WELSH NATIONALISM.•
NATIONALITY, if we exclude its definition in international' law, is a term singularly elusive. To most people it probably connotes a distinction of language and race—at least as its principal ingredients—together with a certain distinctive coms munity in manners and customs, and in habits of thought, which we sum up as "national characteristics." But this conception, in any inclusive sense, is belied by the facts. There is scarce au existing nation which is homogeneous itt language, race, or manners ; while some, e.g., notably the Swiss, • A Study em Nafionalitv. By J. Vyrimy Morgan, D.D. with on Introasa ision by Andrew Lang, D.D,, D.C,L., Litt.D. London Chapinan aua [ltio. not.1
are divided by very sharp distinctions of race, language, and religion, yet retain a keen sense of national unity. Dr. Morgan, in the work under review, comes nearer the mark. " History," he says (p. 319), "is the main force in nationality. The con- sciousness of having lived together, toiled, aspired, and suffered together. . . ." In other words, the basis of nation- ality is the sense in any considerable group of men of common interests, material, or ideal, as against the rest of the world ; for the history of the making of nations is but the record, long or short, of the growth of these common interests and of the sense of them. The process may cover centuries, as in the case of England or France, or it may be the work of a couple of generations, as in the case of Italy or Germany. The interests, moreover, which are the root of the national con- sciousness, may vary indefinitely. In the East they are apt to be religious, nationality following the creed. In the West they tend, in part at least, to be material : the Zollverein had its share in the making of Germany, and the separation of Belgium and Holland was largely due to their economic antagonism. The object of Dr. Morgan's book is a com- parative study of the elements that go to make up Welsh nationality and of their historic background. The first part consists of a series of studies of the origin and development of other small nationalities—Greece, the Dutch Republic, Switzerland, and Scotland. The second, and far the larger, part is concerned with the problems of Wales itself and with the national character and ideals of its people.
• With somewhat unnecessary modesty Dr. Morgan has fortified his work against criticism by attaching to it appreciations by eminent representatives of the three nations of Great Britain. There is a characteristic introduction by Mr. Andrew Lang 'which saves us the heavy responsi- bility of criticising the chapter on Scotland. There is also an • "Opinion" of Sir Gilbert Parker, with one paragraph of which we are, unhappily, unable to agree. Frankly, we do not think that " the first part of the work, dealing with the evolution of smaller nations, is a contribution to historical and social litera- ture of much significance." The book as a whole makes so excellent an impression, and is informed with so sane, so dis- criminating, and so kindly a spirit, that we are sorry to criticise any part of it. But, to tell truth, in the first part of it Dr. Morgan gives a striking, if unintentional, illustration of his own thesis, that the Welsh exhibit "a want of exact habit of mind both in stating and interpreting facts." It is full of elementary errors. "King Charles V." (for the Emperor Charles V., Charles I. as King of Spain) may be a slip of the pen ; but what, e.g., would the Swiss, who last August cele- brated the sixth centenary of their independence, say of the statement that in 1848 " Switzerland took its place among the independent States of Europe " ? And why does Dr. Morgan say, in connexion with the proposed European inter- vention in favour of the Sonderbund, that Palmerston "nominally consented by assuming the leadership of the proposed campaign against Switzerland," whereas, in fact, he never ceased to protest against it, and the actual diplomatic trick by which he defeated the intentions • of the Powers is a commonplace of the text-books P Nor do we think, to make a more general criticism, that the chapter on Ancient Greece is particularly germane to the sub- ject of the book. " The glory that was Greece" was not the product of a "small nationality " in the modern sense, but of the city-State ; and the city, not the national State, has even been the seed-ground of such a harvest ; witness Athens, Florence, Weimar, even Edinburgh, London, and Paris. The 'excellence of Dr. Morgan's book, in our opinion, lies in the second part, the subject of which is that contemporary Wales which he knows and loves, and is not afraid to criticise.
This, by far the larger part of the book, is, as Sir Gilbert Parker says, "at this moment a godsend to the political student." Every one is talking about " Home Rule," which is the burning question of the hour ; but very few understand anything of the ultimate issues involved. It is upon these that Dr. Morgan's luminous analysis of the elements of Welsh, and incidentally of Irish, nationalism throws so helpful a light. He does not deny, indeed his work is largely directed to prove, that the Welsh are as much entitled to be deemed a nation, with distinctive characteristics and interests, as the Scots or the Irish. He would like to see this fact more clearly recognized: by the quartering of the dragon of Wales, for instance, in the royal arms and by the establishment of a separate Ministerial Department for the Principality. In the agitation for a separate Welsh Parliament, however, of which, since September 1910, Mr. E. T. John, the member for East Denbighshire, has been the principal spokesman, he sees a peculiar danger, not only to British interests in general, but to those of Welsh nationality in particular. The movement has not, indeed, as yet made great headway ; but " the Welsh temperament is neuralgic " and " is apt to give itself without reservation to a passionate leader, especially if his leadership has a religious bias," and this proposal, which "needs study and sympathy—even more study than sympathy "—is being vigorously pressed before its implications have been sufficiently thought out. To help the Welsh people to think them out is Dr. Morgan's main object.
What are the distinctive elements of Welsh nationality P Setting aside those common interests which are the outcome of their history, and the peculiarities of race and language, the Welsh have certain special aptitudes so widespread as to be national characteristics : "passion for knowledge in the abstract, for music as a medium of sentiment, and poetry as the expression of patriotic ideas," and, above all, " religious fervour." In all these, as in their passionate political idealism, the Welsh are certainly differentiated from their stolid and practical countrymen beyond Offa's Dyke. But there is a reverse side to the picture which Dr. Morgan ruthlessly exposes. " Welsh religiosity," be says, "predominates over Welsh morality," and, under the blighting influence of Puritanism, it has killed the sense of beauty in the people. Moreover, both Welsh religiosity and Welsh political ideal- ism, tinged as this is with religion, tend to a narrow intoler- ance of which there has been plenty of evidence in the present campaign against the Welsh Church (it is characteristic of the incapacity of the Celt to " let bygones be bygones " that the Welsh cannot forget that the jurisdiction of Canterbury is an " alien " one " forced " upon them--over seven hundred years ago). This intolerance has led in Wales to a democratic tyranny, akin to that of the Jacobin Club in revolutionary France and the National League in Ireland, due to " im- patience of anything that does not conform to the general model." " This," says Dr. Morgan (p. 153), " is the blot on Welsh political nationalism—the submission of individual liberty of thought to the authority of an organized body of thinkers." "I would rather," he adds, " have toleration with- out religion than religion without toleration."
The safeguard of the true interests of Welsh nationality lies, then, according to Dr. Morgan, not in cutting it off still further from wider influences, but in allowing these more scope for directing and broadening it. The cardinal weakness of Wales is an excessive "parochialism." "Moderation in generosity and immoderation in self-admiration are distinc- tive Welsh features." Everything Welsh is as good as good can be (p. 146) ; and in the region of religion espe- cially the Welsh are Christians par excellence on the globe. The " young and enthusiastic Welsh member of Parliament" who said in a recent speech that Wales was confessedly the most religious land in the world was, if we remember right, Mr. Lloyd George himself. The moral of all of which is, to condense Dr. Morgan's argument, that Home Rule for Wales would only tend to stereotype the worst qualities of the Welsh by making them more narrow, more self-sufficient, and more intolerant than they already are. The Union of 1535, he argues, has been a success : it was this, indeed, that first made Wales a nation instead of a congeries of quarrelling clans ; and it is as necessary now as ever. W hat is wanted is, not Home Rule for Wales, but on the part of the British Government " recognition of Welsh nationality and reasonable opportunities for its development," and on the part of the Welsh themselves, and especially of their Nonconformist leaders, a less narrowly parochial spirit and a better appreciation of those wider privileges and duties which, for better or for worse, have come to be called "Imperial." " Wales is too small a country to legislate for itself, and its economic and political requirements are not wide and diversified enough to necessitate a separate Legis- lature; neither is there that general uprightness of conscience among those in whom political authority is now vested to warrant the expectation that a happy state of affairs would result from the granting of political autonomy to the Princi- pality " (p. 436). " There is," says Dr. Morgan (p. 150), " a national glory in store for Wales, not probably as a Welsh Wales, but as an English Wales ; but the people must look for it on the lines of self-improvement." It is impossible for us even to indicate all the evidence, "full measure and running over," which Dr. Morgan has collected in support of this conclusion. In addition to the interesting chapter on the psychology of the Welsh and those on the past history of the country, there are others on the religious problem, on the burning question of disestablish- ment and disendowment, on the linguistic, agrarian, and educational problems, on the National Library of Wales, and on the Welsh as compared with the Irish ideal. The last chapter is on "the contribution of Wales to the thought- energy of the world," which, though of less immediate value, will appeal to those who are interested in the record of the work of eminent Welshmen past and present. The book is one which, in spite of the faults which we have indicated, should be read by every one who has a mind to make up about the fateful political question of the hour.
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