South Wales Weekly Post

For all Classes of Printing Work At Moderate Prices WRITE OR CALL AT THE OFFICES OF THE SOUTH WALES DAILY POST WHE E SAMPLES CAN BE INSPECTED AND LOWEST QUOTATIONS OBTAINED.

The first step towards the accomplish- ment of a necessary and highly desirable work has been taken in the resolution unam- mously adopted by the Parliamentary and General Purposes Committee of the Swan- sea Council, asking Mr. D. Rhys Phillips, the Welsh librarian, to search the customs records of the port for extracts of historical value and public interest. By some over- sight on the part of the departmental autho- rities these records, extending back to 1700, instead of being transferred periodically to London, have been left at Swansea, and consist of about fifty large books, nearly all full of entries in writing. The proportions of the task and its difficulties may be roughly gauged from the fact that Mr. Phillips spent over 30 hours in deciphering the text of one volume. Public documents relating to customs and excise are not as a rule made easily accessible either to the student or the public, but in this instance the influence of Mr. A. T. Davies, the chief of the Welsh Department of the Board of Education—whose readiness to assist Swan- sea has been repeatedly manifested-was en- listed, and through him the permission was obtained from the Commissioners to enable Mi. Phillips to make his researches. These records, covering a period of more than two centuries, including the stormy eighteenth and the Napoleonic period, will doubtless furnish matter of great historical value bearing on more than one phase of human activities in Swansea and the ad- joining ports. More particularly between 1700 and 1815, when the fall of Napoleon eliminated the more tragic and thrilling ele- ments in preventative work. Conjointly with municipal records and other contribu- tions of an unofficial character, they will pro- vide the material for a tolerably full and authentic history of Swansea during the past two hundred years. For evidence earlier than 1700 we shall have to rely chiefly upc n the mass of books, documents, and deeds cast together in higgledey-piggledey fashion in the Corporation archives. The classifi- cation of these, the extraction from them of the secrets and information they hold, will be another and a more ambitious and costly work. Cardiff twenty years ago spent £ 800 • in codifying its municipal records; some- what earlier the Swansea Council paid B600 for reproducing, under the direction of Col. Richardson, in a hundred luxuriously printed and bound copies, the charters of the borough. Bat the warp and woof with which the story of old Swansea may be woven have been left uncared for and in disorder in the basement of the Guildhall. It is fttll tiinf. iagiA. thii y tiaasuiv- "Tiamb^r were made to yield tip its riches. The history of Swansea has yet to be written, and patient research is a .L. rendition precedent to its production. Local patriotism calls imperatively for action to lernove a distinct reproach. And national patriotism is equally involved since it is only by means of the fruits of local research in corporate towns and in counties that the liistcrian of Wales can achieve his purpose. It is a reflection upon the various Cymric Societies engaged in fostering the idea of nationalism that whilst glorifying the I past deeds of the race, they have been content with the most vague and un- satisfactory evidence relating thereto, and have failed to realise the importance of verifying their conclusions and of, stimu- lating research which alone can yield authen- # tic history and equip even the poet and the potential writer of historical romances with the means whereby both can use their gifts for the national advantage. If dour John Knox secured a long start for his countrymen in the race for success by giving Scotland an efficient education system in advance of any other part of the kingdom, it was Walter Scott, the magician, working with the ptndent, who so idealised the Scots that material gathered by the researches of the th- world was induced to yield them a pre- ferential position. I We have suffered, an d are still suffering, I, because outside opinion has not been influ- enced by the presentation of the true story of a small nation's achievements in thc- enhere of heroic action, for the reason that the historian has been lacking to furnish the solid ground-work of fact and the inspiration to the romance writer who. when all has been said that "an be said, is still the determining factor in the world's measure and conception of any particular race or people. Let Swansea worthily play its part in helping to make good the omission.

The bouth African crisis is the latest manifestation of a peculiar form of social digturbance which has affeoted in recent years Hungary, Sweden, France, Queene- land and New Zealand; of which the salient feature has been in each case the resistance a offered by the public, or by the Government acting for it, to action taken by a body of I workers—not necessarily in State employ- n-ent--whioli has produced the result of seri- ously inconveniencing or endangering public interests. That is the characteristic that differentiates it from the railway and coal- field strikes in Great Britain, where the • Government sought to bring the trouble toi an end by negotiation or legislation. In Hungary and France the State invoked military powers to force the railwaymen to re- jume; in Sweden and the Australasian cases .—as in Leeds a few days ago—the pubhc (ueraaJly the farmers) intervened to assist in conducting the transport services that had been arrested. In South Africa this fea- ture repeats itself. The railwaymen, who are in State employment, have refused to obey the decision, of the Government that in I the interests of coonomy a certain number of them must be dismissed. They seek to force the Government to accept their opin- ions upon the necessity for retrenchment. To compel obedience and vindicate its author- ity, the Government, instead of pointing to its majority of votes in Parliament and in- sisting that the will of the people must prevail, calls in the aid of force. Sixty (thousand armed citizens were mobilised a few days ago they are still more numerous to-day. A series of measures whose stern vigour fcould not be surpassed in Russia, Germany II W the United States, has been adopted. people in the vicinity of railways or pubKo .bujldin must throw up their hands when bi11enged, or may be shot on the spot. Death is the penaJty for illegal possession tvf dynamite. Political meetings, picket- ing, the use of epithets like "scab" and Maokleg are interdicted. And it is the people themselves—and not professional in- termediaries, t-oldiers, and police.who have flocked to arms to support the Government, and have sunk racial and political differ- ences. It is a very considerable proportion the entire adult manhood of South Africa —whose population is only 1,300,000 white people of all ages and both sexers-W Inch has slung the familiar bandolier and rifle over its shoulders and ridden into Johan- nesburg to picket the railway lines, under Do Wet and Delarey, and other3--mell, once household words, who have emerged from a more or less pacific obscurity in strange circumstances. As there is behind the strikers a Labour party, holding pro- nounced and advanced views, the most sin- ister possibility that the situation contained ib that of a species of Communist rising at Johannesburg, for it is on all hands recog- nised that it is trifling with the importance of the question to regard the grave crisis as an ordinary affair of industrial disputes. The measures taken by the Goivemmient are condemned by the strikers and their s ympathise-rs as provocative. The Gov- ernment and its supporters terrri them precautionary, and point to the consd)die;rab le turbulent and larwliess claiss upon the Rand. Probably everybody is right. The mobilisation is both prudential and provocative. At the time of writing it appealed to have been effective in preserving the peace, as it was reported that the Trades Hiall, at Johaaines- burg, which wias barricaded and loop-holed by the strikers, had barn surrendered un- conditionally, and many arrests effected of the Labour leaders. Whether this was due to sagacious counsels that realised open con- flict would only result in a sanguinary and speedy disaster, or the fruit supplies on which the garrison had been suhsisting had turned bad, is not known. The vegetarians will in all likelihood acclaim it as another triumph, in the sphere of peasoe and amity, for their diet. But whatever may have im- pelled the surrender, and however the situ- ation miaiy develop, we have here the plain- est example yet given to the world of the determination of a community to destroy an industrial dictatorship by force of arms if need be, by the employment of the most drastic steps that could be taken sihoirt of a. general and indiscriminate massacre of the strikers. General Botha's resolution oaanot be put down to capitalistic promptings. He fought three years to £ &ive his country from the capitalist (vide the British Liberal press, which is lamenting the spirit shown bytfoe very men it praised to the skies so braea a while ago. and deploring titoe acte of a Government that its own ministry endowed with autonomy). The reply to the railway and general strikers has been dictated by motives that have nothing to do with ques- tions of capitaJ and labour. The I tian has been whether a Govewnni" ortili?irem- ployes are to be the roasters. And the back of the Government is stiffened by the con- scdouaness that it act.s with a responsibility that is far greater than merely pstrsomial. The more "democratic" and "constitu- tional a Premier may be, tJhe hafrdefr is his determination to exact obedience likely to be; for such a man will be the more dis- posed to eice in such a defiance by State em- ployers a flat blaspfoamy and heresy against an infallible cbogma. The generally vessf^wults of a resist- ance by the State or the public to an atti- tude taken up by a section of the many kinds of workers who compose a nation depended largely upon the nature of the staple occupations of the countries con- cerned. French syndicalists have been fought by a nation of peasant proprietors and small capitalists, abnormally numerous in France. In Sweden aind Australasia, as in South Africa, it is from the agricultural classes that there has been provided the forces that broke down general strikes. In Ireland, Mr. Redmond't> party, drawing its strength from farmers, has been the target for the attacks of Mr. Larkin, who would probably have fared very badly indeed under Home Rule. Im Britain, on the other hand, the publio was passive in the coalfield and railway, strikes, and the Government negotiated and legislated. It did not attempt to fight the ocahiers, ard the railway stoppage was too brief and partial for it to be compelled to put forth exertiens in any way correspond- ing to those made by the French or South African Governments. Leeds furnishes a fairly close parallel to South Africa, for here the middle class successfully resisted a mu- nicipal strike in which the strikers were left unsupported by other grades of organised labour. It is in Britain, with a very scanty agricultural population and an c.xception ally) highly organised industrialism, that such struggles are likely to attain the greatest proportions and the gravest character, when public resistance to the demands of this or that body of men is necessitated by the vital nature of the duties which those men discharge. w If the postal strike, blown over, averted a crisis raising the same problem as that of the South African railwaymen, there axe signs in the futuro of vaster and more dangerous movements involving perils as sin- ister as those that menace South Africa at the moment. Setting Ulster apart, as a question wholly different in kind and degree, the outbreak is beclouded, for it is not to be imagined that concession, change, and sur- render will avail to clear away every threat- ening contingency that may confront the State and the great unorganised body that is at present the football of capital, labour, and the wayward, uncontrollable spirit that moves our people to-day.

The late W. T. Stead once declared that the world under modem conditions had come to resemble the nerve system in the human body at no point could it be bruised or cut without the,effect reacting over. the whole area nsW and remote He illustrated the idffi by means of a then recent event. Practically unnoticed by the people of Europe and America, a great part of China was devastated. One of the giant rivers overflowed its banks and temporarily trans- formed into a sea vast tracts of the pladns which the river had traversed under normal conditions. It had brought death at short notice to hundreds of 'thousands of the people, destroyed their cattle, swept away whole townships. Day after the waters receded, the river became restricted to its ordinary bed, and the plains for hull- dreds of miles were covered with the bodies of the victims, human and animal. No effort was made to remove or bury these, and soon the hot sun rays played upon them, producing putrid and festering masses which induced conditions outraging every sanitary law. In Chima the calamity was accepted with the stoicism and resignation of the Eastern races; outside China it commanded harclly more than a paragraph or two in the foreign news of the leading newspapers. Europe and all the West, nevertheless, were destined to realise the truth that they could not be indifferent to the troubles of even the most distant of peoples. For just as the cholera baccilus is believed to have its origin in the abominable state of the Ganges at oertain I seasons of the year when the pilgrims in their millions gather to perform religious rites in the holy river, and incidentally do practically everything forbidden by the laws of health, so Chinese misfortune, followed by an appalling neglect, generated the mi- crobe of a disease that spread first in China. and then travelled by easy stages across Asia to infect Russia and latterly ail Europe. A new name had to be coined for it, influ- enza, though the affliction itself had at long intervals chastened for centuries people whose wanton disregard for sanitation had favoured the production and the propaga- tion of the microbe so difficult to eliminate. In the recurrent outbreaks of influenza- many are affected by it to-day am Swansea. and West AVe-les-now subsiding in viru- lence, we have a constant reminder of the real inter-relation of even widely separated peoples, and of the expediency of being in- o liferent to no national calamity, however distant it may be. Voltaire, when he gave an expressive example of the influence of distance upon human susceptibility to the' troubles of others by affirming that if one could, by touching a button, kill a mandarin in China, the temptation to keep lingering it would be irresistible, lived at a time when the world had not been contracted by im- proved means of transit and inter-communi- cation, and when the arrangement of coun- tries and even provinces into watertight omments still persisted. Now human- ity is inseparably joined, and a shook at one point sends a. quiver over the whole wide expanse. It is needful to recall this truth When the hand of affliction is being laid heavily upon Japan. Hie wounds suffered in the course of a great war had hardly begun to close— for there are tens of thousands of homes in the country without the breadwinners, whose bodies are fertilising the Manchurian soil, and the drain to the point of exhaus- tion on the resources of the oountry cannot be made good for at least a decade—when the nearly complete failure of the rioe crop in the North-West reduced to famine over nine millions of people. These for weeks have been eking out existence, except where death has brought relief, by boiling the roots, bark and leaves of trees, tearing up and eating every kind of vegetable and plant growth, and in their intolerable hunger sell- ing daughters wholesale for exportation to the infamous dens of China, Korea and other countries. The Government, already in financial straits, for the after-burdens of the war press hard on a country naturally poor, was organising a system of relief to keep alive the stricken millions when its at- tention was distracted and new demands upon its resources made by a volcanic erup- tion on a scale which, judged by the results, will figure amongst the most noteworthy in history. The earthquake in Japan is nearly as com- mon as a hailstorm in this country. Earth- tremors, unless attended by a considerable loss of life, are disregarded. The typical Japanese house is constructed of light wood, so that when an earthquake topples it over the tenants run no danger of being killed by the collapsing roof or sides. It is prob- able that the four islands, which constitute the greater part of Japan, had their origin in volcajxic action; it is certain that most of the three th<>$sand other islands massed around them are the outcome of erupiaoms. It. is not uncommon for an island or two to disappear in a day or a night, nor for the sudden emergenoo. from the sea of an island where before there was only water. For Ja.pa;n and the sea around, lie over a thin crurt of the earth through which the sub- ten-anean forces are constantly breaking. According to legend, which has generally some substratum of truth, the huge moun- tain of Fugi, 12,000 feet high and the glory of Japan, was projected out of the earth in a single night 2,100 years ago. Volcanic eruptions of a kind are frequent; on. the grand scale they appear to recur in cycles, and, unhappily for Japan, one of these is reaching its culminating point. Fugi had its last tragic hour in 1707. But the volcanic mountains of -Sekuxa-Shima-- now in labour—and Asa.ma were terribly active in 1650, and again, after an interval of comparative repose for 130 years, had terrific outbursts in 1779, when Hecla, in Iceland, was also disturbed. Now in 1914. or 135 years later, Sakura-Shima is once more convulsed, and at the other end of the world' V esuvius and Etna are disclosing sinister signs of impending activity. What a great volcano in the destructive mood means to the people that have trusted too implicitly to its treacherous repose is suggestively indicated in Reuter's cable- gram from Tokio Yesterday evening the west side of Sakura-Shima blew out. All the sides and the summit are vomiting fire furiously- The sea is boiling, and a tidal wave has swept the city again." (Pre- viously this city of Kago-Shima had been described as a city of the dead 70,000 people were missing from the island, many drowned in trying to swim to the mainland). For miles the aspect of nature has completely altered. The fall of ashes is so heavy that-" (many miles away at Kimomoto) it i i almost impossible to open -one's eyes. The observatory predicts further and worse eruptions. Thirty thousand houses have been destroyed. These volcanic eruptions and seismic shocks occur generally where the countriesi are most beautiful and the normal condi- tions most attractive. Messina, Naples, Sicily in Europe, Jamaica in the West Indies, California, Japan are in some respects the most delectable regions on earth. The superficial view would be that the violent convulsions are to be set off against the conspicuous advantages, thus establishing a rough kind of equality with less beautiful but safer regions. But the matter of fact explanation is that where the crust of the earth is most thin, and \olcanic outbursts therefore more frequent, the natural forces in rebellion actuaJly create the variety and tlie majesty of physical contour which highly impress the beholder. The mountain ranges and the deep-set valleys, with their appeal to the eye and the imagination, are due to causes that in action have been calamitous to whatever human beings were caught within the storm zone. The scenic beauties of North Wales, for instance, had all their origin in volcanic and seismic activity. In the upturning of rock strata and the occurrence of coal seam faults not due to mere subsidences caused by the shrinkage of the earth, we have testimony to internal convulsions in the Principality differing only in degree from those which are desolating one of the islands of Japan. The Welsh volcanoes that once were active--th. mountain ranges are en- during witnesses to their vigour—are con- sidered extinct. But there are classical examples of volcanic mountains which, after a thousand years' repose, have unexpectedly awakened to life with tragic consequences for the people, who. in the belief that they were dead, susttpned a joyous life on the vines nurtured on the scoria vomited from craters long unuffed^ and grew corn in val- leys made fertile by the pumice stone emitted tempeatuouisly from the bowels of the earth. Pass aside the human suffering- due to j famine aiud eartlijqiKbke and volmnic «rup- I toons in Japan, and consider the possi- J ble, or rathe; the probable, after- effects in the light of Stead's proposi- tion, that every oveoit of moment in any paat of the wtHvl nowadays inevitably acts, iif in vawyi-ng i, isure, all round. What significance for (it, have famine, earthquake, and volcanic editions in Japan? Wte should be slow to conclude that tihey have none. Thf, people directly concerned are as numieirous is the French, and occupy a oountry larger by a fourth than the United Kingdom, which is beautiful, bitf. to a great extent ogii-rein, and palpal, in- capable of providing for the neoessi of a race with a rising starudaixl of eo:, llJrt, Rioe, millet, and hiailf-rotten fish will not satisfy men and women who have acquired a taste for meat, and are beginning to ap- preciate the comforts of the West. And the men have measured themselves against a Westeirn and wihite people, with results that give them confidence, if not a nice conceit of themselves." For two thousand five hundred years the Japanese, according to the records -which they regard a<s authentic history, hisuve been content to hold their island homes intact fnom thelinva-doi-, vol-iethe, from China. or Manchuria. The bcantbaxdinient of Shiiimi- noeeiki in 1864 by a combined English, French, Dutch, and Aniezicain fleet, caused the discarding of old traditions like an ob- solete fashion, and the systematic study and adoption of the new, with consequences that ha?e aurpmsed the world, To-day the Jatpanese, a nation of over forty millions, organised for war as no nation is outsidle Germany, are asking themselves wfoeitlher there are not famr.irai free countritas to be had for the seizing; whether the holocaust of Sakura-Shima does not can for action on the part of the soldietne of the Mikado to secure a less precarious existence for their families. Great Britain and the United States are equally involved in the ultimate solution tf this Japanese problem. By the death < fair John Duncan, the journalism of Waiss has lost its oldest re- presentative and one of the worthiest ever associated with it. lie embodied the <ju<di- ties of the best type of Scotsman, and com- manded the respect of every one brought into contact with nim. If his inclinations Lad leant that way, he, the head of the firm which has provided the Welsh Liberal party with its principal source of inspiration and guidance, might have been a prominent politician in and outside Parliament, for be possessed a tact and an ability capable of carrying him far. But, like his brothers, he kept in the background, devoting himself almost exclusively to his business and his home. In the one direction he otherwise applied his aoctivitie&educa-tion-he unob- trusively but nevertheless most beneficently- used his influence and capacity for Wales and Cardiff. Sir John Duncan was a fine character, a just and sympathetic employer, whose record of unblemished honour was an asset of value to the profession he adorned. When the writer went to Cardiff twenty- six years ago, the founder of the firm, Aid. David Duncan, was a patriarchal figure in the, Council, and hi* sons, Messrs. John, David and Alec, were laying the foundations of the gi eat concern they have since built np, There were occasional keen and even fierce polemics between the rival papers. But although in the opposing camp, and in the later years in the thick of the fray, every contact with the Messrs. Dun- cans made more deep and lasting his re- spect for them. He can recall not a few episades during the raany years which have gone by since 1887, ifi which their kin dness of heart and unwavering loyalty to their fellow-craftsmen were displayed in ways not visible to the general public. One of the letters treasured by the writer came from Sir John Duncan, whan, not a day too soon, he received a knighthood, bearing upon comments made in tJiese columns regarding that event. It was a revelation of the quiet, observant, kindly, upright gentleman, of whom Wales knew too little. Journalists are heavily indebted to Sir John Duiicaii for the high standard he set and maintained for the profession: it is meot. that the acknow- ledgment of this should come from a working journalist who was never on the same side, but learnt from personal experience his sterling worth. By a coincidieffioe, one has to bear testi- mony on the saime day to the merits of another public main—Mr. Lincoln Bethermar-- w'ho, unlike Sir John Duncan, was not always the other side, for there were son-ne- times points of agreement. He, too, was not the average man. There were qualities of heart and mind apt to be under-rated and misunderstood, beicause of the effects of an insidious niefrve-raekijiig disease which per- suisted for verurs and ultimately destroyed hijn. In polemical warfare this element was liable to be overlt»okied. But not in more recent years, when friends and oppon- ents alike were compelled to m-ilise tdiat he was underbo"ing a martyrdom of pain bound to prodtuce iwritabdlity in the most patient of sufferers. This disclosed itffalf in actibns and utterances impulsive and im- petuous, just .as. thie essential goodness of heart afterwards quickly manifested itself in the readiness to correct the mistake and atone for any unintentional injustice. Not a few dueksinen have before to-day found reason to modify their opinion of this aible and long-sufferinig colleiague. He was in,tensely in earnest when he took up anytlhing; wiiethar it was the repeal of the coal-tax, or the winning of a batter position far West Wales ooal on the French State Railways, and temperamentally im- patient of the slugigajwis, the indifferent or the sceptical. And be had brains and a boundless industry. There axe few, if any, mien who did as mulli to develop markets abroad for West Wales ooaJ. The measure of his services in this respect will probably be never adequately appreciated. It is cer- tain that no non-Frenchman has ever more completely numtewed kuowit-ciga of our Gallic neighbours. He looked, spake and gestured like a Frenchman. Even in Swan- soo. many thought this Mumbles boy to be a foreigniar. The writer Was one of a paorty brought casual ly together in Paris—the majority Pa,-isians-at which the French present were unanimous in their verdict that Mr Beheima was a Frenchman. And they could not be persruaded that he was a Welshman of Cornish dasoent. In the aon- troversies of later years Lincoln Behemna, wit/h sluattered nerves and consciousness of an impending fate, could not do justice to the versatile, gifted and generously dis- posed man that he was, nor present to the public his bor-t side--tbat most conspicuous to hda mamy friends.

It is remarkable that the South Wales tmplate trad-a has produced comparatively few subejdia-ry industries, occupying them- selves with turning the tinned sheets to the multifarious purpoises for which they are used by the consumer—oil cans, biscuit Wxes, end the like. Yet the working up of t.inplate is one of the oldest occupa-tions in the country, according to a little pamphlet written by Mr. Albert Brown, the Master of "The Worshipful Company of Tinplate Workers, alias Wire Workers," a body that proposes to visit the tinplate districts of South Wales in April, besides the Cornish tinfields that were worked by the Phcenic- iant-believed to have similarly skimmod off the cream from the gold mines in Rho- j desia that have latterly proved so indiffer- ent a speculation for the British investor. Mr. Brown, after recalling that tinplate making, originating in Bohemia, was estab- lished in Saxony in 1620, proceeds to state that a certain Andrew Yarrenton was, about 1665, commissioned to visit the Saxon tin- plate works. Yarrenton appears to have been in his day an apoertle of the Wake up, England I creed. He had written a book entitled England's Improvement by Sea and Land; to outdo the Dutch without fight- ing to pay debts without moneys." As the result of his enquiries the manufacture was introduced into Britain in the vicinity of the Forest of Doaai-preoumably on ac- count of the proximity to the supply of charcoal furnished by the forest. And all workmen that wrought, upon the plates agreeing that they and the metal they were made of was much better than the plates which were made in Germany proceeds Y MTenton, in a later edition of his book, "Made in Germany f "—{here i othing new under the sun, and even the seventeenth century knew the phrase and was acquainted also with the superiority of the British over a German product. Prior to this early experiment, and for a peraod subsequently, the tinplate workers who were settled chiefly aaround London were depen- dent upon German tinplate, of whose qual- ity there were many complaints. Major Hanibury, early in the reign of George I., began the manufacture of tinplatea in ear- nest, and his successor was Nathaniel Miers, the great-grandfather of Mr. Henry N. Miers, of Ynispenllwch, and himself the grandson of Nathaniel Maers, who was Mas- ter of the Company in 1712-3. The Company received its Charter of Con- stitution from King Charles H. in 1670, and the Charter is still in existence. The tin- workers previous to their formation into an independent company were affiliated to the ironmongers, and a certain Thomas Aris led the movement for seoessiort, with the assent and approval of the Ironmongers' Corporation, who, in 1896, affixed the tin- workers' armorial bearings in their hall. Some details are given of the obligations imposed by the Charter which will be of interest to the considerable body who are unacquainted with the legislative supervision of industry which prevailed in the Middle Ages (involving the fixing of wages by the magistrates) upon lines to which we seem to be moving again after the lapse of centuries. Under the Charter no person who had not served a seven years' apprenticeship could work or trnde; the specific object of the stipulation being to check the "great deceits, frauds, and abuses daily used and practised" in tin- making, occasioned by "persons who never duly served as an apprentice to the said art, trade, or mystery and have no judgment or skill in the materials, work- maiffihip, or goodness of the same wares, goods, or commodities, to the great loss or hindrance of OUT subjectta, especially of the pocrer sort who have most use thereof." Employers and employes form themselves into associations nowadays which have no such altruistic and disinterested a motive as the promotion of efficiency and sound, hon- est workmanship, for the benefit of the con- sumer, and especially the poor consumer. The rei,gn of King George V. has assuredly some points to learn from the reign of King Charles II. The new Company, moreover, was compelled under the Charter to prose- cute unqualified craftsmen through its Court, for which object it was endowed with the powers of search, and the imposi- tion of fines (to be distributed amongst the poor of the Company) upon "makers, vend- ors, owners or proprietors of such deceitful, unsized or ill-made wares." Master Brown gives a, case, in 1722, in which fourteen tinplate workers, members of the Company, were fined "for making wares of damaged stuff and materials." The Charter or Law governing the body had as its first aim the protection of the interests of the public; and it considered the craftsmen of the times sufficiently con- scientious to play the role of censors of their own morals. Other days, other ways. Workmen do not band themselves to- gether nowadays to secure good workman- ship, and employers would regard a pro- posal that they should personally adminis- ter the Factories, Mine and cognate Acts of Parliament as a Gilbertian witticism; Another point of general interest to the pub- lie is the slowness with which pi-ioes: changed. One bill of prices for wares pre- pared in 1721 remained in force until 1733; the 1733 list held good until 1738, and the 1738 list obtained until 1760. Piecework prices remained unchanged from 1786 until 1805, and the list was next changed in 1868. The present book of prices was made up in 1900, whence it appears that the Company is conservative in its traditions. The visit to South Wales in April will recall industrial conditions that have enormously changed— in some cases for the worse, it would appear.

————— Mr. Bonar Law's declaration at Bristol makes it plain that the private discussions between the Unionist and Liberal leaders upon the question of Ulster have proved as futile of result as it might have been ex- pected they would prove. It requires optimism to expect that the danger of civil war in Ulster can be averted, in face of the Liberal refusal to oonstitutionalise the unbending attitude of Mr. Asquith by an appeal to the country. Why the Liberals shirk an appeal, it is impossible to under- stand. It is certain that the countrv never ] contemplated such a contingency as has arisen in the North of Ireland when it gave j its vote in 1910-upon_pie Home Rule issue, the Liberals plaim, upon wholly other iwues,, the Unionist claim. Surely if the Liberals are right, and the electorate favoured Home Rule in 1910. it will vote for it to-day; and why should the Liberals dread the upshot of such an appeal if they retain that confidence of the public which they assert they possess? Mr. Asquith, however, drives doggedly on towards a tragedy with a persistence that suggests that I ho is as obsessed by the idea of," popular right that he entertains as monarchs in other countries have been by their concep- tion of "divine right." An arbitrary and tyrannical frame of mind is not a malady peculiar to orthodox despotisms. Its ravages can spread and devastate in the shadow of a democratic form of Government as well.

Apropos of the Dickson sewage process, a system based on the same idea—converting the sewage into manure—has been in use for many years in the inland cities of the Con- tinent. Berlin, for instance, pours its sew- age upon tracts of the surrounding country, which is very sandy. And so successful has been the result in changing sand into rich soil, where vegetables, etc., are cultivated-, that it is estimated that the reclaimed land ooutd be sold for sufficient money to pay off the entire municipal debt of the Prussian capital. In England the objection" hitherto entertained against the use of sewage as man- ure (a process illustralinsr >» v .•«„ ibility of matter) has been chiefly sentimen- tal. But it is not a subject that can be gone into very deeply

AM. Morgan Tutton confessed on Mon- day that he had never been in a cinema. Last, year two hundred and eleven days out of the three hundred and sixty-five were wet ones at Ystalyfera. ■» » »■» A three year old Swansea boy, after see- ing "Peter Pan" on Monday night, gravely announced that he had decided to become a pirate. Mr. R. Martin says he adds up a column of figures mechanically without thinking. Yes, but the trouble is when you think of anything else! < £ x £ >0-< "Rug,byit-e writes :—If Trew, or the old- time Danny Rees, of Swansea, had been playing behind such a glorious pack of for- wards on' Saturday last, the Welshmen j would have simply romped home. (Carried unanimously) One of the tersest witnesses on record gave evidence at Swansea Police Court. His replies to the questions put to him were:- "Correct, sir, "Quite correct," and "I did, sir"and that was all he had to say. How is this for longevity? A Carmar- then newspaper of a hundred years ago oon- tains the following :—" There are now liv- ing in one house in the parish of Llanon, Carmarthenshire, two husbands, two wives, and two sisters (six in all) of the united agies of 564 years." A Church of England clergyman skipper of the Welsh Rugby International team! And there are people who have the effront- ery to talk of an "alien church." Imagine the roar that would go up from "y set fawr" were a minister of one of the other deaiomirations to fill Alban's role! A telegram reached Swansea on Monday which suggested that the production of "The Babes in the Wood" pantomime at Cork—last week at the Grand Theatre— would not be without difficulties. For a hamper containing the six dresses of the "principal boy" had been lost on the trip, «t» » '♦ Little Irene Doherty, the budding young Swansea, artiste, and daughter of Mr. W. Doherty, is making a name for herself locally. She made such a success the other wcok that she is specially engaged by Mr. Walter Benge, of "The Cov-boy s Revenge" company, Ü I as <i«turn at the Theatre Royal this week. A hundred wars ago there was a great fall of show in South Wales, and in the "Carmarthen Journal" far 1814 we read: "The Mail coaeii between this pLaoe (Car- marthen) and Milford could not proceed fur- the,- than Narbierfch on Tuesday and Wed- nesday last; and the mailbags were conse- quently forwardied to Milford on horse- back." Mr. Rupert Lewis, of Swansea, indulged in a mild sarcasm at the expense of the Government during the bearing of a case at Port Talbot on Monday. Referring to oertain methods which bed been explained, he said "A strange way of doing business even for a Government Depa.rtmunt., ¡, not" The remark suggested a wealth of experience. The outigoing chairman of the Swansea branch of the "U.K.C.T.A." was pretty blunt at the annual meeting. He reiea-red to the "rank snobbishness" amongst some commercial travellers, and said thie dealer in j high -elaiss brandy would not condescend to mix with the fellow of the mineral waters. I There were all sorts of absurd distinctions and secret rivalries. The iot of a police ambulance car chauf- feur is anything but a sinecure, for besidc-s possessing the qualifications of a mechanic he has to render first-aid when he arrives on the scene of an accident. He is also at the beck and call of any medical man who has a case calling for an immediate opera- tion, ajid has often, with little assistance, to carry invalids up and down flights of stairs. Some of the logic uaed in Avon Valley de- bates, as narrated in the Port Talbot courts from time to time, is, to say the least, pe- culiar. Ilepe is a choice sample unearthed on Monday :—A What have you against the girl?—B A good deal.—A What is a good deal?—B Something.—A What is something?—B Nothing. And yet we send missionaries out to teach the heathen! ¡ There was trouble at one of tlie S wansea dooks on Monday. A wag came to work sporting a h-uge bunch of flowers, and made it his business to let a mate who holds very strong "ant" views on the Insurance Act see it. The wearer of the blooms not being a person addicted to that sort of decora- tion, the ottadr man inquired Why the— what the—?" Oh," said the wag easily; this is Lloyd George's birthday, you know." Then the fun began. Mr. F. Cory Yeo, of Calcot Park, Reading, who has bought Holme Park. Sonning, is a son of an old Liberal stalwart, the late Mr. j Frank Ash Yeo, of Sketty Hall, Swans ,a, M. P. from 1885 till his «path in 1888. The various branches of the Yeo family are de- j rived from a very ancient stcck in Corn- wall, and the Yeus flourished in the Duchy certainly before the reign of Edward III. The name was derived from their estate of Tre Yeo Launcells, where they were seated for many generations. Under Edward III. Nicholas Yeo married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sackville of Heanton. Saek- ville. Devon, and, removing Jhither on in- heriting the estate, founded the Devonshire branch. 0<x3Xx3xS» Clergymen in country districts are often called upon to do things which are taken as a matter of course by their parishioners. A West Wales clergyman related one of his I experiences the other day. A stationmaster j a few miles from his home had a son who was desirous of matriculating, and his father asked the clergyman to coach the youth in a couple of subjects. ( The task was willingly undertaken, and the lad got through his examination. The manner in which the clergyman was recompensed for his share in the lad's success was unique. ■ He had occasion one day to travel to the station where the lad's father was on duty, and he offered 1:}<1, in payment of exccss fare, v hich was due for going beyond his own t-ation. Oh, said the stationmaster: 1--tep it; you have been very good to my son!" ( "Bailie" has scored 25 goals up to date. No poetry, please! 0<x$>-<$xi>0 A glance at Saturday's "Soccer" results will show that the Swans were not the only ones suffering from "Cup-tie-itis." There was no occasion for the rev. Welsh captain going to hear the "gloomy Dean" at St. Paul's on Sunday,-(" Pro.spero.") <  < >-?>-?-  <tt. To beat Merthyr and then to draw at home with Ton Pentre It looked as bad as that at half-time at the Vetch Field on Saturday. A good remedy for village—or even town l»umpitus, is to look for the name of the village or town of the pump on a map of the world.—(The Llanelly harbour master.) The general manager of the South African Railways, Sir T. R. Price, a N-ea-th man, was emphatically "top dog" in the recent dispute. A few local railway people t wouldn't mind being in his shoes! •XSxXt» These Soccerites are getting reall-t--well there. On Saturday last the Ton Pentre fol- lowers were quite huffy because the popu- lace of Swansea were not out waving flags on the occasion of the visit of their pets to the Vetch Field. The Swansea docker convoyed his party on Saturday from the Piccadilly Tube Sta- tion into a swagger restaurant and buffet adjoining and there put in a shipping order for four big glasses and two two's of rum hot. Then the band played. There was a. big "shoot" at Penrice Castle Estate, Gower, "the residence of Miss Talbot, last week. As evidence of a cold season ap- proaching, 33 woodcock were killed, and the bag of 400 birds—pheasants and other fowl —was obtained in three days' shooting. When travelling abroad on business the late Mr. E. L. Behenna, of Swansea, used to transact a great deal of his correspond- ence on the trains. He used to carry a special bijou typewritex with him, which was so small that it would go in a small hand case. •o-<ixt»-» «»«» "I know this case very well, her mother and grandmother died on the rates," said a member of the Carmarthen Board of Guard- ians, when an applic ion for relief was con- sidered, to which aaother member retorted, "It does not matter so much if they die on the rates as long as they don't live on them." The late Mr. Lincoln Behenna was in. variably mistaken for a Frenchman by those who did not know him. He came of Cornish stock, however, but spoke "La langue Francais" as perfectly 8"5 a native. If any scoring is done by the Sommerhill team against Llanelly on Saturday next in the Welsh Cup the chances are that the scorer will be a Jones. There are nine play. ers oonnected with the club bearing that name. It will be somewhat confusing for the reporfeMij??hcy are all mcluded next Satur- day. ;v;• day..?.?- This month's list of plans for houses submitted to the Health Committee of the Swansea Corporation for approval are so few as to suggest that private enterprise in providing housing accommodation is for some reason or another failing badly. And this at a time when the scarcity of cottages is extreme. !t r Malta fever, from which the Hungarian captain died at Swansea, is almost a thing of the past, though years ago it ravaged the Mediterranean, especially Mailta, where it originated. In the opening of this century, however, the source of infection was traced to the goats whioh supply Malta with milk. The drinking of goats' milk was prohibited, with the remarkable result that the disease dwindled away almost to extinction. Well now. with the gallant fisht mndp by Alban Davies arid his men at Twickenham (eloquent of the talent Welcli Rugby hai still to draw upon) fresh in the memory, given one season of modern businesslike and intelligent management such as is enjoyed by our Soccer friends, should we have even to hint at the decadence of Rugby an the Principality? As it is, under the fossilised conditions that. obtain, the game must work put its own salvation. It will survive even tfhe somnolent and haphazard methods of the Welsh Rugby Union.—("Prospero.") Mr. Llewelyn Williams, M.P. related an entertaining incident at a Carmarthenshire county court. Among the witnesses called to give evidence was a stately old farmer, whose long- beard and dignified bearing pro- claimed him to be a chapel deacon and a person of eminence in the circle in which he II moved. Turning to the judge, Mr. Williams eaid, "I think this witness will want the oath in Welsh?" "Oh. no, sir." replied the venerable witness, "I know English well." It transpired later that he had picked up his English from an English lad he employed on his farm. The Rev. Alban Davies, the captain of the Welsh team, told English interviewers on Saturday a story of two girls who went to see a certain match in which he was play- ing. Mr. Davies wore a cap to protect his ears, and during the game one of the girls was overheard to remark: "He is so good. He wears that cap so that he cannot hear any swear words." By the way, Mr. "Davies plays both codes. He started with Associa- tion at Leatlierhead. Afterwards he went to school at Llandovery, where he played Rugby. At Jesus College, Oxford, he got back to Soccer. "The desire to become experts in the art of dancing has seized hold of manv of our local inhabitants—the young as well as the middle-aged have suddenly become devotees at the shrine of the goddess—terpsichore. Ln the opinion of many no other form of recreation possesses as much fascination for the young as dancing does; that it is an art when pfoperly applied and not abused, and w hen confined to, proper associations, haa much in its favour; it also adds in giving grace and dignity to the limbs and figure, and is also exhilarating in its effects when moderately applied." (St. Clears Notes in a down-line journal.) But has St. Clears seen the Tango yet? «3>~4xXxX> The tracing of Daniel John, the "dead" man who is alive, caused our representative a deal of trouble. The clue was the Lan- dore branch secn.-ia.ry of the .Steelsmelters' Society, but at Landore- his. name was not known at the local sub-post office. A Daniel John,, however, was known, and our man raw him at the Duffryn Works, Mor- riston. but he soon made it clear that he was not the Daniel John wanted, for instead of having bee;, in Staffordshire, he had been comfortably working for Mr W. H. Edwards for 30 years. Baldwin's Works were next visited, and her? both Vr. Harris (the branch secretary) and the real Daniel .Tobn toil. but they were <°t at Brynhyfryd and the other at Manselton!