Welsh Newspapers

Search 15 million Welsh newspaper articles

The London Welshman

The copyright status or ownership of this resource is unknown.
Hide Articles List

3 articles on this Page

Notes of the Week.

News
Cite
Share

Notes of the Week. The Nationality of Mr. Lloyd=George.—It has turned out as we thought it would. The joy was too great to last. Whilst Wales prided her- self upon having a real Welshman in the British Cabinet at last, she reckoned without her Saxon neighbour, who is such a master in ethnology and everything that pertains thereto. Lloyd-George is no more a Welshman than Chamberlain, to fight whom he was placed in the Presidency of the Board of Trade. He was born in Man- chester, therefore he is an Englishman. No matter that his sympathies are altogether Welsh, that his ideals are Welsh, that he speaks the Welsh language, and for years could speak no other, that he has always represented a Welsh constituency, and that after the first two years, until parliamentary duty tied him to London, he always lived in a Welsh home, he is no Welsh- man. The strange part of the story is, that we never heard of him being claimed as an English- man until he was made a right honourable." As plain Lloyd-George Wales was welcome to him, but now, that he has become famous, she must yield him up. And it is really too bad of Wales that she refuses to do so ungrudgingly. But she is allowed one small crumb of comfort -one great privilege, we ought to have said-he is admitted to be an Englishman of Welsh extraction." Thank you, gentlemen of England, for your generous thoughtfulness. You are treating Wales well. But you might have gone a step further whilst this fit of magnanimity overpowered you. You might have added a word of thanks to this foster-mother, who shielded with her love this "Englishman of Welsh extraction," in the days when you, his natural brothers," tried to stone him to death. Wales to the Rescue.-Wales can do one thing at least that all England has failed to accom- plish. She can beat the New Zealanders, and has done so in a most decisive manner. We are not among those who think that salvation is of the footballers, nor do we say that the athlete represents the perfection of civilisation. Still, we felt just a little bit elated on Saturday even- ing, and were almost ready to throw up our hat, or rather, to kick down the chair upon which we sat. But we remembered the doctrine of extraction," and sobered down immediately. We did not want to look foolish when the assurance came that the victorious team was no Welsh team at all, but a team of fellows who first saw the light on this side of Offa's Dyke. For, if we are not entirely mistaken, come it will before this week is out. Wales is welcome to do the work, but the English must get the credit. The House of Lords.—We understand that some Liberals, now that their party is in office, are busy exercising their minds by devising schemes either to end or mend the House of Lords. It might, perhaps, have been better to wait until after the election, for the power of the party to end or mend anything at all is yet in the balance. But we hear also that the Prime Minister has decided to send into the House of Lords a number of his followers, such as Sir Christopher Furness, Sir Weetman Pearson, Mr. Arthur Acland, and Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice. This may be a way of mending that House, but we fail to see that it is a way of ending it. There is a great deal of insincerity'in all this talk about the Upper Chamber. Whoever thinks that the majority of the people of this country, or even of Liberals, are ready to abolish, or even curtail the powers of that chamber in any real sense, is under a great misapprehension. Mr. Gladstone put forth the cry, "end it or mend it," in 1894, but it evoked no enthusiasm, though the Lords had thrown out, not only the Home Rule Bill, but the Workmen's Compen- sation and several other Bills, as well. And it will fare no better now. When we see a Radical ministry all made up of Commoners, when the custom of creating new peers has been given up by a Radical Prime Minister, when no lord is asked to grace a democratic platform with his presence, when a plain commoner has an equal chance with a man of equal abilities who has in addition a handle to his name, then, and not until then, will we advise the occupants of the gilded chamber to look to themselves.

Am Gymry Llundain.

Advertising