Part 10

THE new life brought an inevitable demand for a share in the government of the country, and this brought the old order and the new face to face. The political power was entirely in the hands of the squires, alienated from the peasants in many cases by a difference of language, and in most cases by a difference of religion.

The Act of 1535 had, as we have seen, given Wales a representation in Parliament. Each shire had one member only; except Monmouth, which had two. Each shire town had one member, except that of Merioneth; and Haverfordwest was given a member. The county franchise was the forty shilling freehold; it therefore excluded not only those who had no connection with the land, but the copyholder—who was really a landowner, but whose tenure was regarded as base, on account of his villein origin. This copyholder was undoubtedly the descendant of the Welsh serf of mediæval times.

The first Reform Act, that of 1832, was won for the great manufacturing towns of England, but Wales benefited by it. It extended the franchise to the copyholder, and to the farmer paying £50 rent, in the counties; it gave the towns a uniform £10 household franchise. It also brought many of the towns into the system of representation. It raised the number of members from twenty-seven to thirty-two; the agricultural districts getting two, and the mining districts two.

The slight change in representation is a recognition of the growing industries of the country, especially in the coal and iron districts. The coal of the great coalfield of South Wales had been worked as far back as Norman times; but it was in the nineteenth century that the coal and iron industries of South Wales, and the coal and slate industries of North Wales became important. Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport became important ports; and places that few had ever heard of before—like Ystradyfodwg or Blaenau Ffestiniog—became the centres of important industries. But, in 1832, Wales was still mainly pastoral and agricultural; and the Act, though it did much for the towns, left the representation of the counties in the hands of the same class. Still, it was the towns that showed disappointment, as was seen in the Chartism of the wool district of Llanidloes and of the coal district of Newport.

The second Reform Act, of 1867, gave Merthyr Tydvil two representatives instead of one, otherwise it left the distribution of seats as it had been before. But the new extension of the franchise—to the borough householder, the borough £10 lodger, and especially the £12 tenant farmer—gave new classes political power. It was followed by a fierce struggle between the old landed gentry and their tenants, a struggle which was moderated to a certain extent by the Ballot Act of 1870, and by the great migration of the country population to the slate and coal districts.

The rapid rise of the importance of the industrial districts is seen in the third Reform Act of 1885. The country districts represented by the small boroughs of the agricultural counties of Brecon, Cardigan, Pembroke, and Anglesey, were wholly or partly disfranchised. But the slate county of Carnarvonshire had an additional member; and in the coal and iron country, Swansea and Carmarthenshire and Monmouthshire had one additional member each, and Glamorgan three.

The third Reform Act enfranchised the agricultural labourer and the country artisan. In England many doubts were expressed about the intelligence or the colour of the politics of the new voter; but, in Wales, most would admit that he was as intelligent as any voter enfranchised before him; all knew there could be no doubt about his politics.

The character of the representation of Wales has entirely changed. The squire gave place to the capitalist, and the capitalist to popular leaders. Wales, whose people blindly followed the gentry in the Great Civil War, is now the most democratic part of Britain.

XXIII EDUCATION

The chief feature of the history of Wales during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is the growth of a system of education.

The most democratic, the most perfect, and the most efficient method is still that of the Sunday School. It was well established before the death of Charles of Bala, whose name is most closely connected with it, in 1814. It soon became, and it still remains, a school for the whole people, from children to patriarchs. Its language is that of its district. Its teachers are selected for efficiency—they are easily shifted to the classes which they can teach best; and, if not successful, they go back willingly to the “teachers’ class,” where all are equal. The reputation of a good Sunday School teacher is still the highest degree that can be won in Wales. Plentiful text books of high merit, and an elaborate system of oral and written examinations, mark the last stage in its development.

The Literary Meeting is a kind of secular Sunday School. The rules of alliterative poetry and the study of Welsh literature and history, and sometimes of more general knowledge, take the place of the study of Jewish history, and psalm, and gospel. The Literary Meetings feed the Eisteddvod.

The Eisteddvod passed through the same phases as the nation. It was an aspect of the court of the prince during the Middle Ages. In Tudor times it was used partly to please the people, but chiefly to regulate the bards by forcing them to qualify for a degree—a sure method of moderating their patriotism and of diminishing their number. In modern times the Eisteddvod is a great democratic meeting, and it is the most characteristic of all Welsh institutions. Its chairing of the bards is an ancient ceremony; its gorsedd of bards is probably modern. But the people themselves still remain the judges of poetry; they care very little whether a poet has won a chair or not, while a gorsedd degree probably does him more harm than good.

Elementary education, in its modern sense, began with the circulating schools of Griffith Jones of Llanddowror in 1730. They were exceedingly successful because the instruction was given in Welsh, and they stopped after teaching 150,000 to read not because there was no demand for them, but on account of a dispute about their endowments in 1779, eighteen years after Griffith Jones’ death. They were followed by voluntary schools, very often kept by illiterate teachers.

Between 1846 and 1848 two organisations—the Welsh Education Committee and the Cambrian Society—were formed; and they developed, respectively, the national schools and the British schools. After the Education Act of 1870, the schools became voluntary or Board; education gradually became compulsory and free; and in 1902 an attempt was made to give the whole system a unity and to connect it with the ordinary system of local government.

The training of teachers became a matter of the highest importance. In 1846 a college for this purpose was established at Brecon, and then removed to Swansea. From 1848 to 1862, colleges were established at Carmarthen, Carnarvon, and Bangor.

The history of secondary education is longer. It was served, after the dissolution of the monasteries, by endowed schools—like that of the Friars at Bangor—and by proprietary schools. By the Education Act of 1889, a complete system of secondary schools, under popular control, was established. Two of the endowed schools still remain—Brecon, founded by the religionists of the Reformation, and Llandovery, the Welsh school founded by a patriot of modern times.

It was principally for the ministry of religion that secondary schools and colleges were first established. Schools were founded in many districts, and important colleges at Lampeter (degree-granting), Carmarthen, Brecon, Bala, Trevecca, Pontypool, Llangollen, Haverfordwest. Many of these have a long history.

Higher education had been the dream of many centuries. Owen Glendower had thought of establishing two new universities at the beginning of the period of the Revival of Letters; among his supporters were many of the Welsh students who led in the great faction fights of mediæval Oxford. Oliver Cromwell and Richard Baxter had thought of Welsh higher education. But nothing was done. In the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth until 1870, the Test Act shut the doors of the old Universities to most Welshmen; the new University of London did not teach, it only examined; the Scotch Universities, to which Welsh students crowded, were very far. In 1872, chiefly through the exertions of Sir Hugh Owen, the University College of Wales was opened at Aberystwyth, and maintained for ten years by support from the people. The Government helped, and two new colleges were added—the University College of South Wales at Cardiff in 1883, and the University College of North Wales at Bangor in 1884. In 1893 Queen Victoria gave a charter which formed the three colleges into the University of Wales. Lord Aberdare, its first Chancellor, lived to see it in thorough working order. On Lord Aberdare’s death, the Prince of Wales was elected Chancellor in 1896; and when he ascended the throne in 1901, the present Prince of Wales became Chancellor.

The tendency of the whole system of Welsh education is towards greater unity. There is a dual government of the secondary schools and of the colleges, the one by the Central Board and the other by the University Court—a historical accident which is now a blemish on the system. The Training Colleges are still outside the University, but they are gravitating rapidly towards it. The theological colleges are necessarily independent, but the University offers their students a course in arts, so that they can specialise on theology and its kindred subjects. The ideal system is: an efficient and patriotic University regulating the whole work of the secondary and elementary schools, guided by the willingness of the County Councils, or of an education authority appointed by them, to provide means.

The rise of the educational system is the most striking and the most interesting chapter in Welsh history. But the facts are so numerous and the development is so sudden that, in spite of one, it becomes a mere list of acts and dates.

XXIV LOCAL GOVERNMENT

THE French Revolution was condemned by Britain, and the voices raised in its favour in Wales were few. The excesses of the Revolution, and the widespread fear of a Napoleonic invasion, caused a strong reaction against progress. The years immediately after were years of great suffering, but the very suffering prepared the way for the progress of the future, because it made men willing to leave their own districts and to move into the coal and slate districts, where wages were high enough to enable them to live.

The first demand was for political enfranchisement. In 1832, in 1867, and in 1884 the franchise was extended, and every interest found a voice in Parliament. But, with the exception of the sharp struggle between the tenant and landlord after the Reform Act of 1867, the effects of enfranchisement on Wales have been very few. Two Acts alone have been passed as purely Welsh Acts—the Sunday Closing Act, and the Intermediate Education Act. In Parliament, the voice of Wales is weak even though unanimous; it can be outvoted by the capital or by four English provincial towns. Until quite recently its semi-independence—due to geography and past history—was looked upon as a source of weakness to the Empire rather than of strength. Its love for the past appeals to the one political party, its desire for progress to the other, but its distinctive ideals and its separate language are looked upon, at the very least, as political misfortunes. Education and justice have suffered from official want of toleration; the appointment of a County Court judge who could not speak Welsh, within living memory, has been justified by Government on the ground that Englishmen resident in Wales object to being tried by a Welsh judge.

Far more important to Wales than the Reform Acts are the Local Government Acts which followed them. When the Reform Act of 1884 added the agricultural labourer to the electors of representatives in Parliament, every interest had a voice. A further extension of the franchise would not affect the balance of parties, it was thought; and a British Parliament has no time or desire to think of sentiment or theoretical perfection. The Parliament found it had too much to do, the multiplicity of interests made it impossible to pay effective attention to them. The result has been that half a century of extension of the franchise has been followed by half a century of extension of local government. The County Council Act came in 1888, and the Local Government Act in 1894.

Of all parts of Britain, Wales had least local government, and needed most. Its justices of the peace were alien in religion, race, and sympathy; they were either country squires who had lost touch with the people, or English and Scotch capitalists who, with rare exceptions, took no trouble to understand the people they governed, or to learn their language. The vestry meeting had been active enough during the early part of the eighteenth century; but religious difficulties made it impossible for a semi-ecclesiastical institution to represent a parish. The Tudor policy had separated the people from the greater land-owners; the iron masters and coal-owners had not yet become part of the people; there was not a single institution except the Eisteddvod where all classes met.

In no part of the country was local government so warmly welcomed, and no part of the country was more ready for it. One thing the peasants had been allowed to do—they could build schools and colleges, churches and chapels. They had filled the country with these—their architecture, finance, government, are those of the peasant. The religious revivals had left organisers and institutions. Four or five religious bodies had a system of institutions—parish, district, county, central. All these were thoroughly democratic in character. When the Local Government Acts were passed, there was hardly a Welshman of full age and average ability who had not been a delegate or in authority; and those of striking ability, if they could afford the time, continually sat in some little council or other and watched over the interests of some institution.

It was from among these trained men that the councillors for the new county, district, and parish senates were elected. The work of the councils, especially that of the County Council, has been very difficult; and when the time comes to write their history, the historian will have to set himself to explain why the first councils were served by men who had extraordinary tact for government and great skill in financial matters. In the lower councils the village Hampden’s eloquence is modified by the chilling responsibility for the rates, but the Parish Councils have already, in many places, made up for the negligence of generations of sleepy magistrates and officials.