Welsh Newspapers

Search 15 million Welsh newspaper articles

Hide Articles List

8 articles on this Page

fTIPYN o BOB PETH.". I

News
Cite
Share

fTIPYN o BOB PETH. I E'WL DO NOT KICBSSARILX SitARE THE OPIMON8 DIPRISSED I bs warrtas IN sbie OOLuux.3 I Cheery optimists from the Gormen district .,t¡t.tÉ that, without any ostentation or unneces- sary- puffing, arrangements are being push ■ ed "steadily forward that, when completed, should'result in making the National Eistedd- fod of 1919 one of the most noteworthy of the series. Whlit it-lacks in point of size-and, in the very nature. of things, preparations can- cot be made on, the same extensive scale as in more populous centres—it may be relied upon to atone for in quality and. above all, it appears to be the intention of the. author- ities7- to make it. in every sense of the word, i;- t'rulr Welsh festival. There has been some little "disposition, at some eisteddfodau- that it is scarcely, necessary to mention, to get sliglitlv Off. the lines in this respect; and the desire to break down the partition walls, so to speak, with a view to meeting bi-lingual susceptibilities, is not altogether to be con- demned. At the same time the fact should I be kept constantly in mind that the Eisteddfod is a distinctly Welsh institution, and. in this fact, 1" to be found one of the chief tions, for its continued existence. To change its complexion, so "to speak, by too large an infusion of bi-lingualism, and all that the term implies, is a very dangerous experiment; and it-is one against which the Corwen author- ities are resolutely setting their faces. By doing so they will render it all the more in- teresting and attractive to English visitors. » • Just now the cheery optimists of Corwen are discovering additional grounds for exercising their optimism* from whatever standpoint the present position of the war-weary world is regarded, there is no doubt peace is in the air.- There may. yet be a long stretch of the dtearv road-to traverse but, be this as it may, theiglimmerings of the dawn are commencing to show, and there is a growing feeling abroad that next year may witness a world at peace. No one would be bold enough to prophesy on the subject; but the almost universal— and it is growing—sense of assurance on the point, is a very happy augury. And if the National Eisteddfod of 1919, is to be held to the accompaniment of the national paeans of rejoicing that will accompany the world's emergence from its long period of travail, Corwen must be prepared to rise to the occa- sion; and, may it be stated without any dis- paragement of all that can and will be done locally, Welsh assistance must be poured out ungrudgingly, from far and near, North and South, in order to make the Eisteddfod of 1919 worthy of the epoch-making events which will be associated with it. The splendid achievement of Welsh troops in the great war, the numbl-riess other directions in which the nation emerges from the struggle with en- hanced lustre, are matters upon which Welsh attention may be finely focussed next vear; and, because of this, the opportunity may be ¡ unparalleled. I < w It is quite true that the Eisteddfod is de- signed, above all else, to foster th^ kindly arts of peace. Had the -great lessons which, year after year, it seeks to inculcate, acquired uni- versal sway, there could have been no war to set'back the clock of human progress. Never- theless war hath its triumphs as wellas I peace, and these the Eisteddfod may worthily recognize. It is good to find, from the Cor- wen programme, evidences of in intelligent anticipation of events. For example, one of the chief prizes in the literary section is for an .essay on A Lea.gue of Nations as an or- ganisation for preventing War," This, in the light of recent controversies and discus- sions, .should produce most interesting results. Again the subject of the chair poem is the Prophet," and what immeasurable possibil- ities of inspiration such a theme must suggest to the bard at the present juncture, hampered, it may be, by a sagacious waiting upon events to the very last moment, before getting down to the spade-work of composition. Then the prize offered for an essay on the Contribu- tions of Wales to the British Empire" should prove the least of the incentives to the "literati" of i-he Cynirv, to "let themselves go on a subject. that, supplemented by the glorious chapters of the last few years, should prove wonderfully alluring. There are many other directions from which the Corwen festi- val ma.y acquire & martial ring; but over all and above all—and this is a hope .increasingly entertained loca.Uy the. attendance of Mr. Ltoyd, George would make its success assured. 10 resident in the area over which the LI an- j golien Rural Council has jurisdiction states j that he has been much interested-by what he terms the modern counterpart of the cry from Mesopotamia addressed by the District to the Urban Authority. The former is with- J out a surveyor and, in their dilemma their clerk wrote from Corwen requesting the latter to place the services of Mr. John Hughes, their official, at their disposal for a short period in order that necessary and pressing works should be attended tõ. The Urban Council are not able to oblige—they have their hands full at present-and the correspondent is curious to know what has happened. But be is more than curious he is suggestive; and his suggestion is that the Rural District Coun- cil might, at any rate for the time being, find » wav out of their difficulty by approaching Mr. John Williams, of Corwen, who for forty rears, acted as sanitary inspector to the au- thority, "who knows every inch of the dis- trict," and is perfectly familiar with its Re- quirements, and who vacated the position some years back, because the authority made I, it a condition of his not regularly filling up a series of forms in, connection with the Housing and Town Planning Act that have never since been heard of and which he did not consider necessar"y. There are several matters of im- portance—such as the provision of a water supply for Upper Garth and sewage problems tbsi require to be attended to; and the know- ledge that the services of an old official may be available, at any rat6 appears to justify the suggestion that ne should be approached. A" Council without a sanitary inspector is, from the point of view of efficiency, in a slightly more anomalous position than a sani- tary inapector without a council, in these tines when .skilled-labour is so difficult to obtain.. It A good deal of feeling il being engendered at Llangollon, in common with other places I throughout North Wales, by the increase in ttje price of miik, and local vendors come in for perhaps a little more than: their fair shase ofaboae. What the average c^tumaer ap- pears ullltblei grasp is that it should be necessary to put up prices at all; but a local dealer, whose views on the matter were-solic- ited the other day, states that so far as he is concerned, and he thinks he voices the views of the Llangollen traders is that, even with the increase, milk-selling is not a paying pro- position. This, of course, is all tosh. Is it" credible that farjners, with quite considerable- holdings, would go round in the winter I months, from door to door; selling-milk unless ¡ there was a good margin of profit: something I more than the fourpence a gallon costemplat- ed by the department. Like most, farmers, my. informant adva-nces the increased cost in the price of cows as an argument to support the higher prices oblivious of the fact thai (,P,nr- don the metaphor) he puts the cart before the horse. The price of milk controls the price of the cow, not the cow the price of the milk, j As a matter of fact the only sane solution j would appear to be, the adoption of a flat-rate J in prices for the whole of North Wales, as I. recently suggested at Rhyl, though, even then, under existing conditions, it is scarcely con- ceivable that IJfmgoden'would be ony better off. Consumers should bear this in mind. awra Gr.T. q. I

LOCAL WEDDINGS, I I

I MONTGOMERY. -(

[No title]

BORDER NEWS IN BRIEF. 1

[No title]

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

OSWESTRY. I'