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I The Awakening ef Henry Dabb.
I The Awakening ef Henry Dabb. This little contribution is from Henry Dubb, and is meant for other Henry Dubos. It requires no comment, and is a simple little annal. It is to be hoped that the future strife which is bound to come will End all the Henry Dubbs inside the Co-operative Movement. My history as a Co-operator: I joined when war broke out. Note my progress:—Joined September 8, 1914. by paying 1/- Entrance Fee and 3/6 contribution to share capital. My balance sheet has worked as follows: — Purchases Dividend Interest Share per Quarter 10% or 2/- on Capital in the £ Capital My Own Quarter ending jE s. d. £ s. d. s. d. £ s. d. December 7th, 1914 15 0 0 1 10 0 — 0 3 6 March 7th, 1915 18 10 0 1 17 0 1 13 6 June 7th. 1915 17 0 0 1 14 0 — 3 10 6 September 7th, 1915 16 10 0 1 13 0 — 5 4 6 December 7th. 1915 18 0 0 1 16 0 1 3 6 17 6 March 7th, 1916 19 0 0 1 18 0 1 6 8 14 9 June 7th 1916 19 5 0 1 18 0 2 0 10 14 9 September 7th. 1916 18 10 0 1 17 0 2 6 12 14 3 You will note my purchases average 27s. or 28s. per week. This is owing to my heavy family. I cannot tell you how proud I am of my £ 12 14s. 3d. That little nest egg will be very handy when trouble comes (and it is going to I grow and grow.) And to think that for years I and years I have been leaving that dividend for Mr. Jones," the grocer, to grow fat and build houses! Oh to live over again ^nnHimmMBBDBaHnDB
Work of National Importance.
Work of National Importance. What is work of national importance ? The releasing of some conscientious objectors from military service on the condition that they take up "work of national i-uipoi-tance 11 forces this question upon us. It is assumed by the Tri- bunals that the only work of national import- ance at present is that which, in one way or another, directly supports the prosecution of the war. But this assumption cannot be al- lowed to pass unchallenged. There is work to be done of the highest national importance which is of quite a different character from that which the Tribunals have in mind. We are in a dangerous position. The prosecu- tion of the war is continually absorbing our national resources, which are needed for con- structive purposes; daily increasing our huge debt, which will have to be paid; continually demanding the sacrifice of the life and mutila- tion of thousands of our youpg men. Besides this regular toll, there hangs over us that possibility of grave disaster which is always a contingency- of war. This being our position the thing which every sane and well-meaning man and woman should desire above all else is to get our nation out of the war, on an ar- rangement consistent with justice and reason and any effort that helps in any degrre to do this is. in the truest sense, work of national importance. Now. reason has been so trampled down by the war. and passion has been so stirred up, that the greater part of our people—and one wonders at times if members of the Government should not be classed among these—have lost sight of the fact that our Government entered the war for the attainment of certain objects- deemed to be just and rational— and have come to regard the crushing and punishing of the Germans by a decisive military victory over them as the object of our fighting. What is actually only a means has in their minds taken the" shape of an end. This attitude strongly tends to plunge and involve us more deeply in the war. It is quite contrary to the rational attitude, which is to get out of the war at the earliest moment at which the ra- tional objects for which we are prosecuting the war can be attained. Those individuals, there- fore who strive to allay this passion, to check those who seem to be bent on increasing it, and to keep before the mind of our people the rational objects of the war, render a na- tional service of the highest importance. The war is in a great measure due to misundesstanging between the belligerent na- tions. The people on both sides believe that the war was "forced" on them. It is evident that the more this understanding is cleared away the nearer we shall approach a condition in which a just settlement can be made. This, then-the exposing of the multitude of deceptions and lies by which this misunderstanding has been brought about and is kept in being—is a work of national importance. The wicked German Government, as every body here knows, deceives and blinds the Ger- man people, because it deems this necessary for the successful prosecution of the. war. Is not our Government doing the same thing? Are not our newspapers under the supervision of a censor, who decides what we shall know and what we shall not know? Do we get true and impartial reports of the events of the war. Is there not a covert suppression of unbiassed views? Is it not made to appear as if the immense expenditure of the war and the piling up of debt at a rate hitherto undreamt of is a rather trifling matter? Are not racy reports written to order from Southampton and other places to make it appear as if this business which results in the daily publication of lists showing hundreds of our young men killed- this gambling with the life of the nation, is after all, rather good sport? This hypnotising of our people out of the sense of the grim reality and significance of the war is wrong. Deception in Germany is not a justification for deception here. Truth alone is good. And those persons who expose these deceptions and call for truth render a valuable national service The utterances of our public men and our newspapers have generated a strong partiality in our people, which prevents them from seeing anything in connection with the war in its true aspect. Every wrong done by the Ger- mans is magnified, while wrongs done by our- selves and our Allies are scarcely noticed; and individuals who strive to see things impartially and express unbiassed views are called pro- Germans. This spirit increases the difficulty of reaching a reasonable settlement, and is bad in itself. Effort to correct it. therefore, is work of national importance. There have been a number of evidences that the belief which led Germany to the violation of Belgium neutrality—that a supposedly righ- teous cause justifies a disregard of what is right and just in the effort to bring it to a, successful issue has an influence over both our Govern- ment and our people. The eheeking of this tendency to wrong doing and the calling for loyaltv to justice in the prosecution of the war is work of national importance. An opportunity to attain our objects by ne- gotiations ma.y occur, and unreadiness and a wrong spirit may cause us to fail to seize it. Effort to have our people and Government ready for such an opportunity and to create such a feeling as will make the be It use of it is also work of national importance RADNOR H. HODGSON. I
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Protests to Education Committee.
Protests to Education Committee. I LETTERS FROM TRADES AND PEACE COUNCILS RECEIVED. I THE QUESTION OF SCHOOL MEDICAL I WORK. The Merthyr Borough Education Committee on Monday night received letters of protest against their action in closing the Abercanaid School to Peace meetings from the local Peace Council and the Merthyr Boroughs Trades and Labour Council. At the outset Coun. Pedler asked whether applications for transfers from one school to an- other nearer the teacher's home were attended to. and was told by the Director that subject to the upkeep of the teaching strength, these applications were noted, placed on the waiting list, and at the end of the school year they were arranged where possible. There were several applications for the post of school nurse and health visitor, but only one had the necessary qualifications—a Dowlais applicant named Elizabeth Lewis, and she was appointed. Correspondence with reference to the continu- ation of the medical work amongst the school children on the leaving of the School Medical Officer, Dr. Miss McKillop. to take up an ap- pointment under the War Office, was read from the Board of Education, who sanctioned her undertaking work with the colours, whilst noting that Dr. Duncan would be unable to carry on the whole of the work. The Board further stated that they would view with grave concern a reduction in the work. In the same connection Dr. Duncan (Medical Officer of Health) reported in reference to the Board's requirements—the treatment of ailing child- ren, and the continuance of Refraction and X- Ray work—that the Clinic at Glebeland Street could be open every morning as formerly under the Charge of Nurse Lewis, also on Tuesday and Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, when he would attend for the special work of eye diseases, ear, nose and throat diseases, skin diseases and minor ailments. He would not have time to undertake X-ra 4 treatment of ringworm, since this would necessitate a special afternoon; but very little of this work had been done for a considerable time, owing to the difficulty of getting satisfactory tubes. As regards visiting the schools and recommending children for treatment he recommended that an outside medical practitioner should be appointed tem- porarily to devote one afternoon a week to the work. Dr. E. Ward was willing to carry out the work if suitable terms could be ar- ranged. and Mrs. E. Ward was willing to carry out the work at the school for mot tiers. Coun. Wilson moved that the recommenda- tion of- Dr. Duncan be accepted, and a small committee appointed to come to the necessary arrangements with Dr. Ward. Aid. Griffiths, however, wanted to knoiv how this arrangement would affect the children. To this the Director of Education (Mr Rhys Elias) replied that Dr. McKillop had been visiting schools on five half days per week. The Chairman (Coun. Marsh): We have released her, and we have to do. the best we can The Committee was ultimately appointed as follows:—Aldermen Rees and Griffiths. and Councillors D. W. Jones, and Marsh and the Chairman (Coun. ,Ilorrell)-arid was instructed to make arrangements for two visiting half days if possible. A letter was read from the Merthyr Teachers' Association asking that teachers should now be placed on the same footing as other Council employees earning less than zCI6,0 a year, in regard to war bonus; this. together with a memorial of the head teachers' Association on the anomalies of the present scheme of pay- ment and quinquennfal increasement, under which some head teachers received less than their head certificated assistants, was referred to a special meeting to be held to deal with these matters. The letter of protest from the Merthyr Peace Council pointed out that at well at- tended and representative meetings held at Abercanaid and Dowlais on the 10th and 12th July respectively had passed strong resolutions of protest were passed against the action of the Education Committee in refusing the use of the Abercanaid School and the Carnegie Hall for the use of the Peace meetings, and concluded: It ill becomes the residents of Merthyr. with its noble traditions, to take up the present attitude in regard to free speech in the peo- ple's own buildings, The Trades Council resolution read as follows: That this Trades Council, representing over 10.000 Trades Unionists, protests against the action of the local Education Authority in cancelling the Peace meeting at Abercanaid School; and further wishes to emphasise that it protests from one point of view, viz., the interference, with liberty of free speech. Alderman Griffiths rose to say something, but the Oh airman said he did not think any- thing arose out of the letters. They merely re- corded a protest, and the Committee could not alter a resolution without a notice of motion. Aid. Griffiths: You are degrading the name of Merthyr by allowing these things to remain. I move that it be put in the minutes that we have received these protests. He was told that this would be done.
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I An Historic Parallel. I
I An Historic Parallel. I I A DIP INTO THE HISTORY OF GREECE. I An interesting historical parallel or group of parllels in this wiar is the long series of wars, lasting about a hundred years, which resulted in the fall of Ancient Greece. The history of Ancient Greece has been described as that of Modern Europe in miniature. Ancient Greece, in the days of its greatness, was divided into a number of petty states, independent or grouped in loose confederacies, of which the most important, fof a long while, were those headed respectively by Sparta and Athens. There was much jealousy 'between them, but there was also much friendship, especially after they combined to repulse the great invasion of the Persians under Xerxes (the Anhasuerus of the Book of Esther), 481 B.C. This was followed by half a century of peace and prospe- rity, during which the Athenians produced most of those masterpieces of architecture and sculpture, and many of those masterpieces of literature, the remains of which, and such noble specimens as have been preserved, are to this day the wonder of the world. Then, at last, their respective war parties got the upper hand, and decided to push things to extremes. They were not likely to lack tt pretext, if one failed, and there would be found, much like the wolf with the lamb; either they interfered, on opposite sides, in the disputes of the lesser Greek states, or one made aggression on a third Greek state, and the other came to its help; or there were yet other pretexts we shall hear of. In this case the Athenians took the part of Corcyra (now Corfu) against Athens, which had long been the chief of the Allies of the Spartans, and so the war began. It lasted in all 27 years (B.C. 431-404), though interrupted by one truce. It was called the Peloponnesian War, from the Spartans holding most of the Pelo- ponnesus (now the Morea). Athens was a sea power, holding nearly all the islands and sea- ports of the Aegean Sea (now the Archipelago), and having by far the largest and best equipped fleet in Greece, manned by the most skilful sailors. And though the peninsula of Attica, of which Athens was the capital, lay open to invasion on the land side, Athens and its port the Piraeus were practically islanded by the immense walls which surrounded and united them. and which in those days were impregnable except by famine, which was im- possible as long as the Athenians held the sea. Sparta was a land power, and only gradually became a sea power as well during the war, though some of her allies especially Corinth, had fleets of some importance. The war dragged on for years, with great loss to both sides and no clear gain to either. Then, in one battle, the leading warmongers on both sides fell (in those days they at any rate risked their own skins), and so the peace parties got the upper hand and soon made peace. But this was soon broken by the restless ambition of the Athenians, who sent a great fleet and army against Syracuse, the chief Greek colony in Sicily. The Spartans came to the help of the Syracusans, the Athenian fleet and army besieging Syracuse was itself besieged, and after a desperate re- sistance was captured or destroyed; and the war was renewed. But again it dragged on for years, and the Athenians gained extraordi- nary naval victories, which moved the Spartans to offer peace, and on very favourable terms. But the Athenians were persuaded by their demagogues to refuse, with the result that they lost their whole fleet, which alone stood between them and famine, at Aegospotami,, somewhere about the Hellespont (now the Dardanelles). After that they were simply starved into sur- render. The Spartans represented themselves as the deliverers of Greece from Athenian tyranny. And indeed, the Athenians had done many cruel and unjust things, especially during the war. For with whatever high professions the war was begun, and however sincere they may have been, they were dropped more and more as the war dragged on. and both sides caught more and more at any weapon that came handy. See Professor Gilbert Murray's "Euripides and his Age" (Home University Library, Is.) Euripides being the third, and in more senses than one, the most modern of the three ,reat Athenian tragic dramatists. But in justice to the Athenians it must be added that they repented, the very next day, of one of the worst of these actions, when they had condemned to death the whole male population of the island of Lesbos or Mitylene, and by great exertions the countermand arrived in time. Also Euripides, in more than one of his dramas, deals expressly with the sufferings that war brings on the women and children, and the retribution that this is likely to bring on the victors. For the Greeks believed that the gods always punished wrong doing at last; the more surely, the slower they seemed to be about it. Also Aristophanes, the greatest Ath- enian comic dramatist, who was privileged as such to sa.y, and to say most publicly, what ever he pleased about everybody and every- thing, with not only a liberty but a licence almost unbelievable nowadays, he too opposed the war throughout, and several of his comedies are expressly in ridicule and denunciation of it, and in praise of peace. The fate of Athens is commonly represented, by friendly as well as hostile critics, as a warn- ing of the dangers of democracy. Athens being the most democratic of the Greek states. But as Shelley, for all his enthusiasm for the Ath- enians, expressly points out, they failed, not eniansI, h being democratic; but through not democratic enough—they held slaves; being deiiioc,i.-a?tic enougb-the-v held slaves; they kept their women in their places and though their public assembly consisted of all full citizens (the Ancients, with their com- paratively small States, had no representative government; the citizens attended in person), it was so limited by various disqualincations as to include only a minoritv of the citizens. In their foreign policy they were always seeking to add some other state to their empire, or to reduce it to subjection. Their fate, no less than that of their eJilemiesand rivals, is a warning, not against democracy, but against imperialism or aristocracy. Athens soon re- gained her mdependeuceand power, and re- mained the intellectual capital of Greece; while Sparta, having gained empire, soon lost it; a,nd sank into such obscurity that only specialists know or care what became of her at last. The kingdoms of this world come and go; those who take the sword fall at last by the sword; only the kingdoms that are not of this world, the invisible kingdoms of the spirit, remain; and there is no sign of their ever ending. The Athenian poets, sculptors, architects, doctors. etc., are to this day the recognised models of their kind; their philosophies are among the recognised teachers of the world, and many besides Chesterton think that they have even undue and too exclusive influence still. The Spartans represented themselves as the liberators of Greece from Athenian tyranny; but the fall of Athens did not bring peace to Greece, and for two reasons—(1) the long war had brought into being a whole class of soldiers of fortune, largely men of education and ability, and even of substance., who had been ruined by the war, and saw nothing else I open to them, or who found in it the oppor- tunity of an ambition not of the highest or purest. These were left out of a job by peace unless they could find some other war; and so they had as much a vested interest in war as the armament rings (though they at any rate risked their own lives). (2) It soon appeared that the Spartans had overthrown Athenian tyranny only to set up their own, which proved worse. And so a. new alliance was soon formed against them, the chief members of which were Athens, now independent again; many of her former colonies and dependencies, which were glad enough to return to her, after some experience of Spartan rule and of all Greek states, Thebes, the chief city of Boeotia, which lay next to Attica, on the western or land side. Now, the Thebans had been, for more than a century, the bitterest enemy of the Athenians. When Xerxes invaded Greece (largely to punish the Athenians for raiding the outlying provinces of his immense empire), the Thebans went over to him just for that reason, and fought valiantly on his side and after his retreat, and the destruction of the army he left behind him, they were severely punished, and their chief men put to death as traitors to Greece. Then, during the Peloponnesian War, they had re- peatedly invaded Attica, and inflicted great loss on. the Athenians. But now, out of fear and jealousy of the Spartans, they entered into alliance with Athens. But for 30 years tlie Spartans remained the most powerful state in Greece, though they soon lost nearly all their oversea conquests, and their land victories, in Greece itself, proved costly and barren. Then, at last. by crafty diplomacy, they succeeded in isolating the Thebans, and seemed on the point of crushing them. But the Thebans had an exceptionally able general-Epaminondas-who, by a bold anticipation of part of Napoleon's tactics, not only broke the power of Sparta for ever (at Leuctra, near Thebes, to which the Spartans had penetrated), but made Thebes, as long as he lived the most powerful state in Greece. But this depended on the exceptional ability of himself and a few of his friends, as the 1 he- bans found one year when they tried to do without him,, and were only saved from disaster through his being with them, though not in office And, none knew it better than he himself so when he had been mortally wounded in the moment of his greatest victory, he asked after those he had fixed on as ablest and fittest to succeed him; and on learning that they too had fallen said, We must make peace, then; we have no longer a general." This was done, and all might have been well with the Thebansi if they had kept to it. but as they had no longer a general, so' also they had no longer a statesman; so to punish the Rhodicians, their next-door neighbours on the west (I don't know what for; probably the Rhocians had sided with their enemies), they accused them of sacrilege (a, trumped-up charge, but one calculated to secure the support of a great part of Greece), and got the sacred council to lay a heavy fine on them. In vain the Rhocians. protested that it would ruin them—this was just what the Thebans wanted —so at last the Rhocians decided that they might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, seized the sacred treasury at Delphi, rich with the offerings of the pious all over Greece for generations past; and raised a formidable army with the proceeds. Thus began the Sac- red War, which completed the ruin of Greece. It dragged on for years with terrible losses- now to one side, now to the other, but no decisive victory to either. Sparta and Athens were both among the allies of the Rhocians, being now reconciled in common fear and jealousy of the Thebans (the ancient Greek state like the modern European ones, seem to have rung the changes on all possible combina- tions of themselves). But Sparta was no longer a power; and Athens was crippled by a war of her own against some of her dependencies, which had revolted. Still the Rhocians offered so formidable a resistance that the Thebans, to the undoing of all Greece as well as them selves, asked the help of their most dangerous enemy—the crafty, patient, ambitious. far- scheming Philip., King of Macedonia; father of the still more fimoUS Alexander the Great. But Philip was in no hurry to come, for years he simply left them to exhaust themselves and each other, while he was building up his own power and raising an army at least as well trained as any in Greece, much larger, and with new weapons and tactics of his own inven- tion against which those introduced by Epami- nondas failed in turn. The Macedonians were less civilised than the Greeks; but they were hardier and less deeply divided among them- selves, and with them Philip conquered all the land eastward to the Black Sea, westward to the Adriatic, northward to the Danube (the Bulgarians and Serbians did not come into the 'Balkans till more than a thousand years afterwards, when the Roman empire, which followed the Macedonian, had risen and fallen in turn, and its eastern branch, commonly called the Greek empire though surviving was declining), and southward to the Aegean Sea, where he took those colonies of Athens that lay between. In vain Demosthenes, greatest of thel Athenian orators—perhaps of all orators on re- cord—warned the Athenians that the really dangerous enemy was not the Thebans close at hand, however strong and fine, but the more distant Philip, stronger still, and infinitely craftier and more persevering. At last Philip' thoughb fit to step in and crush the now ex- hausted Rhocians. Then the Thebans and Athenians saw their danger, and re-united ag- ainst him; but too late, he crushed them both at the one battle of Chaeronea. Then, having received the submission of nearly all Greece, and been made commander in chief of the Greek arimies,, he was preparing to invade the Persian Empire (a; favourite scheme with the Greeks, ever since the Ten Thousand, sixty years before, bad shown its possibility), when he was assassinated by a private enemy. He had developed as well as extended his kingdom. Phillipi was njimed after him; and he founded Thessalonica, now Salonica. to comme- morate a victory of his over the Thessalians, who lived in Northern Greece. At his death, several of the Greek and other states that lie had conquered revolted; the Athenians, rejoicing at his death, were rebuked by Rhocion. the best man among them? in terms expressing a morality far above not only that of the age, but our own: The meanest of feelings is rejoicing over the death or misfortune of an enemy. And you have' fine cause to rejoice when the army fought with at Chaeronea, is reduced by only one man." No doubt he underrated Philip, but Philip had Alexander to succeed him. who had already distinguished himself at Chaeronea, and who now, in his first campaign on his own," regained all his father's conquests, and utterly destroyed Thebes, except the house of Pindar, the great Theban poet, who had lived more than a hundred years before. (As another instance of the way a great poet, anywher0 in C reece, received almost divine honours all: over Greece, the victorious Syracusans released without ranson those of their Athenian prisoners- who could recite to them anything of Euripides, of whom they had heard something, and wished to hear more. He then started on his amazing career of conquest, and in a few years oon quered the whole of the Persian Empire (say Turkey in Asia, Egypt, Persia, AfghanistaD). and that well peopled part of Tartary, north 01 Persia and Afghanistan, which is now subject to Russia. He also invaded India, but his triell refused to follow him further, Returning through the desert, lie and his army were' much distressed by thirst, when someone. brought him a cupful of water, all that could be found. He thanked the man who brought it, and-p,o,ured it out. in sight of his army- He was a real leader, and would share his men's privations; he didn't talk about equality of sacrifice, while himself refusing to make any sacrifice whatever. He died shortly after his return west, leaving nobody who could hold his enormous empire together; so his generals divided it among themselves, into kingdoms of workable size. b í
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Llanelly and District Labour…
Llanelly and District Labour 1 Association. I i > The Association had under consideration, a the last meeting. the need for a LaboiJ1" Centre, and a committee was appointed to look up suitable premises. The Secretary reported the arrangements for Will W. Graik's visit. He will address a. meet- ing at the Tumble on Saturday night, the 16th, and will delivei- a, lecture to thelanell1 Branch of the N. U.R. on the Sunday afte,rnooll; subject. Industrial Organisation." And in the evening will speak on Working Class Educa- tion," at the Picturedrome, commencing at ° o'clock sha.rp. It was decided to book R. C. Wallhead for October 20. He has a few evenings vacaflj from the 16th to the 22nd; we may as well keep him busy. The uual pile of letters was gone through- most of them being enquiries re soldier labour. The Carmarthen County Pensions Committee will meet on the 14th instant for the purpose of appointing officials and making other arr. rangements. Will all readers who have oi-dered Oraik 3 book be patient? When a mtan sets out to prinfr 80,000 words and sells the book at 6d. there i0" L sure to be trouble, but it will be ready soon. (