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THE TOAST OF "WALES." !

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THE TOAST OF "WALES." MBJ. WILLIAM JONES' ELOQUENT II SPEECH. An eloquent speech by Mr Wm. Jones, 1 M.P., was made, at the Fourteenth annual celerbation of St. David's Day at Gloucester. The orat'ion was keenly fol- lowed, and was frequently punctuated with applause. The Chairman, in calling upon Mr Jones, M.P., to propose the toast of "Wales," said that they as Welshmen re- siding in Gloucestershire had no greater honour to confer upon a fellow-country- man than to request him to submit that sentiment at their annual banquet. Mr Jones had had many distinguished pre- decessors in that pos'lttfuon, but hel could assure him that to none had they extend ed a more hearty welcome than they gave to him that evening-.—(Hear, hear.) His successful climb to fame! they had watch- ed with the very greatest pride and ad- miration, unmixed with any feelings save the desire to emulate. There was an aphorism—he thought it was by John Stuart. MijT.1—to the effect that experience tesdned that advantages like fortune and station scarcely ever did for the individual anything like, that which lay in the nature and capacity of the individual to do for himself. Mr Jones' career bore ample testimony, if it were needed, to the truth of that observation. No' amount of wealth, no high birth, could have done for him what his own tireless industry, strength of character, and force of in- tellect had done for the son of the Pen- mynydd farm.-(Appl,ause.) They all took a pride in Mr Jones' career, and they rejoiced to know that hitherto all he had found to do he had done well. They were sensible, of the very great distinction which his presence conferred on the ban- quet. They entertained the confident ex- pectation that, he would attain to a high position in the State, and they had no misgivings that, when he came into his power he would forget the necessities of the land of his birth and of his fathers.-— (Applause.) The toast of the evening, "Wales," was proposed by Mr William Jones, M.P., one of the most enthusiastic, and eloquent sons of the Principal'ity, in a speech—de- livered partly in English—which gave the greatest possible pleasure to all present, and was admitted upon all hands to be the finest oratorical enort that has been heard at any of the Gloucester oelebrar tions of St. David's Day. Mtr Jones com- menced by saying how delighted he was to be present, first for the sake of the Gloucester Weilsh Society, and, in the second place, on account of the admira- tion and respect which, he had for his friend Mr Rusell Rea, to whom he made the promise to attend. He was a great admirer, as they all were in the House of Commons, of Mr Russell R.ea, and he was delighted to be there! in his company.— (Applause.) After some humorous refer- ences to dietetic matters, and a story about mention of the historic Welsh rare- bit causing a lot of turbulent Welshmen to rush out of Paradise past St. Peter a.t the gate, the speaker plunged at once into his subject, and gave his hearers some historical facts about the Principality, with a passing allusion to, the harsh, coercive laws which at one time oppressed Welshmen. Whales, he remarked in pass- ing, was not an old nation, except from the antiquarian point of view. Welshmen were now just springing into a new life; to-day was the real time of Welsh renaissance. Wales had possessed its great individuals—men and women who were moved by the power of imagination —and now it was getting an organised in- tellect for the first time in its history, which would make its influence felt in the world around. With the organisation of culture, of education, and of thought, the imag'Ina.tion that belonged to the Celtic temperament and the sympathy which was kindled within it, We.lsh men and women would be able to produce creations in the world of music and in other spheres as they had done in the world of poetry and of action. Wales had had its period of great individuals. It had had, for ex- ample, its period of great, statesmen—not party politicians, but national' statesmen. He would name two of such statesmen only—men whose parallel could hardly be found, who were almost matchless in their times he referred to Llewellyn the Great and Owen Glyndwr. They would not have had the' land clauses in Magna Charta had it not ibeen for the power that LIeweTyn the Great had over the barons; and Owen Glyndwr—who, judged by the standard of some of the English chroniclers was- made to appear as un eivtilised—.also set before him a, great work for the benefit of the people. As far back as 1906, Owen Glyndwr (whose letter on the subject was in the National Library at Paris) asked for three things for the Welsh. They were Catholics then, and he sent a letter to the Pope through the King of France, asking that Wales should be recognised as a nation religiously that it should have an archbishop, that all the emoluments that went, to religion in Wales should be used for the purposes of Christianity in the Principality; and that Wales should have two Universities, one in the north and one in the south. There was a statesman, who, after freeing his people politically, sought, to nurture them intellectually, socrMly, morally, and re- ligiously.—(Applause.) It took them nearly nve hundred years before Owen Glyndwr's dreams were realised. But the time came when Wales and England be- gan to understand- each other better. Referring to some of the events of the Tudor dynasty, Mr Jones made mention of Queen Elizabth's attitude! towards Wales, and remarked that she never sent Englishmen to administer Welsh affairs. Elizabeth ad the gll"8Ia,tit of selecting her men in England as well as in Wales. Eivery bishop she appointed was a Welsh bishop—great men they were too, some of the greatest scholars of the time; and she, also compelled them by Act of Parlia- ment to give Wales a Bible—.the great classic of their tongue and one of the finest translations of it that bad been known.—(Applause.) After quoting some of .Shakespeare's references to Welsh characters, the speaker called attention to the picture in the British Museum of the funeral procession of Queen Elizabeth, in the front rank of which was to, be seen the father of the bouse of Cecil, the great secretary, bearing in his hand a banner, on which was emblazoned the R,ed Dragon of Wales. The Welshmen of that time were pro'ud of their nationality; they were proud to be Welshmen to-day.— (Applause.) In the interval they had a pretty feeble race now and again because they had people coming amongst, them who did not understand them as Queen Elizabeth and her father Henry VIII. did, with the result that they cringed and did not assert their intellectual powers. Welshmen were now united in the best bonds of Imperialism; they had helped to build this Empire, and they were proud of the fact. A unifying force had worked! and permeated through the social organism to bring Scotsmen,, Welshmen, and Englishmen together in one holy bond. It, was under the Tudors that that bond was stamped—the Tudors who were Welsh in blood and in imagination, and Imperial in thetir far-reaching tendencies and social policies. Welshmen had reason to be proud of the Tudors.—(Applause.) Still, it, was the individual who! worked— individuals here and there the individual poet and the individual statesman work- ing through an administration like that of the Tudorb. As a nation the Welsh had only one movement to teach them at various intervals. Sometimes it was a social movement, sometimes a, super- stitious movement, sometimes a military movement, and sometimes a, great re- ligious movement, which brought them o, all together. There was for example, the unifying influence of the well-nigh match- less Welsh hymnology; the, hymns of Williams, of Plantycelyn, were sung with acceptance by people of all rel'igjious creeds.—(Applause.) There was the period when the Welsh conscience was deepened, when Welshmen separated a bit from England and went back upon them- selves into a period of self-reference—. when they became more or less self- centred. It was the tjime when the, con- science of the Welshman was quietly cradled amongst the hills and valleys, to produce strong men and noble! women locally—manly men and womanly women; but the forces of the! Empire had been cut away from them. Some then talked about! Wales for the Welsh only, and looked upon the Saxons as aliens. That was time when the culture of a university education was denied the Welsh. Scots- men had been going ahead in the Empire, because they bad organised their intel- lectual forces centuries before Welshmen did. In Scotland they had both the free- I dom of reiligious and intellectual move- ments, and they were able to conquer the forces of the world. The Welsh tried to conquer the realms of imagination and of ideals—they became a great religious force, producing great preachers, teachers, singers, and hymnologists—they had a hymnology with which no country in the world could compete; but they had not got the organised intellect. It was now they were having that. They were not merely turning theiir best men into the pulpit, but were training them for the various intellectual moral and social struggles of modern times. They were educating men of business, and he ven- tured to say that if the names of twenty- five men were mentioned! as being amongst, the greatest captains of industry of this realm, the majority of them would be found to be Welshmen.—(Applause.) The Welshman had brought his imagination along with his other qualities into the world of anairsn and had come into touch with the business methods of Englishmen. When he (Mr Jones) first went to London, what struck him most as the great character of the English race was the great and commanding sense of duty. That was a tremendous gift. Welshmen had coma into contact with the English at the, universities and in business affairs, and were showing that they were able to hold their own. In some of the Hospitals in London it was no unusual thing for Scottish or English students on examining a list of successes to exclaim, "Hullo, it's that d———d Welshman agaiin; he's got it." —(Laughter.) Why was it? The ex- planation was that Welshmen had begun the process of organising their forces. They were not going to lose their imaginar tion in consequence, despite the sneer as to the sentimental, emotional, imaginative character of the Welshman.—(Hear, hear.) Welshmen were at, the same time going to keep the sentiment, imagina- tion, and passion, which were creative forces—they were forces of initiative and enterprise and alongside of them they w'ere going to create character forces; conspicuous amongst, which was a, moral sense of duty which would make their business clean and their motives healthy and pure.—(Applause.) What English- men and Scotsmen had done, Welshmen would also do, not wiith any jealous de- sire, but in the determination to work with them for the good of the Empire. As Welshmen from the Tudor period bad helped to build the Empire, so they were going to assist in maintaining it.—(Ap- plause.) What they wanted was more applied work; more executive power. Welshmen had the imagination; Wales had its poets, and the poet in the old Greek sense meant a, creator, a maker, a, mover, an inspired. They wanted to' keep up that spirit, and to use it in the busi- ness of life-to conquer Nature. Were there any young engineers or scientists present? He hoped that some day they would be able to go to' the dust, heaps and disused lead mines of South Wales and show, as the Germans had done, what could be accomplished in the eSective utilisation of by-products.—(Hear, hear.) The Germans had achieved success by bringing brain as well as brawn into their industrial concerns. Welshmen had brought brain and brawn into the, football

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THE TOAST OF "WALES." !