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The Pembroke County Guardian and Cardigan Reporter

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A NATIONAL AWAKENING.

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A NATIONAL AWAKENING. There appears to be little doubt that the country has at length got thoroughly waked up. At least there are manifest signs on every hand that a very general and a very thorough awakening is taking place. Pos- sibly there may be, and will remain, soli- tary backwaters here and there which no- thing will be able to stir below their sleepy surface or awake to a life abreast of the times. Such, of course, was to be expect- ed, and we must therefore be satisfied to see the general thought and energy of the country approaching the full tide that must make for success if well directed and con- trolled. Everything will, of course, de- pend on those factors. The country has always hitherto found the wisdom neces- sary to guide it through its crises, and there is every reason to hope that it will again rise to the occasion. Notwithstand- ing the fact that panic-stricken people have written and spoken in a style calculated to create panic, the nation as a whole has kept its head, and has faced the difficulties of the situation with equanimity and good temper. The difficulties here referred to are more especially those connected with our com- mercial position and outlook. For through all our late troubles these difficulties were undoubtedly the greatest, because they seemed to threaten the very source of our wealth and greatness. During the last three years, as never before, America and Germany appeared to be overhauling us, and making it look as though our commer- cial supremacy were going inch by inch and foot by foot. The worst blow of all was the Morgan combine. To many, and especially to many on the other side of the water, that act of financial mastery on the part of Americans, combined with what to a large number seemed to show a lack of patriotism on the part of Englishmen, was as another and a newer Dalenda est Carthago"—equivalent to "England must be destroyed. It struck the surface ob server as the more insiduous because it at- tacked us in such a vital part. We had so long sung and shouted, "We've got the ships, we've got the men, and we've got the money too," that it seemed as though nothing could touch us. And yet here was American money buying out our very ships! As for our men, we know that instead of being in the Navy to the extent of our re- quirements, good material has been left un- encouraged for years, past. However, as already said, common sense appears to be coming to the rescue. We hear much of a projected shipping combine, which, if it is not to eclipse the American one, should at least equal it. There is no reason why it should not outdo it. For we still possess more hoarded wealth than America, and if the Morgan syndicate has taken all our best Atlantic liners, that does not say that they are to ke3p the lead in regard to fast passages. We can still build ships, and there is nothing to prevent us from winning back the ocean record. If we aie incap- able of doing this our money will not be worth much. But it is not only in this direction that we see signs of a more wide-awake activity manifesting themselves. In almost every department of life we have similar eviden- ces of broadening views and keener intelli- gence. Take the article of Mr. H. B. M. Buchanan in the current-month's Temple Bar" on one phase of the agricultural question-a question which, along with that of our shipping, more nearly affects our well-being than any other. Mr. Bu- chanan is a landlord, and he discourses on the subject of how to keep the country la- bourers from rushing into the towns and there making life unendurable and well- nigh impossible. He, like many others, 'is 0 under the impression that the young and 0 vigorous seek the towns because of their life, movement, amusement, and intellec- tual activity. It is true that some seek the towns for these things, but it is wholly un- true as regards the majority. Men do not, as a rule, quarrel with their bread and but- ter, and if throughout the country labour- ers could enjoy such conditions of labour as Mr. Buchanan advocates, and describes as existing on his own esDate, they would soon be found speeding back to the country villages despite all the allurements of city slums. Besides wages varying from 14s. to 17s. a week, with, in many cases, free cottages, the men have good gardens, and keep pigs and poultry. Many of them also obtain some good ground from the farmer rent free, "If these men could loek forward to investing their sav- ings in stocking a I farm-cottage holding,' they would gladly put up with the dulness of the country." That they un- T doubtedly would And farmers and land- owners need only offer such inducements I to labour, and they will speedily put an I end to a danger that threatens the very existence of the nation. J The halfpenny evening press of course made the most of the Kind's indisposition, and for a brief space on Monday London was really alarmed, and this alarm extend- ed to the remotest parts of t'le provinces. But when it was announced that His Ma- jesty had wisely decided not to attend the review, but was, at the very moment the alarmist rumours gained currency, on his way back to Windsor by road, public ex- citement subsided. That the King should have taken a chill and that he was suffer- ing from lumbago is not in itself remark- able. Probably no man of all his myriad subjects has had to work at higher pressure than he, during the past week or two, and exposure to the rigours of this remarkable June has been, in his case, inevitable. We can only hope that between this and the great ceremonial the weather may mend, or, if it does not, that our Sovereign will be spared as much out-door ceremonial as possible. mi There really has been another Pretoria conspiracy, it appears, and a very serious one. Forty or fifty persons were involved. The plan was to murder Lord Kitchener and other British officers, to destroy the Courts of Justice and all other public build- ings in Pretoria, and, under cover of the confusion, to release the Boer prisoners in the "cage" adjoining the town. If the plot had been successful, the war might have been indefinitely prolonged, and a feeling of extreme bitterness again have divided Boer and Briton. But it appears from the scanty accounts which have come through that the conspiracy was not hatch- ed by Boers, but by foreigners, who, ow- ing to some inexplicable laxity, had been allowed to return to Pretoria. It is this foreign element in the population of the Transvaal which has been its greatest dan- ger. French and German adventurers, perhaps even more than the Hollander offi- cials, were responsible for egging on the Boers to war, and for implanting in their minds the belief in "intervention." We may learn to conciliate the Boers and make good subjects of them, but the foreign ele- ment will probably never be conciliated it will be a perpetual source of difficulty and danger. Assuredly, whilst the Trans- vaal is under Crown government, at any rate, some steps ought to be taken to res- trict such undesirable immigration.

---___.---_._---__-CLYNDERWEN.

SOL VA.

ST. DAYI D'S.

CASTLEMORRIS.

PENCAER.

DINAS CROSS.

GOODWICK.

BETHABARA.

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