The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard

FLIES ON THE NATIONAL WHEEL. NOTHING is more remarkable in its way than the change that has come over Wales during- the past few years, as demonstrated in the St David's Day gatherings and by the speeches de- livered. Less than a score of years ago those gatherings afforded Welsh reformers almost their only opportu- nities of making known their desires and aspirations. All this is altered. Seats in Parliament, positions on local governing bodies, and general parti- cipation in a wider public life, have left the St David's Day gatherings to y Z, what we may call the flies on the national wheel. Welsh Nationalism is a greater and far more complicated thing than it was a score of years ago when the crude patriot passionately struck his narrow chest and spoke oracularly on behalf of my country A Welsh University, three colleges, an Intermediate School system, a war against Church aggression in ele- mentary schools, a new Education De- partment, powerful newspaper's, County Councils, an improved system of railway communication, altered social and commercial conditions, quickened political life, and altogether improved conceptions of life have knocked the one-time St. David's Day orators out of place. These are mere flies on the national wheel and if they attract attention at all, it is only to give amusement for a moment to those who do not attend the gatherings and who are certainly not of opinion that the wheel of Welsh nationalism is kept revolving only by the flies which cling to it. The St. David's Day gatherings have altogether lost any- Z, thing they ever possessed of national significance or even of local import- ance. This is a sign, not of national decay, but of national progress and of differentiation. In these days the most important Saint David's Day gatherings are those held beyond the confines of the Principality, for they still retain a strong element of nation- ality and help to demonstrate that Wales is a nation. The local demon- strations have changed and deter- iorated.

HORRIBLE I-GIVE IT A NAME. THE Medical Officer of the Llanybyther Rural Council, Dr. E. C. THOMAS, in his annual report, just issued, says The houses in the outlying portions are often too small, badly ventilated, and insufficiently drained. The drainage of Llanybyther village, es- pecially, is still in a deplorable state, as there is no water to flush the drains, that for domestic purposes being- far from sufficient and fre- "quentiv polluted. I have previously reported on the frequent epidemics of diphtheria at Llany- byther and pointed out that the de-1 fects in the school contributed I largely towards its spread. The bad drainage and defective water supply of the village must act indirectly in facilitating the growth, of the germ of diphtheria. Llan- ybyther School was closed for sev- eral weeks owing to diphtheria." The foregoing extracts from the re- port which was adopted at the meeting, on Friday, without discussion as far as Llanybyther School was concerned, arc not by any means the only revelations which have been made ih reference to that school, nor are the revelations, alas, peculiar to Llanybyther. Cric- cieth is face to face with pigs and their filth. Aberystwyth has a death-rate higher than the death-rate for the large cities of England. Portmadoc is in- efficiently drained. Dolgelley prefers disease and death to necessary outlay on sanitation and an isolation hospital. Other places all over the Principality are in an equally deplorable condition. The people are slain—done to death by the score-in order to save a few pounds. Every week, first in one place and then another, we have to re- cord gross and long continued sani- tary neglect which amounts to what we call municipal murder. If this is not the right name for the unneces- sary human slaughter let somebody give it a more appropriate title. Take the typical case of Llanybyther School. In this paper more than ten years ago, namely, on December nth, 1896, we published the following extracts from the MEDICAL OFFICER'S report of that date and also the accompanying lines. The whole thing is still so true and ap- propriate to the existing occasion, in the light of the MEDICAL OFFICER'S re- port adopted at the meeting of the LIanybyther Rural Council last Friday, the lines might have been written yes- terday and not in December, 1896:- NOT ARMENIAN VICTIMS. Llanybyther School, as you are aware. has been closed by my order, sanctioned by this Council, some weeks ago, on account of a malignant type of scarlatina being prevalent in the district. I may say that during the epidemic three deaths have occurred in the district, and several children have nearly lost their lives. If this is not thoroughly in- vestigated we may have no end of trouble, and possibly loss of lives in the future owing to persons who will uphold their own opinions in the face of skilled advice and even to the sacrifice of their own and their fellow creatures lives.— Medical Officer s Report in this locek's ■paper referring to Llanybyther School. Llanybyther is not the only place in Wales where there is disregard for child life.—P. W. Ye white and murdered dead, I plead for you, Whose pallid lips are now for ever closed. I say for you the words you might have said For they -A ho slew you are not to be glozed. You were not slain by fury's bloody, stroke; No wide-mouthed wounds your cruel slaughter told Greed slew you and life's fragile chalice broke, And here you lie snow-white and still, and cold No Turkish sabres smote your rounded limbs, You were not seized and dashed against the stones; You died amid the sounds of prayers and hymns, And love's bewailings drowned your fevered moans. Men lied who said that you were slain by fate. They lied, for you by filth were done to death; Men's greed it was, and not Almighty hate, That slew you in God's name with poisoned breath. The village homes pestiferous- tlower- clad Blast the young life with stealthy fever's bane. The weary, wan-faced mother's eyes grow sad, And both inside and out the roses wane May God's fell curse rest over those who slay Children within the hovel homes of Wales. May black nights come when they in vain shall pray As for their victims prayer now naught avails! For these our murdered children let us weep, And loud that brutish lustfulness bewail, Which slew them by a selfishness hell deep But which until the end shall not prevail. We appeal to our readers, especially to members of local governing bodies, and ask them what is to be done in view of these long-continued and hor- rible conditions of things? Are the children of the poor to be forever forced into these death-traps of schools ? Is there to be no protection for them against disease and death ? Surely the time has come when those who profess to care for the people should bestir themselves. More than ten year's slaughter has gone on at Llanybyther. It is a thousand pities that those who are responsible for the evils which existed in 1896, and still exist in March, 1907, cannot be dealt with as severely as the long-continued neglect demands they should be dealt with. Many culprits have been hanged for far slighter crimes. In a leading article in our issue of December nth, 1896, dealing with this subject, we said WTe commend the MEDICAL OFFICER'S pathetic re- port to the sorrowful consideration of our readers, who will have some difficulty in believing that the state- ments made by the MEDICAL OFFICER refer to a School Board in a Welsh district in the last decade of the nineteenth century. We know, alas, how passively the poor bear ills of this kind, but surely it is not impossible to arouse them to a sense of the injury done to them and to their children by this almost incredible disregard for health and life. We have heard of nothing like this Llanybyther episode except in some Eastern land, where sani- ,¡ tary precautions are looked at by the superstitious natives as a direct interference with the will of the ALMIGHTY!" We ask our readers what they think of this horrible and disgraceful and long-continued state of things? The saddest thing of all is that what is Z, true of LIanybyther is equally true of many other places.

PORTMADOC AND ITS AFFAIRS. FOR several reasons it is not an easy thing to deal satisfactorily with the public affairs of Portmadoc. There are serious difficulties in the way and they are neither far to seek nor hard to .understand. The town is mainly built upon a portion of the Tremadoc Estate and hence arises, directly or in- directly, the chief obstacles to success- ful action, although neither the owners of the estate, nor Mr ROBERT CAS- SON, the agent, can reasonably be held responsible. The owners of the Es- tate some years 'ago tried to sell their interest in Portmadoc, but the attempt was not wholly successful—how far it was successful we do not know, but the Estate seems to be still the chief owner of Portmadoc and stands to be the main gainer 01* loser as the town improves or deteriorates. The bulk of the ratepayers have at last come to the conclusion that the gas works, the sewerage of the town, and the insani- tary condition of the harbour impera- tively need immediate attention. We do not wish on this occasion to dea! with the existence of disease, but there can be no doubt that the emptying of the sewers into the harbour is a great and constant peril to the inhabitants and a cause of serious less of life. There is a quite unjustifiable notion in the minds of a section of the in- habitants of the town that the owners of the Tremadoc Estate hn: morally if not leg-any responsible for almost every reform needed in the town. This liotion has gradually brought about an attitude of antagonism between Mr ROBERT CASSOX, who acts for the m ■■ —nm ——J Estate, and the majority of the mem- bers of the Council who have presumed to teach him his duty towards the ratepayers. Mr. CASSON is not the man to accept any- thing like dictation, nor is he in th; least likely to do anything against tie interests of those who have in measure entrusted him with the rran- agement of their affairs. Whether there is not a way by which the inter- ests of the Estate could be conserved and at the same time leave the Coun- cil free to improve the towr without risk of improving the capitff value of the land at the cost of the ratepayers is a question for consideration which we cannot answer at the present time, but there can be no doubt that either the Estate or the Council wll have to take action or the town wil fall into a hopeless state. We belitve in the future possibilities of the plice, and as far as we can judge fron the past action of the Estate and of ROBERT CASSON there is no tendeicy to un- reasonableness which woifd prevent some scheme being carried out that would secure the Estate lnd set the Council free to do work wiich is abso- lutely necessary in the inferests of the whole community. We fear that the present members of the Council are the ciief obstacles in the way of liberating Portmadoc from its existing difticulies. One of the principal reforms rreded pertains to the gas works. It is well known that those works, inchding the gaso- meters, the mains, anl other things are in a pitiful state. The local gov- erning body has alloved year after year to pass and has never grappled with the conditions. A stupid desire to avoid comparativey trifling expen- diture has resulted n what amounts to practically the enire loss of all the plant. Here, again we are not going into details, but there is not a rate- payer in Portmadocwho does not know that much has bein neglected which ought not to have been neglected, and that incapacity aid stupidity have placed the ratepafers at a serious dis- advantage in reerehfce to the gias works. Nothing is to be gained by severe adverse personal criticism of the members of the Council. They probably acted n what they thought were the interest of the ratepayers. Time has shown that they were utterly mistaken, and 'he sooner the policy they have pursued is reversed the bet- ter it will be fo' everybody concerned. Municipal folly and incapacity are written conspicuously all over the gas works, and there is no excuse or ex- planation of the existing lamentable state of things except the stupid, but by no means -are, desire to avoid necessary expeiditure even at the risk of utter ruin. It may be that the members of tie Council blame the Estate for the condition of the gas works as well as for the condition of the harbour, but we do not remember any defence of that kind being set up. The drainage of the town is urgently in need of immediate attention. This is admitted by all, but nothing is done to get rid of ai evil which costs much in health, life, and comfort every year. Here, £ gain, we are not going into details. Every inhabitant of the town knows perfectly well what is re- quired. It is not conviction that is required, but capacity. The sewage in the harbour makes known its stink- ing presence far too strongly for any other argument to be necessary. The dead cannot complain. The livino- hope to escape, and so nothing it done except sneer at the members of the Council and utter diatribes against the Estate which may be quite inno- cent or helpless. Whatever may be the result of the impending Council election, it is quite certain that the ratepayers ought to insist immediately on large measures of municipal reform. Portmadoc may be too backward for a Free Library and too slack for an efficient gas works, but surely it is not so anti- quated as to want to live in the midst of its own municipal filth. It is in the power of the electors to put an end to the existing hand-to- mouth system of management. If they do not put an end to it then they must take the consequences—all the consequences, social, moral, physical, and pecuniary. The Estate, no doubt, is to some extent an obstacle, but that most likely is inevitable until there is sufficient force and intelligence in the Council to deal with the Estate and its agent with wisdom and tact. There are good men in Portmadoc who are well qualified to do all that is neces- sary for the town. These ratepayers have stood apart, we think mistakenly and have left the affairs of the town in the hands of the less capable. We hold that good citizens should serve the public even at the cost of derision, contumely,. loss, and shame. What is needed is that clean and intelligent communities should be built up all over Wales, if needs be by great sacrifice, as the only sure way of securing a progressive and self-respectino- nation. Portmadoc is in great has before it a great opportunity. We are sure that Mr ROBERT CASSOX will do all that he can rightly do to help the place, and we believe the owners of the 1 remadoc Estate will be willing to listen to reason. What the Council has to remember is that all the re- sponsibility and all the cost and all the intelligence ought not to be ex- pecfed from the outside.

TOWARDS THE LIGHT. WE think there are several indications in the proceedings of the last Aber- ystwyth Tmvn Council meeting that some of the members of the Blind Fol- lowing are beginning to be conscious of their absurd position—their enslaved and unworthy position. There is an uneasiness among them that may de- velop at any moment into open rebel- lion against the shackles which bind them together and make their unan- imity appear absurd, not only to the ratepayers, but to themselves. On Tuesday there were merciless revela- tions of incompetence after incom- petence. The stupid plan to let a portion of the beach for a Punch and Judy show has broken down, the per- son having declined to accept what would have been for the town a most ruinous bargain. The town ought not to rent an inch of the beach to any- body. HARD TO BELIF.VI:. The Inst revelation was in reference to so me alleged unsuitable books which h; d been withdrawn from circu- lation at the Town Library. Mr. SAWEL made a long speech which was little to the point, but on being further urged he stated that the most import- ant office of judging what books should be withheld from circulation had been conferred upon the Librarian, but no* reason whatever was given why this extraordinary power should have been so bestowed. We could have under-