The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard

NATIONAL DANGERS. WHATEVER else may be said about the general election, it is absolutely clear I that the country has not changed its opinion since last January and that, notwithstanding all the abuse which has been heaped upon the Government, and especially upon the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, they still have the confidence of the people and are trusted by them. Reforms must follow. The Second Chamber will be reconstituted in ways which will get rid of its per- manent Conservative character, and of its dominating heredity, and of its much-abused power to veto the decisions of the House of Commons. The people claim the right to rule themselves even if they are Liberals and if they rule themselves badly, that is their own concern and not the con- cern of the hereditary peers. Dis- establishment will be given to Wales, and thus one of the greatest causes of hate and bitterness in the Principality will be removed. We know that Bis- hops talk as if the Establishment were the Church and as if the Church were religion, but it is neither. There can be the Church without Establishment and there can be religion without the Church. Once Wales is given dises- tablishment there will cease to be that general political one-sidedness which now exists owing to the legal status of the clergy and the sense of inferiority which the State Church forces with a good deal of arrogance upon Noncon- formists. Wales is as ripe for dises- j tablishment and disendowment as the four nations are ripe for a justly con- stituted Second Chamber. Home Rule in some form will be sought to be given to Ireland. This is in our opinion the most difficult task that lies before the Government. Ire- land is not going to have the right to manage its own affairs and still take part in managing the affairs of the other three nations. Nor is Ireland going to have separation. That Home Rule in some form will have to be given to the four nations is aertain, as the House of Commons is now little more than a sort of glorified local governing body. It is absurd that Parliament should have to spend time in making local laws and .sim^rvf.smp" Incnl admini. give Ireland Home Rule, but whether it will be possible to give a measure that will satisfy Ireland and yet pre- serve the unity of the Kingdom nobody knows. 'It may be that an Imperial Parliament will be formed for the Government of the United Kingdom and the Colonies and that there will be four National Parliaments in which, of course, there would be no colonial members. The great task would be to decide what is national legislation, what colonial, what imperial, and what United Kingdom. If the Irish Nationalists were reasonable a solution might be found, but they are not reasonable, and the probabilities are that in the end the Liberal Government will bring in an Irish Home Rule Bill which the Nationalist members nor the Conservatives will accept. The result will be, sooner or later, that an appeal to the country will be made. The Bill, probably, will be condemned. The Conservatives would then come into office and 'Irish Home Rule will be in- definitely postponed, not because Liberals are opposed to Home Rule, but because England, Scotland, and Wales are opposed to the separation of Ireland from the United Kingdom. Home Rule is a hard subject. One of the greatest and most serious dangers which general elections reveal is the indifference of the people in reference to national affairs. How widespread this indifference is may be realised to some extent by the clap- trap resorted to by all political parties in order to win seats by trailing political red herrings before the people. Just as in local affairs there is hopeless and irremovable apathy, so in imperial affairs there is the same sort of apathy only, perhaps, more profound and hopeless. The tricks resorted to by all political parties to attract to their side voters who have given no attention to the subjects at issue are a gross insult to the people. There is unrest among the masses-dangerous and growing- unrest-but those who might reduce that unrest, or altogether re- move it, have their own game to play. The Lords are busy upholding their hereditary privileges, and after the manner of their kind they never realise the danger of revolutionary out- breaks until they are in process. The clergy are engaged defending the Church and the Establishment; and are far too absorbed to realise that the millions who are not identified with churches are going their silent, gloomy Z" way to goals that mean widespread trouble. The well-to-do Conservative, who never in his life knew what it meant to be short df food, proposes to put taxes on bread. He does not see the danger of taxed food. He could no more live on three or four shillings a week, as millions of the poor have to live, than he could jump up and catch hold of the moon. We are not going to enlarge on the danger of taxed food just now, for tariff reform is in a very crippled condition, but it will probably revive again and bring about the same sort of trouble in the end that it is breeding in France and Germany. The excessive expenditure on arma- ments in this and other countries is a threatening danger. The people see what is going on, but they are, for the most part, dumb. Some day there will be action sudden as a thunderbolt. The election which is now over, shows one thing, namely, that nobody knew that the electors, taking them alto- gether, had not changed their mind during the past year, and that the decision given at the polls last January was not a sort of Liberal spasm which had passed away. Not- withstanding- all that has been said against the Government, the people are still with them, and we believe that on this occasion there is behind their support a threat which it would be wed for Conservatives to realise the signi- ficance of. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER has the ear of the people. He has spoken on many occasions with great plainness. He is understood when he speaks, and if the meaning of the election is pretended by Conserva- tives not to be of consequence, then there may be work in future greater and -more serious than the reconstitu- tion of the House of Lords. Strong party politicans should never forget that to nineteen-twentieths of the population of these nations it does not matter two straws whether they live under a monarchy, or a republic, or despotism. The form of Government, is nothing to them. If there was a revolution to-morrow, they have nothing to gain and nothing to lose. Why do Conservatives provoke national unrcst which can mean nothing but disaster, to them?

THE CURSE OF CON SUMPTION. NEXT Monday evening, at the Pavilion, Aberystwyth, as will be seen by an advertisement in another part of the paper, an important public meeting will be held to further promote the Welsh National Memorial Movement to the late KING EDWARD. The chief promoter of this national memorial is Mr. DAVID DAVIES, M.P., who will be present at the meeting. The object of the promoters is to do whatever is deemed to be likely to reduce and, if possible, to stamp out consumption in Wales. It is agreed that the curse of consumption is more common in Wales than in any other of the three nations of the United Kingdom. It is not difficult to find the conspicuous reasons for this lamentable state of things. First of all, many people look upon consump- tion as a sort of divinely appointed disease which leads to inevitable death. This view of the disease gives rise to something like hope- Z, lessness and despair. There is little faith that consumption can be cured and scarcely any effort is made to avoid it. People live in damp, ill- ventiiated cottages they work in lead mines they have an inbred dread of ventilation they live surrounded by insanitary conditions they drink impure water, and rather like it. For some weeks we have been trying to induce elementary education authorities to provide schools with proper priv ies, pure water supplies, adequate drain- age, facilities to enable children to drv their clothes, and to keep the schools clean. It does not require anv great degree of mental insight to realise that children who are forced to walk miles through drenching rain to schools and then have to stand in their wet clothes until they dry, are in danger of con- tracting the beginnings of consump- tion. Children ought not to be forced to go unprotected through heavy rain to school. We ask our readers whether there is not urgent need for bringing home to the people of Wales. influence who do not believe in this, that, or the other method of dealing with consumption. W'e are no judges of the courses that ought to be pursued in dealing with the disease. Our case is that a determined effort, identified with the memory of the late KING, is being made to grapple with consump- tion, and already a sum of nearly a hundred and eighty thousand pounds has been secured towards the three hundred thousand pounds required. A great deal of good is being done already by awakening the interest of the people in the subject. Local governing bodies are beginning to move, and long before any buildings are erected, or any scheme is in work- ing- order, hundreds of lives will have been saved. Mr. DAVID DAVIES is not likely to slacken in his efforts to make the mem- orial a financial success and to make the KING EDWARD Sanatoria one of the greatest national institutions in the Principality. How an additional sum of a hundred and twentv-five thousand pounds is to be obtained we do not know, but then we do not know how the sum of a hundred and seventy-six thousand pounds, already secured has been obtained. The obvious difficulty is to keep public interest alive. Again, the people are poor. Local- governing bodies ought for many reasons to financially help a great scheme of this kind, but our readers know alas, that absolutely necessary works are left un- done, to the peril of the people, in order to avoid increased public expenditure. The late KING'S Welsh memorial will certainly be carried to a successful conclusion, and the work might be done speedily if there were six or eight working centres in each county. Notwithstanding the energy of Air. DAVID DA\ IES, the work is too I I I great ior one individual, however energetic. What is wanted, and perhaps some of the speakers on Monday night will give the need attention, is to show the people that the scheme is not only feasible from a financial point of view, and is just the sort of memorial that will crown the life work o'f a self-sacri- ficing monarch, but is also a scheme for giving health and securing life to thousands of the people of Wales. It is the realisation of personal interest in the scheme that is needed to bring about united and enthusiastic action. From time to time the question is asked what is to be done, and how it is to be done, and where. The average person is not able to make much of an idea. He wants something that he can see. The idea must be embodied, how- ever crudely. What we feel is that more may be already accomplished than has yet been made public in the way of plans for the sanatoria, just as some- body must know more than has been made public about the large sum already subscribed. It was suggested not long ago to us that a large tract of ground would be secured in some healthy, elevated, and sparsely-populated dis- trict where all that is best would be provided for dealing with consumption. From the speeches delivered up to the present time there have been no indi- cations of anything like a great home, of this kind for the scientific treatment of this kind for the scientific treatment of consumption. Again, it is sug- gested that part of the scheme will be to instruct the people from one end of Wales to the other how to avoid the beginnings of consumption. As far as we can judge from what has been said, the scheme is to have many sides and more embodiments than one, but what they are nobody seems to know. If local governing bodies were fullv alive to their duties and respon- sibilities, a great deal could be easilv done to achieve the end which the memorial scheme has in view. Perhaps the managers of the project will do something to bring sanitary neglect, and especially neglect to provide houses fit for habitation, to the notice of public bodies. At present the people are slain by the thousand by the ignorance and neglect of bodies entrusted with the health and lives of the people. If the death-rate of Wales could be reduced by only two per thousand inhabitants a year, the saving of life would be enormous. It is a very great work that Mr. DAVID DAVIES has undertaken, a work that demands intelligence on the part of public bodies which has not been con- spicuous for the past forty years in dealing with insanitation, which is admitted to be one of the great causes of the Welsh curse of consumption. The Aberystwyth meeting will be an important one, and as consumption is more prevalent in Cardiganshire than in any other county in Wales it is to be hoped that whatever help can be given will be given so as to increase the force to the great movement.

PEERS AND PEOPLE. FOR the third time the people of the United Kingdom have definitely affirmed their faith in the present Liberal Government, and there must now be an end once for all of Conser- vative attempts to get rid of the judg-1 ment of the electors by forced general elections. The Government r,, u st forthwith ins.ist and will insist on embodying the Voice of the people in legislation that will get rfd of the Veto of the House of Lords* that will give Home Rule not only to Ireland, but to the other three nations of the United Kingdom; that will give to Wales the disestablishment and dis-! endowment of the Church of England in the Principality and that will secure the people from taxed food. Mr. BALFOUR says that he does not want to make the food of the people dearer, but surely a tax on bread will make it dearer. If not, why is a tax wanted? Mr. BALFOUR? and the whole of the Conservative Opposition, may take it for granted that the masses of the people of this country will* not tolerate a tax on bread they know what dear food means, and they are not such fools as to think that a tax of from ten to fourteen shillings a quarter on wheat will not make bread dearer. Conservatives sav that thev only want a tax of two shillings. The Z" sum of two shillings is only a start. The Conservative desire for a gen- eral election has been keen ever since last January., It was believed that the Liberal majority could not only be wiped out, but that a working Con- servative majority could be secured. That belief has been shown to be without foundation The Liberal majority has been maintained, and for the third time the People have declared their faith in the Government. There wiil not be another general election until the Government's term of office expires by lapse of time, unless some I jjrave crisis arises. The Conservative -4 all sorts of high and mighty persons w H have to take back seats. Just think of Mr. and Mrs. LLOYD GEORGE having the preference of dukes and duchesses The idea is intolerable to the aristocratic mind, but the fact is there and cannot be got rid of. Then the Budgets, and the Lords' Veto, and Home Rule, and Welsh Disestablish- ment. How much better it would have been for the Lords to have swallowed a ittle of their pride and arrogance. it is no use trying to persuade the People that Mr. LLOYD GEORGE is unlit for his high position. The Liberal victory at the polls, after a year's trying experience, is Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S victory. He has won all round, and his Budgets are in success- ful force to-dan- to the advantage of I ZZ!1 I the masses of the poor in each of the four nations. There has been something very shabby in the way leading Conserva- tives have tried to shuffleout of their responsibility for the election which is now drawing to a close to the increased strength and credit of the Government. With a majority of a hundred and twenty-two, there was no reason why the Government should again appeal to the country. There was a veto con- ference, and it failed. No doubt the understanding between both sides was that if the conference failed there was no other course open but to refer the question to the electorate whether the Peers or the People should rule. The question has been referred and answered in a way that precludes the possibility of even suggesting that the country is fickle and has changed its mind. Every member of the Govern- ment has been re-elected. The majority is practically the same as it was a year ago. The confidence of the People is unshaken, and we believe that this confidence will be justified in ways that will force the Conservative Party to reform and amend its prin- ciples and tactics. The way Conser- vatives have been forced to abandon tariff reform has been comical in its thoroughness. Even the Lords were willing in some degree to abandon heredity as a qualification for a seat in the Second Chamber. The sort of Lib- eral that Sir J. D. REES professed to be in the Montgomery Boroughs was seen through from the start, and he was forced to go. What is true of him is true of others. The rank and file of the People do not believe in political twicers. There are more ways than one of looking- at public ques- tions, and there is a great difference between the views of the rich and the poor on almost all great national ques- tions. Nobody objects to this differ- ence of view. It is inevitable. We do not espect the Marquis of LONDON- DERRY, or the Bishop of ST. ASAPH, or a multi-millionaire to see political and national life as we see it. Our atti- tudes are different, our experiences are different. WThat we want is altogether different. The only course possible between widely-diverging sections of the people is compromise-realisation of differences-toleration. It is when we come to the extremists on both sides that the real trouble begins. The average citizen cannot be' deceived. He knows the screaming Tory who is represented by certain dishonest and unscrupulous papers. He also knows the wild-cat Socialist who wants everything divided, except what he possesses himself. Further, he knows the rich man who has never looked into the eyes of hungry children and wondered where the next scanty meal was to come from. We do not know anything that is more humiliating than a general election such as we have just gone through. The way the ignor- ance and apathy and indifference of the people are played upon is dread- ful. Yet deep down below the surface the people see and comprehend. They know in calm, sullen, silent ways that if thino-s come to a head, force-sheer force-is with them. In the large district where this paper mainly circulates we do not leave the discussion of public questions until a dissolution of Parliament is announced. NVeek by week and year by year we keep parliamentary work and workers before the public, so that when the time comes men like Sir J. D. REES clear out on their own initiative, and men like Mr. VAUGHAN DAVIES, Mr. HAYDN JONES, Mr DAVID DAVIES, Mr LLOYD GEORGE, Mr. WILLIAM JONES, Mr. ELLIS DAVIES, and others are practically unassailable. It may take the rank and file of the people a long time to reach true decisions on complex questions, but they reach them in the long run, and act upon them if needs be with fierce and bloody thoroughness. As far as we can judge, the Conservative Party does not realise how just beneath the in- dustrial and political surface there are forces—intellectual forces-which did not exist half a century ago. The wild-cat Socialist represents some- thing, just as the hereditary peer represents something, and in a final fight the wild-cat Socialist, if not too premature, would win. We are sorry for Mr. BALFOUR. He knows what many of those who acknowledge his leadership do not know. The signi- ficance of the present election is not h;dden from him, and although he may talk about something else he sees the danger that exists in many directions. The conditions of national life arc altering rapidly, and the walled-in peer and the secluded ecclesiastic can no longer tell the starving or discon- tented workman that his unrest is con- trary to the will of GOD. The passing election has been interesting. Its results will be far-reaching. The position of the Government has been greatly strengthened, and whatever is necessary to be done will have to be done or there will be trouble that no appeal to the electors can settle. They have recorded their will and there can be no doubt whatever as to the nature of the decision.

EDITORIAL NOTES. In the recent London University B.A. examinations, where are the; Cardiff and Bangor Colleges compared with the Univer- sity College of Wales, Aberystwyth ? We see by an almanac of the prophetic sort that Mr. LLOYD GEOHGE is in danger of being swayed by Mars. We presume this means that he is going to fight the Lords. In 1849 there were rather more than sixty-two paupers for every thousand of the population in England and Wales. This year there are about twenty-five for every thousand. In 1849 there were 1,088,659 paupers who cost P,5 792 963 Now there are 925,435 paupers^ and they Barmouth has the lowest death-rate ire the county of Merioneth, and the lowest birth-rate. W lien Parliament re-assembles who will take the. place of Sir J. D. REES in asking absurd questions? 11 Conservatives who for twelve months have been yeli.ng for a general election say that it is futile now that they have got it. It is iutiie from a Conservative point of vieiv, hut then why did they want it? Bala has the highest death-rate in Merionethshire. It is dangerous to make. the statement as the inhabitants get angry. Bala is a very learned and religious place, but for sanitation it is not worth men- tioning. The Junior Liberals of Wales publish once a month a sort of magazine which contains about as much matter as there is in five or six columns of this paper. One of the very junior articles is on the "Revival of the Welsh Language" in English! The chastened tone of the "Western Mail" since the Conservative chance of winning a majority at the polls dis- appeared has been quite soothing. The papd has only had one real scream, and that was when a Conservative won at Cardiff. Mi. ORMSBY GonE has been re-elected, member of the Denbigh Boroughs by nine votes. He won by eight votes at the previous election. We politically wish he- had been defeated, but are personally glad he has been returned. He is able and, we, think, will win a position in Par- liament. We would have been glad if he could have got a seat somewhere else. One cf the great comforts of the elec- tion, now about over, is that the results from day to day have been of such a nature as to prevent the delirious scream- ing of the sillier sort of Conservative papers. The "Daily Chronicle," a London Liberal paper, has befooled itself pretty well in gM-and gush. Speaking at a Conservative meeting, at Rhuddlan, Lord MOSTYN said that Mr. LLOYD GEORGE was fond of listening to the debates in the House of Lords, and they might see him there one day as Viscount CIUCCIETH. The Commons cannot spare him. Besides, by the time there is a "Lord GEORGE" his title will not give him a seat in the House of Lords. He is going to see to that straight away. It is too soon yet for Conservatives to decide when tariff reform is to be resur- rected. Tlie "Morning Post" has never given way, but has hugged the dead thing to its breast with passionate faith. We like the Morning Post's" hopeless Conser- vatism. It is real Conservatism, not mere screeching against the other side. A coffin-making company in Birmingham has not been able to pay a dividend owing to the fact that people are not dying quickly enough. This really is a dying industry. How would the upholders of the Minority .Report of the Poor Law Com- mission meet this deplorable case? That wretched Welsh Church Commis- sion report, now it has been published, is in disgrace, and there is talk of its being with- drawn. Why withdraw the report or make any more bother about it? Everybody is quite satisfied that it is not worth any- thing. Wales intends to have disestablish- ment and the Church of England does not intend to have disestablishment, and there is the whole subject. There never was such a muddle and it only now seems to be really beginning. The Duke of DEVONSHIRE, in a speech at Lancaster, admitted that the House of Commons must prevail in the long run, and if any changes were made in the Con- stitution he should be ready to return to the House of Commons where he sat for seventeen years. He says that Conserva- tives now desire to abolish the hereditary principle. When the hereditary principle is abolished, peers will have to be eligible for seats in the House of Commons. There is no immediate danger of taxed bread in this country. In Germany the tax on a quarter of wheat is lis. lOd.; in France, 12s. 2d.; in Italy, 13s. 2d. In Germany the price of wheat per quarter is 42s. 8d.; in France, 48s. 7d. in Italy, 47s. Id. In the United Kingdom, where there is no tax, the price of wheat is 31s. 3d. Tariff reformers say that they only want a tax of two shillings a quarter on wheat. That tax would only be the thin end of the wedge, and they are not going to get that. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S return for the Carnarvon Boroughs by an increased majority shows that the electors of that constituency are quite satisfied with their member and with his budgets and with his schemes for the Lords. Mr. AUSTEN JONES has fought the CHANCELLOR and has had the honour of being well beaten by him. The fact will count in his obituary notice, however long it may be delayed. We think the advertisement is worth all that it will cost, The Bishop of WORCESTER, in a recent speech, referring to the House of Lords, said: The present issue is really one as "to whether the country needs for its "sanity the existence of a calm, judicial, "and independent Second Chamber." That is not the issue. Everybody agrees that what is wanted is a judicial and inde- pendent Second Chamber. The issue is whether hereditary peers, sane or insane, shall have a right to sit in the Second Chamber, and whether the Second Chamber shall be permanently Conserva- tive, no matter what the country is That there should be extreme National- ists in Ireland, extreme Disestablishers in Wales, extreme Socialists in England and elsewhere, are facts which prove that the government of the country is seriously wrong. The national system of dealing with the four nations is wrong. The people have no power over their own affairs. We are sure that the wrongs of Ireland could be redressed in ways that would make Ireland a happy and prosper- ous part of the United Kingdom. At present Conservatives speak of Ireland as if it did not count in the national and imperial life. In Wales the Church Establishment divides the people and pre- vents that peace and equality which relig- ion, at any rate, ought to foster. The hereditary power cf the Lords keeps wild- cat Socialism in active life all through the country. There are great problems before the country and they will have to be effec- tively dealt with in some way that is im- possible under the present system, which is so imperfect that even defective laws can- not be amended. Municipalities have to spend thousand's of pounds in obtaining II