The Cambria Daily Leader

SWANSEA'S HANDICAP RAILWAY CUL-DE-SAC. Why is Swansea for ever con- signed to the fate of struggling for its rights? Why are national con- ferences generally convened at Car diff-the most uncentral site in Wales? Why is officialdom even now endeavouring to get the Pen- sions Department removed from SwanseaP. The questions can be answered in a few words. Swan- sea is handicapped because of its lack of railway facilities. We are always losing ground because the Great Western Railway is appar- ently uninterested in the question of swift transit between London and Swansea. It hae done ita duty when the London train gets into Cardiff in good time. Then it has to think of the convenience of Llantrisant, and Pencoed and Pyle; and above all it has to ob- serve the usual routine at Landore. If Swansea suffers in public ways because of this handicap, what does it not-, suffer in commercial life7 We could instance caee after case of business lost to the town be- cause of the inadequate facilities on the railway. Big London houses will send representatives without f. second thought to Newport or Car- diff; but Swansea is quite another matter. Swansea is a two day's journey; Newport or Cardiff can be covered in an afternoon and an evening. We are promised some improve- ment in the service, but not suffi- cient to change the conclusions we' are expressing here. Some real teasers in the way of conundrums still remain unaffected. We trt better served, from Swansea to London, than the Londoner is in the other direction. It is possible to leave Swansea with the 8.35 •jk.m., to transact an afternoon's business in London, and to be Jiome between ten and eleven o'clock. The train is due in at 10.5 p.m., and it generally arrives in Landcxre an d it generall, ir good time to effect that good conclusion of the joumey-only that no train that stops at Landore can ever be expected to finish up well. But the London man of business hag not these conveni- ences open to him. He can leave town with the 9 a.m., arriving at Swansea at 2.30 p.m.; but if he wants to get back to bed the same night in London, he has to return with the 3.25 p.m. A simple state- ment, but it means a lot to Swan- sea. Here is the time-table of the nine o'clock train from London to Swansea: London 9. a Pyle 1.45 Viewport. 12.23 Port Talbot 1.56 Cardiff 11,50 Britonferry .i. 2. 4 Llantrisant. 1.10 Neath 2.14 Bridgend 1.30 Swansea 2.30 The 11.45 a.m. is at Cardiff at 3.10 p.m., and only stays at Port Tal- bot, Neath and Landore. But the Landore delay is vicious: v Landore arr 4.23 Swansea arr 4.35 Twelve minutes for the mile and half journey between Landore and Swansoo No wonder business man have to be pressed to come inco Swansea! And compare the times fear the two journeys: ltrg. Mine. London-Cardiff (158 miles) 50 Cardiff-Swansea (45 miles) 1 40 That hour and iorty minutes gener- ally works out at two hours; it all depends upon the degree of "quick- ness displayed at those remark- able centres of nustle, Llantrisant a,n d Pyle. The best train of the day from London is the five o'clock, but Laai- dore is here the trouble. Landore arr, 9.50 p.m. Swansea arr 10.5 p.m. Why, oh Why? As for the six o'clock down, words usually fail the tired traveller as he watches the scenery around the platforms of Peterst-on, Llantrisant, Llan- haran, Pencoed, Bridgend and Pyle. The new time-table is not avail- able as we write; but no small vari- ations will cure the trouble. Tha remedy must be root and branch Swansea, which contributes so greatly to the prosperity of th3 Great Western Railway, has a claim for better service. We have been very sheep-like in our sub mission, but if we ever hope to make of the town a livelier business centre there are two essential re. forms: the abolition of delays at Landore (why is not the loop used effcener?) and the cutting out of tn" "local" treatment of London- Swansea trains as soon as they have passed Cardiff.

THROUGH A COTTAGE WINDOW. XVIII.-A Fine of Twelvepence. I By GEORGE W. GOUGH. i In April, 1552, Mr. John Shakespeare, of Henley Street, Stratford-on-Avon, was fined bwelvepenoe for having a heap of dirt in front of his house. In April, 1919, Mr. Harold Cox told the Goal Commission that he would give them tihe sewers." Some grumpy persons think that the world does not progress. Here is proof to the contrary. Mr. John Shakespeare, an individualist stern and wild, plumps his filth in front of his door, leaves it there, and is fined twelvepence, which is about equivalent to thirty shillings in our day. Three hundred and sixty seven years later, Mr. Harold Cox, also an individualist, and an extremely bigoted one, is obliged to admit that the disposal of filth is not something which can be left to the un- sweet will of the individual, but must be ordered and undertaken by the State." One more historical reference will fill in the background of the picture. John Shakespeare's unsavoury conduct in 1552 is now known, or rather knowable, by all. If any freeih detail of the man's life and dodngs were dug out of forgotten manu- scripts or mouWering records, every news- paper in the wqrld would print it for all people to learn of it. And with good reaeon, for, twelve years loter, also in April, his third child and first soil was born. Because pretty well everybody, in Stratford and elsewhere, had John Shakes- peare's primitive notions of sanitation, his baby boy ran the greyest risks in the first few months of his life, for the plague ourrio-d off one^rig'hth of the population of the little town. Fortunately it spared the oottage in Henley Street, and the tiny little creature who wae destined to become God's greatest gift bo mail since that other baby boy who was bom in a manger at Bethlehem. For, in spite of th* horrors of an age careless of sanitation and ignor- j ant of germs, he lived to become the crown and glory of the world's literature. Each scone of many-coloured life he drew. Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new. Existence saw him epurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toiled after him in vain." I will give you the sewers," quoth Mr. Hacrold Cox. It is a remark which ought to give him a sort of negative immortality. He h86 obtained a considerable vogue as a logical thinker, clear, unemotional, un- prepossessing, if you will, but thorough- going. He has kad, I understand, oome experience, having onoe been a Fabian. Certainly I remember that when leal. to London, I mw on the book-Aallr, "The Eight Honrs Day by Sidney Webb and Harold Cos. That is a generation ago, and to-day, before the Coal Commission, of which Mr. Webb is a member, his old fellow Fabian, with a magnificent gesture, gives him the sewers. THE RESULTS OF STATE ACTION. In Stratford in 1502, it was evidently considered wrong to heap your household filth before your door and leave it there. This accounts for the fact that John Shakespeare was fined twelve pence for tiO offending. Mr. and Mrs.' Webb, in their monumental work on the history of English Local Government, gave 1621 as the first date and- Wisbech as the first town in which indications of a paid service of town scavenging makes an ap- pearanoe. Generally, as they ehow, it was a personal matter A man was fined, if he did not do. it, juet as he was fined if he did not, go to charch, and fining people for want of edther GodlinMS or cleanliness is the worst method of obtain- ing either. The compulsory sanitary service of a modern town has been a slow growth, accelerated dnring the last quar- ter of M century by the discovery of the direct isftd inevitable connection between dirt and disease. The standard of the service, the compulsions exacted by the State for the common good, have got higher and severer with each recognition of the awfulness of the danger and the ease with which it can be avoided. Every year brings. its more cogent de- monstration of the fact- that none of us can confine the evil results of insanitary conduct to ourselves. Even Mr. Harold Cox, though he is logical to the verge of imbecility, and thus illustrates the thinness of the partition that divided genius from insanity, has to give us the sowers." The sanitary ser- vice is one which the State must control and oontrol merci- lessly. The State must compel the indi- vidual to do some things, not to do other things, and to have some things done for him by agents appointed by, itself. There was a time when every other face seen in the streets of a large English town was pitted with small pox. To-day you can look out for ten years at a stretch and not see one human face despoiled of its beauty by this once common disease, almost as common as this once was, and far more awful in its oonsequenoee, could be stamped out with the same completeness if we were as ruthless and determined in our citizenship as we ought to be and one day shall be. 1 The question under discussion at the! Coal Commission which elicited this gift II of the sewers was the old question of what the State should and should not do. The representatives of the miners want the mines to bo "nationaliisfd." Exactly what they mean by this is not clear, and it is greatly to be Loped that their report wiienimade will not consist of mere rant- ing about the advantages of nationalising the mines, but will contain both outlines and details of what they desire to do, and how they propose to do it. Mr. Harold Cox, like every other man who has boxed the intellectual compass, is very sure all the time that he is pointing the right way, and he would denationalise everything, including education and the Poet Office. Plain people are likely to be puzzled by this conflict of testimony for, each of them in his own way, Mr. Sidney Webb and Mr. Harold Cox, are known and valued men. There is no need for any puzzlement. You and I will cry "a plague on both your houses," and think for ourselves. I WHAT IS THE "STATE"? I There is an old theory that the State is of divine origin. The powers that be are ordained of God. nnd disobedience to the earthly king is defiance of the heavenly Ruler. This view was widely prevalent in days when the Church was all powerful, for it is at once obvious that politics of this sort a.nd religion of a corresponding sort are good friends of each other. No bishop, no king," said James the First, rightly enough. The ex-Kaiser, in the height of his glory, obviously held this view, and gave characteristic expression to it. Nominally, this view of thq State hae completely disappeared from the modern world, but it has left far more consider- able traces than might at first be sup-* poxnl. When people believed that the State was of divine origin, they naturally plaoed no limits to its sphere and authority, any more than they did to that of its supposed original. People who have j I completely given up the theory, or havp perhaps never even heard of it, still cling to some of its consequences. The State Socialist puts no limit to the power of the State. Not only this, he quite unreason- ably regards the State as having a sort of innate and underired potency for good, just as a man would who still devoutly believed that it was the distinct and de- liberate creation Off a benevolent deity. On the other haned, there are people who obviously confuse State with the Government. At any given moment, the government of this country is in the hands of a set of people who could all be named and gathered together for insp^o- t;on. For convenience sake, we usually restrict the term to that smaller group of men who, under the leadership of the < Prime Minister, and subject to the con- control of, the legislature, direct the greater operations of government. 'Whether ths term be considered in the widest sense, in which it includes all c'vil servants, or in the narrowest e-ense, in -which in this country to-day it would -include only the War Cabinet, it is plsin that. the State so considered consists only of men like ourselves. I FALSE DEDUCTIONS. I I So that when it is proposed thai; the State" 'shall do something, there is a group of thinhm who urge it with great energy because they start from the prin- ciple that the State is something over I and above the. collective mass of citizens, something not subject to their limita- tions and imperfections, and not deter- mined in its conduct by thcr selfishness 1 and ignorance. They argue, for example, that the State should own and oontrol the mines and the railways; and you never have from them any de- fence of their proposals. They never think it necessary to give any. The State is to do this or that, which it does not do now, and as soon a* it does so. all will go nervy as wedding bells. It is an interesting frame of mind, not very intelligent and readily I intelligible. On tihe other hand, those Who regard the State as nothing but a group of ¡' I persons endowed with governmental authority, attribute to the State all the f stupidities of mankind and not its vices. Governmental officials ?re declared to be arrant wasters," and to entrust them with power of authority is simply Guici- J dal. A few things that the people cannot do for themselves, such as defeat the Germans, may, as a concession, be en- trusted to the State. The State may also have the sewers," since disease germs do not really mind a bit whether a man is a Socialist or an Individualist. Both deductions are wrong. As I have put them, they are so clearly wrong that one wonders how they come to be made. Whai is quite clear is that we cannot argue reasonably about such proposals as the nationalisation of the minet; unless we get steady and sane notions as to the nature of the State. It is not a question of faitli or unfaith, but of knowledge, and as such we will take the question up next we ck.

I A SKETTY BOY. I Aid. James and Industrial School Case. 1 A meeting of the Attendance and -in., dustrial Sub-Committee of the Education I Committee met on Monday, Councillor Tom Howells in the chair. Several ap- I plications for tha release of boys from the, j } Industrial School, BorLymaen, were dealt with. Referring to the case of a Sketty boy, Aid. James said he thought it a shame that the boy should have been parted from his parents and a good home be- cause of not attending school. If he had stolen 20 sheep," said Ald. Janaes. "he would have been locked up for a month or r.eived a couple of strokes with the cat-o'-nine-tails. If a man stole a couple of thousand pounds he would receive perhaps three months. and that would be the d of it." j The Chairman remarked that the Iu- dnstrial School had always been good to the boys, and if their homes were a6 good, ) there sometimes would be no need to send tlvem there. I I Superintendent David remarked that he thought there was a ehanje of larceny as well in the case. Mr. James said he wished it to he known that he was not in any way speak- ing against the school, but he strongly appealed on the boy's behalf. The application wtvs finally acceded to.

TOWN TALK/ Aberavon niagistr, toes are hoping for a Sankey award. On Monday they sat from 11 till six. A young lady told the Neath magis- trates on Monday that she bad summoned the wrong man. And he didn't deny it! -:0:- The ninth cuckoo paragraph having reached us, we pity the poor fellow who hl:5 not yet heard the harbinger of spring. "Tiiis shop will be opened on Saturday in boots, was a notice prominently dis- played by a West Wales tradesman over ♦he week-end. -=0:- .Neath's oldest allotment holder—he is 89-cut epring cabbage on Monday. And he went home whistling, When the j^ eart' is young!" -:0:- Little Willie envies the Judge of the County Court, who, he aays, doesn't need to comb his hair. because he weare a v.'hite wig all day. —toe — An Aberavon man named Payne found at the police court when charged with assault that to inflict pain, on others is not a. pa.¡in game for him. —to: — The more you ferret out that rat story at Neath the larger the rat appears. One of the spectators declarod that it was as large as a cat. C" the diff ei-ence? Yet another why a ship is called "she." Capt. Bevan expresses the view that the cause is that a ship is so-called becauso it costs so much to fit her out. Next, please. —J«K — I have never tasted margarine,* con- fessed a Swansea lady a day or two ago to It member of our staff. And those who etill find butter slippery to hold turned green with envy. —; q- — Workmen and others living in the wosfc end of tho town will be pleased to Ipam that the Port' Tennant cars now start from the Dillwyn-si root corner. A longer ride and a shorter walk I — :Or— An ocr-Swansea artilleryman wantls to know if, instead f)f a muzzle, ha can put his old gas mask on his terrier. Official opinion inclines in the direction that that would be against the rules. --t o: A Swansea amateur gardener has found a new use for his old silk hat, which ho had discarded for many years. A friend gave him a small bit of rhubarb to plant, and he is using the old tile to foroa it. —:<y Moflrt Glamorgan teachers and scholars had a oiurprise" holiday yesterday. In very many cases they had assembled as usual before the news oozed through that the schools in the county were to be closed for the day. -:0:- Some judgment summonses brought against ex-soldiers were adjourned at Swansea County Courfc for two months: It's no g'()O(\. bringing these soldiers here when they have only been home for a month or two; not the elighte^t," said his Honour. Quito ordinary people sometimes make very weighty pronouncement*. -A man in the oar this morning was telling his friènd quite seriously that the income tax was not a matkr for joking. Quito so. For most people it has been a matter of paying. 40 Some local otIitios maintain that, what- ever may be r!,a,;d of choral and congrega- tional singing generally, band music has certainly improved during the last few- years. That fact they say, waa proved beyond a doubt at the May Day demon- stration in Swansea. Mr. John Williams, M.P.,Mold a- Swan- sea May Day audience about a deacoa in a chapel which he once knew well. He must have been quite a fascinating sort of chap for, according to Mr. NVillian-,s. he hardly ever made an announcement except that "the pew rents are now —: ft: Our reverence for, and idolatry of, tho so-called iron laws of orthodox political economy constitutes one of the greatest superstitions of our time. Soul- less and unmoral, they are inexorable only as long as our present system of society lasts."—Mr, J. V. Esmond, B.Sc., to Pantygwydr Brotherhood, OC There was a vacant chair on a sub- urban car on Tuesday morning'—or to ha more precise, a familiar face was'miseing-. It is rumoured that a busy young Swan- sea tradesman had passed a sleepless night on account of the baby's lung powers, and was seen in his pyjamas at the hour he usually takes the air. .0. — The £ 10 per week man smiled broadly in a Swansea tramcar yesterday when lio saw ljd. demanded from a weii-dressed clerk for a ride which cost him only a penny. Yet the clerk's earnin g s were probably only about a fifth of his own. The magic word workman," backed up by a shabby suit of clothes did it; but i.m.'t a clerk a workman too? —; o: — At the evening Labour Day meeting at Swansea there was this unique combina- tion: A Scotchman telling a Welsh audi- ence a joke about an Irish labourer. The subject was bosses or foremen who worry the men, an'd to one of these, who pointed out to him that he ought to carry more in his bag, Murphy replied: "Shure, it's all right, sorr; I'm comin4 back an 0: A baekboneless creature which wrig- gles and is never able to stand upright; without opinions, but with a vivid imag- ination, it feeds on unrealities, and its manner of existence is a mystery." Thuj the chairman of an Airinialifoi-d Nlar Day meeting pourt.rayc,d the shop assistant, and he himself is the secretary of their local organisation. It is wonderful how k<?enly local anglers are iiyterestfd in the housing problem. Apropos the hope expressed by one of the fraternity in Town Talk a day or two ago, that the new hO3 to be built would be large enough to -tore the catches, a colleague now say;? be is in thorough agreement with, Angler No. 1, but trusts it will be pos- sible to erect at least some of the housaa near the Pier. BnthusiaBm if you like! — :0:- Prof, Joseph Jones, of Brecon, told an Ammanford audience oa Monday that during his visit in a public capacity to the Talgarth Asylum, he learned that the inmates of those institutions never com- bined. He knew of some people outside the walls of that institution who would not join a trades union. But don't telL ("hem," ho quickly added, that they ara insane; ruther inform them very quietly that you know of a certain place where the poor inmate* never eomK ne." > 4