effort that the Cardiganshire County Council has made, when every member was whipped up that could be whipped up-and it was a great and successful effort-was not to put the 81st clause of the Local Government Act into operation, but to take the county advertisements from this paper There we have the exact measure of the Cardiganshire County Council. A personal end to serve, a spJaU appointment to make, and the whole county is agitated, but to form what would have been practically a Welsh Parliament not a finger is lifted for fourteen years. Wales does not care a brass farthing for Home Rule or it would have made the most of the powers within its reach. The Welsh members laugh in their sleeves at the political hocus pocus they so successfully play with Bills like that Mr FRAHK EDWARDS has in hand. The simple elementary fact is the people are led by the nose by Shoddy Patriots and Political Pretenders, who forget, how- ever, that times are changed and that the old methods will not work. Our advice to Mr FRANK EDWARDS is to take his wretched Bill and bury it decently out of sight. He does not believe in it. Wales does not believe in it, and as it will have to be buried in the end, the funeral of the wretched abortion might as well be got over now as later on. What is wanted is a county councillor anywhere in Wales who will undertake the task of convincing the county councils that the 81st clause of the Local Government Act is capable of giving a very substantial measure of Home Ruie to the Principality. His task would be an arduous one, but when he had succeeded he would have done a greater work for this country than it is possible at present to realize. We do not under-estimate the greatness and difficulty of the task. The services of this paper are at the disposal of anybody who will undertake it and, whatever else may be said, we cannot be charged with having only recently taken this view of the Act. Perhaps the greatest work of uniry that has ever been open to Wales is possible under the clauses we have so long and persistently tried to force upon the attention of our readers.

IMPENDING PROTECTION. THERE are signs that the war in South Africa is about to come home to the labouring population of this country in the form of protection, which means dear food, unhealthy industries, and intensified misery. There is talk that an increased tax will be put on sugar and tea, and that a new tax will be imposed on imported wheat and flour. In the end we know that the poor must pay for the war, but they do not believe it yet. When the millions of the large towns find that every article of food costs more, and that wages are lower and more uncertain, new interest will be developed in politics. Up to the present time the masses of the people have taken only a fighting interest in the war, but when every meal has to be pinched to pay for it, the conflict will quickly assume other and less pleasing a&pects. Owing to free trade this country is practically the market of the world. Protection will do something towards spoiling this market, by which our indus- tries greatly benefit. Very little can be done now to prevent the taxation of foodstuffs or of foreign goods generally. To the well-to-do it makes little difference whether ten or twenty per cent. is added to the price of food and other commodi- ties, but to the working-man, whose main expenditure is on food, it is of the utmost importance that he should not pay a pound for what now only costs him six- teen shillings. He will be told that wages will be higher, but that is a delusion. The manufactured article of one industry is the raw material of another, and the final result of taxation is that the poor are worse off. The bulk wf the people do not believe this, and the Government will have no difficulty in passing protective measures. Fortu nately, farmers will not now benefit as quickly by protection as they benefited fifty or sixty years ago, for in these days the farmer buys most of the things he consumes and uses, and his expenditure is more likely to be increased than his receipts by protection. The Government has landed the country in greater difficulties than have been experienced since the Peninsular War which ended in the battle of Waterloo. Already the Crimean War sinks into insignificance, both as to cost in men and money when compared with the war in South Africa, which is not over yet and shows no signs of being over. It is possible that the Government will add to the national debt instead of to taxation. But the desire to gat in the thin end of the wedge of protection is so great that nobody need bo surprised if a tax of a shilling a quarter is put on breadstuff's on the plea that the working man either will not feel the impost, or is so patriotic that he will gladly go short of > read to maintain the strife in South Afria. The war was necessary in order that a generation who knew nothing of war might learn its awful lessons. It may be that protection is also necessary in order that a genera- tion who never ate dear bread may learn by that experience the drawbacks of protection. The day is not far distant when the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER will have to make his annual statement in the House of Commons. We know already that the war outgoings are heavy and that there is no prospect at present of their becoming lighter. A tax on bread will arouse the country as twenty thousand deaths have not aroused it. Every shilling added to the cost of food will squeeze out thousands at the bottom of the human ladder.

THE LIFEBOAT SATURDAY. ON Tuesday last a meeting, presided over by the MAYOR, was held in the dismal, cheerless hole called the Town Hall, to consider what steps should be taken on behalf of the Lifeboat Saturday move- ment in the borougfr. Mr E. H. JOHNSON, organising secretary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, was present and addressed the meeting. Committees were formed and a collection will be made daring the August Bank Holiday week. It is not often that the inhabitants of the town have the opportunity of meeting any of the authorities of the Lifeboat Association, and it will be for the ad- vantage of the Institution if the ORGANISING SECRETARY will convey as forcibly as possible to those in supreme authority the widespread and deep-rooted dis- satisfaction felt at Aberystwyth with its high-handed and otherwise unsatisfactory procedure. We have previously dealt with the notorious breaches of the rules of the Institution, but obtained no response. The objects aimed at by the Institution are so humane, and are so deeply in accord with the best instincts of the people, that to attack even the most flagrant mismanagement and waste is re- sented as if it were an attack on those objects. It is quite possible for the Life- boat Institution to have the worthiest of ends in view and yet to be wasteful, inept, unbusiness-like, to flagrantly break its own rules, and to have no regard for the people upon whom it depends for support. At Tuesday's meeting Mr SAMUEL, solicitor, when the subject of a Lifeboat Saturday was brought forward, mentioned the numerous street col- lections already made. In the course of the proceedings the startling and extra- ordinary fact was made clear that the street collections in the town and the pernicious collections on the beach during the summer months are used locally for the branch expenses. Except the mem- bers of the local Lifeboat Committee, and a few others, everybody thought that the street collections in which people are asked to contribute to the Lifeboat were sent to the Institution. No wonder the collectors are urgent. No wonder the beach collections are persisted in. No wonder the Lifeboat Institution does not care how the money is got, or who is pestered. It is practically no concern of theirs. As Archdeacon PROTHEROE said, all the money received ought to go to the Institution and all the payments should be made by it. After this reve- lation of loose management nobody need be surprised at anything. We have hitherto taken it for granted that the rules for the management of the Life- boat were intended to be acted upi n, but there is no knowing what under- standing there is that the rules do not reveal. That the Town Council should be flouted by the Lifeboat Institution is only to be expected under all the cir- cumstances, and it is really very kind of the managers of the Institnrion that they draw the line of interference at the explo- sion of unnecessary rockets, the making of unnecessary collections, the flouting of 'he Town Council, and a very serious obstruction of the beach by a hideous slip. We did not understand until Tuesday's meeting bow it happened that the Lifeboat authorities paid no attention whatever to the breach of their own rules to whih we have more than once called attention. We think the meeting on Tuesday, both by what happened and by what did not happen, should teach the authorities that Aherystwyth has stood about as much Lifeboat high and mightiness as it is going to stand, but the present ordwr of things will probably not be finilly got rid of until life is lost instead of being saved. It seems to us that the Lifeboat In stitution receives a good deal more money than -it knows how to dispose of wisely. Aberystwyth is a good place during August Bank Holiday wet k for making a large haul. If former complaints been attended to, or if the system of inspection which is supposed to exist had resulted in a discontinuance of breaches of the rules, this article need not have been written and the proceed- ings at Tuesday's meeting would havn been different. It is not a question of imputing blame to the local SECRETARY, or to the local committee, or to the lifeboat crew, or to anybody but the London authorities of the Institution, who have in hand a work which appeals to the humanity of the people and who, therefore, ought to be specially careful that they do not by carelessness, or waste, or negligence abuse the generosi'j their object inspires.

EDITORIAL NOTES It has been officially announced in the Lower House of the Prussian Diet that a sure means has been discovered of rendering cattle immune from foot and mouth disease. it • The King, price 6d, has been enlarged and improved. In the issue of March 8th, there is an illustrated article on Londonderry House, the town residence of the Marquess of LONDON- DERRY. • it A nation solemnly hangs a man who by murder violates the supposed sanctity of human life. That same nation is spending millions of pounds a month in violating the sanctity of human life, and in other forms of destruction, on the altar of a bastard imperialism. • • The reduction in the assessment of the Pen- rhyn quarries from £22,000 to £8,551 seems to have astonished people. There are many sides to a great industrial question, and it will be discovered after awhile that a large number of people benefited by the quarries in addition to Lord PENRHYN. • • At last terms seem to have been arranged with the COUNTESS de MORELLA in reference to the water-supply of Llwyngwril. We shall see huw long it will take the Local Govern- ment Board to send an inspector to Hold the necessary enquiry. Reform is a slow business, but there are records of the Local Government Board having ultimately moved. This generation may even yet see a water supply at Llwyngwril. • Bishop THORNTON says. "I am not one of those who think the only way to spell "temperance is abstinence. I am opposed to "irrevocable pledges against things not in themselves sinful, regarding such pledges as "traps to conscience and enfeebling to moral virility. I strongly disrelish the extravagant and rancorous talk indulged in on some abstinence and prohibitionist platforms." Many teetotalers have utterly forgotten that it is temperance they are aiming at. The clap- trap is as disrelishing as the extravagance and the rancorousness. Bishop THORNTON will not get much support from the total extremists who prefer a little teetoialism to a great deal of temperance. ft The newspapers say that there is a great de- pression in the coal trade of South Wales. We are astounded, as there is no sign whatever of depression at Aberystwyth, where coals are from twenty-six to twenty-nine shillings a ton. Coals are so high in price at Aberystwyth that the inhabitants are talking seriously about ordering a train of waggon loads on the co- operative principle. It is said that by ordeiing forty truck loads a saving of something like iE150 could be made, as truck loads are offered at from seventeen to nineteen shillings per ton by dealers who have to live on the profits they make. The Aberystwyth coal ring is serious, especially for people who have to buy in small quantities. Mr LLEWKLLIN, at the last meeting of the Aberystwyth Board of Guardians, made a statement in reference to some figures which one of our staff, assisted by Mr C. M. WILLIAMS, had prepared as to an alleged in- crease in the out-relief. There can be no doubt that the figures prepared for us were wrong. There is a reduction iD the amount of out- relief and not an increase, as alleged in our published statement. We regret that the statement was made, and fail to understand what object was to be gained by the figures we published. We trusted to our representa- tive. It is most important that no doubt should rest on what is published in these columns, and Mr LLEWELLIN is entitled to this explanation and acknowledgment. Mr BIRCHAM corroborated Mr LLEWELLIN'S state- ment. It is said that a company is being formed in North Wales with a view of starting a Welsh national newspaper. The proposers of this venture consider that there is not a single national newspaper in the Welsh language in the Principality, as the so-called "national"1papers have become journals devoted to only parts of Wales. The Bantr is much nearer being a Welsh national newspaper than any journal the promoters of the new venture are likely to establish, but the advertisements of the Bancr are mainly in English The patriots who talk glibly about starting newspapers, national or otherwise, do not seem to reckon the cost. What is required in the shape of money is a sum of about JE50 a week for ten years or longer. We know that there are people who can start newspapers on a theusand or fifteen hundred pounds, but in a short time these ventures have to resort to stereos" and quack advertisements of the cheapest sort to save composition, and have to be re-financed at that. Besides money, the skill to work a newspaper is needed, and this is more difficult to find than the money, as the London Daily News has proved, to say nothing of drooping local ventures. It does people a lot of good to start newspapers. The best thing the pro- moters of the new Welsh national newspaper can do is not to do it, but to help the Baner, if they have any help to give that is worth anything. This advice is worth a good deal more than will be given for it. A national newspaper cannot give local news, and there are neither readers nor writers for a national newspaper and no revenue worth mentioning. There are too many moribund newspapers of one kind and another in Wales already. High sheriffs and their wives are invited to attend the coronation. ♦ ♦ Mr B. M. WILLIAMS, postal superintendent, Swansea, has been appointed postmaster of Aberystwyth. • • • The inhabitants of Aberayron and the district are determined to have a railway, and negociations are going on in certain directions. It would probably not assist the promoters to make any very definite statements at the present time, but there is great activity. Now that the evil of spitting is being recognized, it is just possible that corporations like that of Aberystwyth may recognize the idiotcy of taking kitchen refuse through the streets in open carts to be blown all over the town. Shopkeepers may also begin to see that to sweep the dust from their shops into the gutters is a foolish proceeding. » ♦ The sum of CIOO.000 has been left to Glasgow charities by Mr JAMES DICK, one of the city merchants, who died on Friday. Most people know DICKS s shoe shops. There were two brothers, R. and J. DICK. In this district most of the shops trading as Dicks now belong to Mr WILLIAM MORTON, of Birmingham, whose residential estate is Ardmillan, in Scotland. 8 At the Dolgelley Rural Sanitary meeting on Monday, the INSPECTOR reported that a place reported on January 11th was still untouched. The same was true of other places. In the end the CLERK was ordered to serve notices. What is the use of these notices ? The officials ought to be supported and work ought to be done. We wish people were as afraid of all filth diseases as they are afraid of small-pox. The Hon. F. G. WYNN. who owns a good deal of property in and about Pwllheli, has enabled the Corporation to make a much- needed improvement. This is as it should be. The Corporation ought to be careful not to be exacting or otherwise unreasonable. There is a great future before Pwllheli, but it can only be effected a little at a time. ♦ ♦ ♦ A scientific woman, Madame CURRIE, a Pole, has made some very wonderful discoveries. She has discovered two new elements of greater importance and rarity than argon, and having properties which are almost magical. There is every reason to believe that when women have the same opportunities as men they will reveal equivalent powers. They need to have greater faith in themselves. • At the Aberystwyth Board of Guardians on Monday a wide difference of opinion among local doctors was revealed in reference to a woman who had been sent to the Infirmary and who had been sent out again on the ground that she was not a fit subject for the Infirmary. A good deal more than appears on the surface has sometimes to be known before even the simplest case can be understood. The local medical men and the Infirmary are not on the best of terms. There are wheels within wheels. Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN says he is not prepared to countenance any attempt to turn a Parliamentary minority into a majority by the sacrifice or compromise of principles which he believes to be essential to the welfare of the nation. We are glad to hear this. There has been far too much trim- ming of Liberalism in order to secure office and place for the political sharks. Let us have some honest Liberalism, and let the country please itself whom it puts into office. The rank and file have to be Liberal without reward. Let the leaders also be Liberal with- out reward, or go over to the Conservatives. It is time for all Wales to assure Sir HENRY of its support. He was made a stop-gap leader, but he has put himself at the head of the real Liberals of the country, and in the end he will win. Who will take the lead in Wales ? ♦ The Legislature, in its wisdom, enacted that any person having a conscientious objection to vaccination should not be compelled to have his child vaccinated. This enactment killed the anti-vaccination agitation. Since the outbreak of small pox certain magistrates have broken the law and refused to grant exemptions. We have always refused to make exceptions in the case of law-breakers, and we hold that of all the law-breakers in the land law-breaking magistrates are the worst. The only security the people have is the inviolableness of the law. We believe that to turn out a few conscientious objectors" to vaccination among the people would do more for vaccina- tion than all the magisterial lectures that can be given. At any rate, it is the duty of magis- trates to administer the law and neither to make law nor to repeal it. ♦ Any lie seems to be good enough to tell about Lord PENRHYN'S quarry and its manage- ment. At a recent meeting, held at Shepherd's Bush, Mr Lloyd, the financial secretary of the strikers, is reported to have said that One of the grievances was that if a man arrived at the quarry over fifteen minutes late he had to forfeit two days' pay, although he had to put in his work just the same." This seems dreadful. Here is the rule Discipline.—All "punishments will be by 'suspension' or dismissal. For instance, if a workman comes late (except through sickness or sudden case of great emergency) he will the "first time be cautioned, the second time suspended quarter day, third offence half day but persistent offenders would be more seriously punished or dismissed." One by one the lies are being nailed down, but some of them are hard to catch. There was, perhaps, never a more groundless labour dispute than at Penrhyn, but then, as we have made clear, the object was to test certain principles of the Independent Labour Party and the Democratic Socialists, and the scheme failed. The working men are the sufferers. • The other day the Western Mail, with that cocksureness for which it is remarkable, said "Mr LABOUCHERE is under the impression "that 'Hen Wlad fy Nhadau' is a hymn. It is interesting to learn, he says in this week's "Truth, 'that before the KING. the Abercarn Choir sang several of their beautiful Welsh 'hymns, one of them, 'Land of My Fathers,' which is considered in Wales almost in the light of a national anthem, being encored by his MAJESTY." We do not know that our readers would be willing to take Mr LAB- OUCHERE as an authority on religious hymns, but the Western Mail may take it on the authority of the dictionary that "Hen Wlad "fy Nhadau" is a hymn, and Mr LABOUCHERE was quite correct in so describing it. Here is one of the definitions of a hymn from the dictionary: An ode or song of praise or "adoration." If "Hen Wlad fy Nhadau" is not a song of praise, what is it? By the way, the Western Mail ought really to draw the line at the froth by a Welsh patriot under the misleading heading, National Spirit of Walob." Hen Wlad fy Nhadau" is a hymn, and Mr LABOUCHERE does not stand corrected. It is very difficult to believe in the honesty of Mr Keir HARDIE without doubting his intelligence, and it is equally difficult to be- lieve in his intelligence without doubting his honesty. In a recent address he is reported to have made the utterly untrue statement "that the working class to-day is no whit better off than before a machine of any kind was thought of.' This sort of statement is so obviously untrue that it is almost impossible to believe that he does not know it is untrue. There are to-day more working people in com- parative comfort than existed at all in the days before a machine of any kind was thought of. What Mr KEIR HARDIE means by production for use instead of production for profit is incapable of reasonable statement. All production is for use. The maker of clothes makes them for use, but he wants profit so that he may obtain food and shelter, and all the other things which he does not make. It does not require any very great degree of intelligence to discover that more newspapers are produced in a day by machinery, and that they are sold at a lower price than was pos- sible in the days before a machine of any sort was thought of. What is true of newspapers is true of all sorts of things which are pro- duced for use by which the producers win a profit. There really is no advantage in Mr KKIR HARDIE talking like a lunatic to the people. They see through it. Why does he not make something instead of wasting his time in the House of Commours I The man who was bound over at a recent Aberystwyth Petty Sessions was again charged on Wednesday with an assault and sent to prison for a month. Prison is not the right place for the man, but he cannot be left at large to make people's lives a terror. The ratepayers of Aberystwyth have their attention called this week by a correspondent to a very remarkable state of things in Aber. ystwyth finance. It seems that for several years the stores, stock in trade, &c., have amounted to exactly the same sum. This is very wonderful, if it is true, but is it true? At Southport on Monday two men were fined for cruelty to a seagull. One of the men shot at a seagull which he wounded. He put it in his pocket alive. Its wing was broken and the bone was protruding. A fine of five shillings and costs in each case was imposed and half the advocate's fee was allowed. This was the first case under the Act of August 6th, 1900, which declares that the word animal" means "any bird or beast not included in the Acts of "1846 and 1854." The marriage rate is declining in London. In 1898, the marriage rate dropped to 18'7 as compared with 22*3 per 1,000 in 1853. Men refuse to make the sacrifices which marriage entails, and women are not now driven to marriage for maintenance as in the old days. Besides, it is well known by young women that marriage often means a life of drudgery and misery. The status of wives and mothers will have to be greatly altered before women will resort to marriage as in the times when it was their only business. ♦ Bala has for the past year a satisfactory death-rate. Bala is unsatisfactorily situated for drainage purposes, and no effort, therefore, should be spared by the authorities to over- come the natural disadvantages of situation. The Medical Officers of urban and district councils are, we believe, doing all that is possible for them to do in order to save life and to improve the public health. What they have to contend against is the ignorance of the people who do not believe that they can be slain by their own kitchen refuse « A meeting of the tradesmen and other in- habitants of Aberystwyth was held at the Lion Hotel on Wednesday night to consider what steps should be taken to improve the markets. There was a large attendance, and a movement was started that we believe will put an end, sooner or later, to the prolonged and inexcusable apathy of the Council. The task is no light one, but this fact was fully realized. We shall deal with the subject from time to time. A meeting of farmers will shortly be held, and it is hoped that town and country will co-operate in this matter. There is at Aberystwyth a working-men's club which has until the present time met in Progress Hall, Mill-street. Recently the Com- mittee purchased the building in Chalybeate- street, formerly the business premises of the late Mr JOHN ROWLAND, ironmonger. The outlay, something like a thousand pounds, is to be partly met by a bazaar to be held at the College early next month. The cause is a good one, and it is to be hoped that the antici- pations of the Committee will be realised. Nobody connected with the movement has much money, and if heavy interest has to be paid, the movement will be seriously crippled. Good work has been done, and one of the young men has won a King's scholarship. This Club aims at providing what public-houses provide, without the drink. We have had another "mishap" in South Africa. Lord METHUEN has been wounded and captured. Three officers and thirty-eight men have been killed. This is the sort of thing that must be expected. The newspapers bewail the event as if it were contrary to the ordinary course of things. It is at times like this that we need faith in the righteousness of our cause. War is a hideous thing at the best, and we certainly have not seen it at the best in Africa. It is no use grumbling. The country really does not care two straws about the war, although it has cost twenty-one thousand lives and a hundred and fifty million pounds. We have long since captured more Boers than were said to be in the field. It is said that the war may be going on two years hence. • • At the last meeting of the Aberayron Rural District Council, Dr LEWIS, the medical officer of the Llansantffraid district, read his annual report. He showed that the death-rate was 19*5. This is a death-rate equal to that of the large manufacturing towns of the United Kingdom, and, without any other fact, ought to cause the people to take more interest in their condition. Here is an extract from the report The water supply of Cribyn was visited and examined by a committee appointed by and consisting of members of the Council and condemned as unfit for human consumption. The water, which runs under a series of garden plots, starts from a noiseome ditch close by, a state of affairs which must in- evitably tend to physical as well as moral "degradation. The spirit which reveals itself in this apathy, ignorance, and hands-down policy, backed by that silent fatalism which lurks in the profundities of the Welsh char- acter, forms the deadliest enemy to sanitary reform. To conciliate a stolid, sluggish, and obstinate spirit of this kind, which resents the intrusion of official efforts to purify the wells and watercourse of the district, is a fatal error." The people believe that sanita- tion is only a fad of ours and of a few others! Dr THOMAS EVANS, the medical officer of the Llandissilio district, reported a death-rate of 18 per 1,000, and says that the number of deaths from infectious diseases is greater than for the past eight years. What is to be done The people do not care what happens either to themselves or to their neighbours. There is a great work still to do, for it is startling that in the rural districts of Cardiganshire the death-rate should be equal to the death-rate of the large towns of the country.

PENYGARN. GOOD TEMPLARS.—The usual weekly meeting of the Garn Lodge of Good T mplars was held last Wednesday. The chief templar, Wm. Hughes, presided and there was a fairly good attendance. Tne following programme was gone through — Song, Bryniau, Mr Rd. Eiwards recitation, Mr Ai, H. Davies song, Dewi Teifi; dialogue, Misses Kate and Margaret Jones recitation, Miss Sarah Hughes reading, Mr James Jones; quartette, Misses Margaret, Mary, Nellie Jones, and Miss M. A. Richards reading at first sight a portion of Scripture, out of competitors Mr Isaac Pritchard was judged the best. Mr George Evans, vice-templar, acted as adjudicator. Misses Mary Jones and M. A. Richards were nominated to take up the debate in the meeting after the next. Miss Mary JDnes was appointed to provide a programme for the next meeting.

CORRIS SUCCESS.—Miss Sarah Owen, Bronygog, Corris, and Mr W. T. Jones, Pensarn, Aberlletenny, have passed the King's scholarship examination and will enter upon a course of training at the Normal College shortly. PRESENTATION.—Last week a handsome writing case was presented to M'ss Thomas Brynderwen, by the scholars of the National School, where she has acted as a pupil teacher for the past four years. SALE.—A successful sale of timber wasjconducted by Messrs Gillarc and Son, auctioneers, Machyn. lleth, on Saturday last at Braichgoch plantation. Good prices were obtained. THE CORONATIO-WZ .-This matter came under discussion for the second time at the Free Churches Council evening last. Several sugges- tions were made, but finally the Council resolved that ce' suggestions be sent to the various r. ^lr aPProvsl proceedings were presided over by Rev Berwyn Robei os.

Slitting Jlppointmettte. MR. T. P. LEWES' FOXHOUNDS WILL MEET Tuesday, March 1SLh Llaum 11 a.m. Friday, March 21 st.Llanfihangel Creuddyn 11 a.m. T3E NEUADDFAWR FOXHOUNDS WILL MEET Monday, March 17th .Llanin*. 10-30 a.m. Thursday, March 20th Pantdefaid Cross Roads 10-30 a.m. THE PLAS MACHYNLLETH BOUNDS WILL MEET Tuesday, March 18th Tycanol Llanbrynmawr 10-30 a.m. Friday, March 21st.. Esgairfochnant Books 10.30 a.m.