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Saving the Soul of the Nation: Essentialist Nationalism and Interwar Rural Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2010

WIL GRIFFITH
WIL GRIFFITH*
Affiliation:
School of History, Welsh History and Archaeology, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2DG, UK
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Abstract

This article explores how the land and the agricultural community were made out to be central to the assertion of Welsh national identity between the world wars. Political Nationalism came out of a disillusion with Liberal national sentiment. Liberal nationalists had recognised the significance of the land in Wales and made secure a devolved administrative regime for agriculture, the Welsh Council of Agriculture, originally established before 1914. For the political Nationalists, however, this was far too little. They perceived a cultural and economic crisis which might be overcome only through complete self-government. That crisis originated historically in the annexation of Wales to England which had intruded an alien land system and destroyed a natural, patriarchal rural order; which had foisted an alien commercial, industrial system and had led to the Anglicisation of Welsh society. In its depressed state, inter-war Wales was subjected to a new and reactive form of politics, often influenced by European right wing ideas, which was anti-urban, anti-capitalist, anti-English and anti-modern, all of which had wider repercussions for the future of Welsh identity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , October 2010 , pp. 177 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

Notes

1. This is an expanded and revised version of a paper first delivered to the Inter War Rural History Research Group Conference, ‘Re-thinking the Rural: Land and the Nation in the 1920s and 1930s’, at Royal Holloway, University of London, 4th to 6th January 2007.

2. See Davies, D. Hywel, The Welsh Nationalist Party 1925–1945: A Call to Nationhood (Cardiff, 1983)Google Scholar; Jones, J. Graham, ‘Forming Plaid Cymru: Laying the Foundations, 1923–26’, National Library of Wales Journal, 22:4 (1982)Google Scholar; Jones, J. Graham, ‘Forming Plaid Cymru: Searching for a Policy, 1926–30’, National Library of Wales Journal, 23:2Google Scholar; Gruffudd, Pyrs, ‘The Welsh Language and the Geographical Imagination 1918–1950’, in Jenkins, Geraint H. and Williams, Mari A., eds, Let's Do Our Best for the Ancient Tongue: The Welsh Language in the Twentieth Century (Cardiff, 2000), pp. 109–35Google Scholar; Gruffudd, Pyrs, ‘Tradition, Modernity and the Countryside: The Imaginary Geography of Rural Wales’, Contemporary Wales, 6 (1994), 33–47Google Scholar; Gruffudd, Pyrs, ‘Prospects of Wales: Contested Geographical Imaginations’, in Fevre, R. and Thompson, A., eds, Nation, Identity and Social Theory (Cardiff, 1999)Google Scholar, chapter eight; Emlyn J. Sherrington, ‘Post-war Polarisation: The Choice between Rome and Moscow’ (unpublished, c. 2000), chapter six, on the contextual European ideas and influences after 1918. I am most grateful to the author for permission to refer to this and other of his important, but hitherto unpublished, work. The most recent examination of Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru's ideology is by Jones, Richard Wynn, Rhoi Cymru'n Gyntaf: Syniadaeth Plaid Cymru, Cyfrol 1 (Caerdydd, 2007)Google Scholar.

3. Jones, J.E., Tros Gymru: J.E. a'r Blaid (Abertawe, 1970), p. 189Google Scholar.

4. Lewis, Richard, ‘The Welsh Radical Tradition and the Ideal of a Democratic Popular Culture’, in Biagini, Eugenio F., ed., Citizenship and Community: Liberals, Radicals and Collective Identities in the British Isles, 1865–1931 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 325–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. John, Edward T., Home Rule for Wales. Addresses to ‘Young Wales’ (Bangor, 1912), esp. pp. 27–39Google Scholar, ‘Self-Government and Rural Development’. Also, see W.P. Griffith, ‘Devolutionist Tendencies in Wales, 1885–1914’, in D. Tanner, C. Williams, W. Griffith and A. Edwards, eds., Debating Nationhood and Governance in Britain, 1885–1945 (2006), pp. 89–117. The recommendations of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in Wales and Monmouthshire 1896 and Lloyd George's Land Inquiry Committee of 1914's Welsh Report also sustained this Liberal agenda.

6. This is not to dismiss the significance of the urban and industrial distress in Wales by the later 1930s as also moulding a view that Wales ought to have some control of its own affairs; hence James Griffiths's advocacy of a Secretary of State for Wales. See J. Graham Jones, ‘Socialism, Devolution and a Secretary of State for Wales, 1940–64’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1989, 135–6.

7. Owen M. Edwards, Yn y Wlad: troeon crwydr yma ac acw yng Nghymru (1921 ed.), p.11. [To the Welshman[sic], it is difficult for him to make his home in the town; he's the child of the mountain and the sea and the clean open air. A longing awakens in his heart for the cwm (combe) and the lake and the fields, and the enchantment of this dream brings him out of the settlements of men to his own country. Her air is rarely darkened by the heavy smoke of cities. There are miles between village and village and there all the secrets of nature are opened to those who would wish to see them.]

8. Owen M. Edwards, ‘Nodiadau’, in Owen M. Edwards, Cartrefi Cymru ac Ysgrifau Eraill (1962 ed.), p. 102. [Patriotism has always been a powerful force, and always for good. It includes self-sacrifice, the self is lost in the country; there is a sanctification to it, – it sweeps away selfishness like dried chaff and extinguishes family rivalries which are the bitterness of barbaric life, and brings a man closer to God. In the power of his patriotism lies the strength of the best features of man's character; opposed to patriotism are the worst things in his character, – the desire for wealth, hatred of his fellow man, prejudice.]

9. Owen M. Edwards, ‘Llanwrtyd’, in Owen M. Edwards, Cartrefi Cymru ac Ysgrifau Eraill, p. 147. [If the last prince fell by your banks [River Irfon], the folk being raised in Muallt will be better princes to you. Asleep and awake, your murmuring voice comes to my ears, and your scenery arises in a beauteous dream before my eyes. And like the sound of your music in my memories, the sweet sound of your preachers will remain in the life of my country. And as long as there will be music in your waves, Welsh will be spoken on your banks.]

10. Bebb's diaries are very revealing on the Welsh romantic and French reactionary influences upon his nationalism. See Humphreys, Robin, Lloffion o Ddyddiaduron Ambrose Bebb 1920–1926 (Caerdydd, 1996), passim, esp. p. 277 for EdwardsGoogle Scholar.

11. Light, Julie, ‘The 1917 Commission of Enquiry into Industrial Unrest – a Welsh Report’, Welsh History Review, 21:4 (2003), 704–25Google Scholar; Parliamentary Paper 1917–18 [Cd.8668], Reports of the Commission of Enquiry into Industrial Unrest: No. 7 Division, Wales and Monmouthshire, pp. 14–17.

12. On Welsh farmers’ attitudes to state control of land as embodied in Lloyd George's policies, see J. Graham Jones, ‘Searching for a policy’, 199, and ‘Ein Tir: oferiad meddyginiaeth Lloegr i Gymru’ [Our Land: the futility of England's remedy for Wales], Y Ddraig Goch, Ionawr 1927, 3. More generally, Griffiths, Clare, ‘“Red Tape Farm”? Visions of a Socialist Agriculture in 1920s and 1930s Britain’, in Wordie, J.R., ed., Agriculture and Politics in England, 1815–1939’ (London, 2000), pp. 199–241CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. Iorwerth C. Peate, ‘Y crefftwr yng Nghymru’[The craftsman in Wales], Y Ddraig Goch, Mehefin 1929, 4. [We all know now that this age is a crossroads in our nation's history. Ahead of us lies the industrial age with advanced industry and the latest techniques all contributing to cheap production. Behind us, in Wales lies a civilisation that's five thousand years old – beginning with the period when migrations came from the east with means of agriculture and taming animals to form the basis of our country's culture. And when this way of life fails an age will end which is so long and so old that we cannot properly grasp its antiquity.

And indeed, perhaps some of you are asking whether this present age is a crossroads at all. I say without hesitation yes, and it is necessary to decide today what will befall Wales's culture. The old way of looking at things – God bless those who developed it – is taking a turn in our age. Truly if we do not bestir ourselves, it will cease to be.]

14. Lloyd, D. Tecwyn, John Saunders Lewis. Y Gyfrol Gyntaf (Dinbych, 1988), pp. 235Google Scholar, 252, 270, 273–4. Cf. T. Villis, Reaction and the Avante-Garde. The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy in Early Twentieth-Century Britain (2006).

15. Chapman, T. Robin, W. Ambrose Bebb (Caerdydd, 1997), pp. 58–59Google Scholar; Humphreys, Lloffion o Ddyddiaduron Ambrose Bebb, pp. 118–19.

16. Ibid., p. 132 (on 6 April 1923); Gorgolini, Pietro, The Fascist Movement in Italian Life (London, 1923)Google Scholar. This explication of fascism had a wide circulation in many languages during the 1920s, though not in Welsh.

17. Lloyd, John Saunders Lewis, pp. 217, 226, 230, 237, 253. ‘Ffasgiaeth a Chymru’ [Fascism and Wales], Y Ddraig Goch, Gorffennaf 1934, 6; R.E. Jones, ‘Ai Ffasgiaid ydym? No ato Duw!’ [Are we Fascists? No, for God's sake!], Y Ddraig Goch, Tachwedd 1936, 6, rejecting unrestrained authoritarian state power. These accusations culminated in the wartime attacks on the party and its early leaders. See The Party for Wales. Replies by Saunders Lewis and J.E. Daniel to Mr Gwilym Davies (1942).

18. Literally, householdership; in Welsh law, the unfettered right of occupation for a kindred group. This was accompanied by the core belief – common in right wing ideology – in the (self-sufficient) family as the basis for the nation (Lewis, Saunders, Canlyn Arthur: Ysgrifau Gwleidyddol (Aberystwyth, 1938), pp. 43–50Google Scholar).

19. Sir Alfred Mond, a prominent Jewish south Wales industrialist. Both Lewis and Bebb openly proffered anti-Semitic sentiments here as well as anti-proletarian depictions of a Welsh industrial population uprooted from the land and from the cultural heritage (Sherrington, ‘Post-war Polarisation’). For the broader intellectual context, see, for example, Kenneth Lunn, ‘Political anti-semitism before 1914: Fascism's heritage?’, in Lunn, Kenneth and Thurlow, Richard C., British Fascism. Essays on the Radical Right in Inter-war Britain (London, 1980), pp. 20–40Google Scholar.

20. For an early reaction in the more anglicised south to this form of ‘narrow nationalism’, coupling exclusively language and ruralism with national identity and, implicitly if not explicitly, in the author's eyes, also with race, see J. Vyrnwy Morgan, DD, The Welsh Mind in Evolution (n.d. ?1925). For Morgan, see Charmley, Gerard, ‘J. Vyrnwy Morgan (1861–1925): Wales in another light’, Welsh History Review, 24:2 (2008), 120–43Google Scholar.

21. Moore-Colyer, R.J., ‘Farming in Depression: Wales between the Wars, 1919–1939’, Agricultural History Review, 42:2 (1998), 177–96Google Scholar; Ashby, A.W. and Evans, I.L., The Agriculture of Wales and Monmouthshire (Cardiff, 1944), pp. 92ffGoogle Scholar.

22. Inspired especially by the Statute of Westminster 1929, the party came to call for Dominion status for Wales, similar to that which the Irish Free State had attained; that is, still deferring to the British crown. The Welsh and Scottish nationalist parties jointly petitioned the crown for dominion status in 1935 (Y Ddraig Goch, Mai 1935, 2). It became a more contentious issue in 1939–40 (Heddiw, 5:7 (1939) and 7 (1940)).

23. Emlyn J. Sherrington, ‘“New Aristocracy”: Rightwing Nationalism and its claim to Historical Leadership’ (unpublished, c. 2000) chapter seven, on the Welsh, British and European right-wing influences in their espousal of an aristocratic, anti-democratic leadership of a resurrected rural polity. Sherrington identifies the contextual social analyses of Pareto and Nieztsche, mediated through French Symbolism, as significant.

24. The most significant figures to affiliate to the Party were Lady Mallt Williams of St Dogmaels, Pembrokeshire, Johnny Morgan of Cross Hands and R.O.F. Wynne of Garthewin, Denbighshire, who, from the early 1930s, became a leading patron to the Party and an intellectual ally to Saunders Lewis.

25. A seminal essay by Bebb in 1923 set out the future Plaid Genedlaethol's direction in these respects. Bebb, Wm. Ambrose, ‘Achub Cymru: Trefnu ei Bywyd’ [Saving Wales: Organising her Life], Y Geninen, 41 (1923), 184–96Google Scholar.

26. Bebb, ‘Gweddnewid Cymru’ [Transforming Wales], Y Ddraig Goch, Gorffennaf 1926, 1–2.

27. Tensions between farmers and agricultural servants and labourers had emerged in the later nineteenth century and had continued after the war as trade unionism and socialism, much of it English in origin, began to intrude into the rural districts. See Pretty, David A., The Rural Revolt that Failed (Cardiff, 1989)Google Scholar, chapters six and seven. The clash between ‘traditional’ Welsh Liberal, Nonconformist values and Socialism in rural Wales was portrayed in the contemporary drama ‘Crosswinds’ by J.O. Francis (c.1920).

28. Bebb, ‘Achub Cymru’, 195–6. [All the farmers and all the servants in a county should join together to secure agriculture's interests – in order to sell well, in order to buy cheaply, and thus farmers win and servants win. Within this union servants will have their own union to achieve the highest wage in payment for their higher productivity. The same with the farmers. Similarly the two sides in all the counties, until the formation of a union of farmers and servants which will represent the whole of Wales. And that will be a happy day for agriculture, and, as a result, for Wales!] The non-sequiturs did not occur to Bebb, apparently.

29. Saunders Lewis, ‘Cenedlaetholdeb a chyfalaf’ [Nationalism and capitalism], Y Ddraig Goch, Mehefin 1926, 3. [A nation in which the majority of its members are petit capitalists, as owners of land or each holding his share in a works or factory or quarry, that's a nation which will nurture proud men and women, fearless, possessing neither deference nor hypocrisy nor silent anger nor treachery. A nation hard to conquer nor to shame nor to subdue so as to forsake her privileges and birthright.] Cf. Boehme, O., ‘Economic nationalism in Flanders before the Second World War’, Nations and Nationalism, 14:3 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. ‘Point 7. Agriculture should be the chief industry of Wales and the basis of its civilisation.’ Lloyd, John Saunders Lewis, pp. 249, 265, 279, and 285–7. Cf. Belloc, The Restoration of Property (1936).

31. Humphreys, Lloffion o Ddyddiaduron Ambrose Bebb, pp. 186, 221–2, 250–1; Catholic social action, as idealised by Bebb in relation to Brittany and by Lewis in relation to rural Ireland in particular, was not to the liking of moderate Nationalists of a Protestant persuasion, notably Prof. W.J. Gruffydd. On this, see also Hughes, Trystan Owen, Winds of Change: The Roman Catholic Church and Society in Wales, 1916–1962 (Cardiff, 1999), pp. 81–88, 163–70Google Scholar.

32. Hywel, Emyr, ed., Annwyl D.J. Detholiad o'r ohebiaeth rhwng D.J. Williams, Kate Roberts a Saunders Lewis (Talybont, 2007), p. 11Google Scholar. Williams, D.J., A.E. a Chymru (Aberystwyth, 1929)Google Scholar, reviewed somewhat critically by Saunders Lewis for A.E.'s over-optimism about implementing agricultural cooperation (Y Ddraig Goch, Ebrill 1929, 4).

33. ‘Gwneud y Dalaith Rydd yn Hunan-Gynhaliol: Y Mesur Tir a Mesurau Eraill’ [Making the Free State Self-sufficient: The Land Bill and Other Bills], Y Ddraig Goch, Awst 1933, 4. Also, ‘Y Blaid ac Iwerddon: tebygrwydd polisi'r Blaid i bolisi De Valera’ [The Party and Ireland: The Similarity between the Party's Policy and that of De Valera], Y Ddraig Goch., Chwefror 1933, 8.

34. Supporters of the Welsh School of Social Service were enthused by an address from Paul Hansen, founder and head of the People's College at Esbjerg. See Evans, Frederick, ‘Wales and Denmark’, The Welsh Outlook, 17:9 (1930), 245–7Google Scholar.

35. A general British interest in Grundtvig emerged during these years, see for example Davies, N., Education for Life: A Danish Pioneer (London, 1931)Google Scholar; Manniche, P., Living Democracy in Denmark (London, 1939)Google Scholar.

36. D.J. Davies, ‘An Economic Policy for Wales’, Y Ddraig Goch, Mai 1931, in D.J. Davies, Towards Welsh Freedom, ed. C. Thomas (1958), p. 59. Cf. Adams, Caitlin, ‘Rural Education and Reform between the Wars’, in Brassley, P., Burchardt, J. and Thompson, L., eds., The English Countryside between the Wars: Regeneration or Decline? (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 36–52Google Scholar, esp. 47 n. Welsh Nationalists shared the concern of English rural advocates about supplying an appropriate education for rural dwellers, emphasising, however, that it should be culturally distinctive from that organised by Whitehall. Hence, they were prominent in campaigning for a separate Welsh Council for Education. Cf. also Löffler, Marion, ‘“Foundations of a Nation”: The Welsh League of Youth and Wales before the Second World War’, Welsh History Review, 23:1 (2006), 74–105Google Scholar.

37. David Evans, Y Wlad: ei bywyd, ei haddysg a'i chrefydd [The Land: its life, its education and its religion] (1933). Evans was Professor of German at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and conceivably had been influenced by continental ideas about land and nation, for example, the Celtic scholar Kuno Meyer (Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig 1951–1970, ed. E.D. Jones and B.F. Roberts (Llundain, 1997), pp. 48–49).

38. For this, see Harris, John, ed., Fury Never Leaves Us: A Miscellany of Caradoc Evans (Bridgend, 1985)Google Scholar, A Biographical Introduction, esp. pp. 30ff.

39. Y Golygydd [The Editor – Saunders Lewis], ‘Pant Y Beilïau’, Y Ddraig Goch, Ionawr 1933, 4; Davies, D.J., ‘Amcanion yr Ysgol Newydd: magu dinasyddion ym Mhant y Beiliau’ [Aims of the new school: nurturing citizens at Pant Y Beiliau], Y Ddraig Goch, Chwefror 1933, 6Google Scholar; also, Davies, John, Caerdydd, ‘Ein Diwylliant a'i Beryglon’ [Our Culture and its Dangers], Y Ddraig Goch, Gorffennaf 1932, 5–6Google Scholar.

40. For example, W. Ambrose Bebb, ‘Bywyd Gwledig Cymru Heddiw. Y nychtod a ddaeth iddo’ [Welsh Rural Life Today. The enfeeblement that has come to it], Y Ddraig Goch, Mai 1927, 4, recounting the changes in his native Cardiganshire, blaming the education system and denominationalism for eroding communal customs and unity.

41. The Departmental Committee had been a concession to Welsh educationists in 1927 following the publication of a Board of Education committee report on Welsh in Education and Life (1927), paras. 385–6, which made several far reaching recommendations about rural and agricultural education. At the same time, the Conservative government deflected calls for a Welsh National Educational Council (The Times, 25th June 1927, p. 7).

42. Davies's, D.J. criticism in ‘Polisi Economaidd i Gymru [Economic policy for Wales]’, Y Ddraig Goch, Ebrill 1931, 3–4Google Scholar, following a critique by Prof. W.J. Gruffydd. Transl. in Towards Welsh Freedom, pp. 64–65.

43. Daniel, J.E., Welsh Nationalism: What it Stands for (London, c. 1937), pp. 15, 43–47Google Scholar.

44. The regeneration of the wastes and uplands was a policy advocated by SirStapledon, George, A Survey of the Agricultural and Waste Lands of Wales (London, 1936)Google Scholar.

45. Y Ddraig Goch, Awst 1932, 1.

46. ‘Egluro'r Cynllun Llaeth’, [Explaining the Milk Scheme] Y Ddraig Goch, Chwefror 1934, 9.

47. Comments by a leading London based Welsh Nationalist, Alun Pugh, to a female activist, Mai Roberts, about the inability of Welsh MPs such as Dan Hopkin [Labour, Carmarthen] to openly agitate to persuade W.S. Morison, the Minister of Agriculture, and the failure of their ‘behind the scenes’ approach. Bangor University, General MS 20449, dat. 14/ii/1937. Cf. Moore-Colyer, ‘Farming in Depression’, 185–8, on the variable impact of inter-war government agricultural policies on the Welsh livestock sectors.

48. Ministry of Health, Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Anti-Tuberculosis Service in Wales and Monmouthshire (1939). The report sensibly dismissed so-called ‘racial’ (Celtic) factors and concentrated on epidemiological, occupational and physical causes. Also, The Times, 14th March 1939, p. 19.

49. In 1929, John had argued that Wales suffered from being tied to England. Since English policies were unsuitable for Wales this was reflected not only in the higher incidence of TB but also in female mortality rates, especially, again, in rural Wales. It was the effects of the contrasting occupational patterns which were not being addressed. As many as 42% of Welsh workers were in extractive industries compared with 13% in England, and 30% of Welsh workers were in agriculture compared with 7% in England.

50. ‘Ymreolaeth i goncro Darfodedigaeth’[Home Rule to conquer TB], Y Ddraig Goch, Chwefror 1936, 1; and see Michael, P. and Webster, C., eds., Health and Society in Twentieth-Century Wales (Cardiff, 2006)Google Scholar. The voluntary King Edward VII Welsh National Memorial Association, led by the Liberal peer, Lord Davies of Llandinam, Montgomeryshire, had been in the forefront of campaigning against TB, assisted by occasional government grants. This included trying to improve the quality of tubercular-free cattle herds in association with the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society (The Times, 29th July 1933, p. 9).

51. ‘Cynhadledd Amwythig a'r Cyngor Datblygiad’ [The Shrewsbury Conference and the Development Council], Y Ddraig Goch, Hydref 1933, 1–2. George Williams, chair of the South Wales Development Council objected to an all-Wales body, stressing regional and economic differences between north and south.

52. ‘Before new farming colonies can be settled on the land in Wales, the land itself must be recovered and reconditioned’, Saunders Lewis, The Case for a Welsh National Development Council (?1933), p. 6.

53. Sheail, J., Rural Conservation in Inter-War Britain (Oxford, 1981), pp. 95 and 201Google Scholar.

54. Sheail, Rural Conservation, chapter nine. Stapledon, Survey of the Agricultural and Waste, was the notable exception. Concern about the intrusion of urban life into the countryside and the erosion of rural values and dangers to the environment were rife in England too and enhanced the idea of imposing planning controls. Among the foremost advocates of these was Clough Williams-Ellis. See Stevenson, John, ‘The Countryside, Planning and Civil Society in Britain, 1926–1947’, in Harris, José, ed., Civil Society in British History: Ideas, Identities, Institutions (Oxford, 2002)Google Scholar.

55. Lewis, Case for a Welsh National Development Council, p.11. The Segretariato was associated particularly with Arrigo Serpieri, notable as an expert on upland reclamation and a legislator and agrarian moderniser, including promoting credit facilities and encouraging the principles of small holding under the Mussolini governments.

56. Daniel, J.E., ‘Economeg y Blaid’ [The Party's economics], Y Ddraig Goch, Mehefin 1934, 7–8Google Scholar.

57. Richards, R.C., ‘Cenedlaetholdeb Ariannol. Polisi Primo de Rivera yn Sbaen’ [Financial Nationalism. Primo de Rivera's policy in Spain], Y Ddraig Goch, Mehefin 1934, 9Google Scholar.

58. Roberts, O.M., ‘Hunanlywodraeth ac Amaethyddiaeth’ [Home rule and Agriculture], Y Ddraig Goch, Rhagfyr 1932, 2Google Scholar; Ionawr 1933, 8.

59. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Economics Series No. 26, Markets and Fairs in England and Wales, Part IV, Wales (1930); Board of Trade, An Industrial Survey of South Wales (1932), chapter 7, ‘Agriculture’.

60. For example, Jones, J. Morgan, Economeg Amaethyddiaeth (Caerdydd, 1930)Google Scholar; Rees, J. Morgan, Diwydiant a Masnach Heddiw (Caerdydd, 1931)Google Scholar; Griffith, J. Jones, Magu a Phorthi Anifeiliaid (Caerdydd, 1932)Google Scholar. In addition, there were the learned articles in the Welsh Journal of Agriculture and other academic sources (Moore-Colyer, ‘Farming in Depression’, 179).

61. Some limited land settlement experiments were occurring in South Wales organised by the South Wales Rural Settlement Society, formed under the Welsh National Council of Social Service, together with the South Wales Industrial Development Council, e.g. at Boverton, Glamorgan and Neyland, Pembrokeshire, all under the aegis of the Special Areas Commissioner. See ‘Land Settlement in South Wales’, Wales and Monmouthshire. The Official Journal of the Industrial Development Council of South Wales and Monmouthshire, vol. 1:4 (1936), 30; ibid., 1:6 (1936), 34; and The Times, 7th December 1935, p.9; 8th December 1936, p. 13.

62. Moses Gruffydd [sic], Amaethyddiaeth Cymru (1937; 2nd ed., 1938). For a broader view of the rural credit issue and its protectionist and ideological political biases, see Conford, Philip, ‘Finance versus Farming: Rural Reconstruction and Economic Reform, 1894–1955’, Rural History, 13:2 (2002), 225–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Gruffydd, see Phillips, Llywelyn, ‘Moses Griffith’ in Morgan, D. Llwyd, ed., Adnabod Deg: portreadau o ddeg o arweinwyr cynnar y Blaid Genedlaethol (Dinbych, 1977), 96–105Google Scholar. The raiffeisen were the German credit unions based on the pioneering work of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (1818–1888), who was also a prominent supporter of cooperative initiatives. More generally on the inter-war banking crisis, see Feinstein, C.H., ed., Banking, Currency and Finance in Europe Between the Wars (Oxford, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63. Jones, Percy Ogwen, ‘Dyfodol Amaethyddiaeth a'r Bywyd Gwledig’[the Future of Agriculture and Rural Life], Y Triban, 3 (Gaeaf 1938–9), pp. 5ffGoogle Scholar. Y Triban acted as a research journal for the party.

64. Richards, R.C., ‘Agriculture and Rural Industries in Self-Governing Wales’, Y Triban, 1 (Hydref 1937), 2–12Google Scholar.

65. Gruffydd, Amaethyddiaeth Cymru, pp. 17–18; Richards, ‘Agriculture and Rural Industries’, 11. The Forestry Commission came in for criticism for its land purchase and re-leasing practices as well as for its misplanting of trees on good agricultural land. Emrys B. Owen, Llanidloes, ‘Rhaib Comisiwn y Coedwigoedd’ [Rape by the Forestry Comission] Y Ddraig Goch, Chwefror 1937, 4.

66. BU General MS 20443, dat. 17 and 30/xii/ 1931 and MS 20444, dat. 5/iii/ and 5/iv/1932, correspondence between Williams and Mai Roberts on rural industrial revival and economic nationalism. Also, Anna M. Jones, The Rural Industries of England and Wales, A Survey made on behalf of the Agricultural Economics Research Institute, vol. 4, Wales, (Oxford, 1927; republished 1978), chapter two; J. Morgan Rees, Diwydiant a Masnach Heddiw, pp, 126–7. Use was made of the Rural Industries journal to promote Welsh cloth. Cultural preservation was also a motivation, inspired by the Irish government's support for handloom weavers in the Irish speaking districts (BU General MS 20444, dat. 1932).

67. H. Maldwyn Williams, ‘The Woollen Industry in Wales’, Wales and Monmouthshire. The Official Journal of the Industrial Development Council of South Wales and Monmouthshire Ltd., vol. 1:3, Autumn 1935, 12–14; Anna M. Jones, Rural Industries of England and Wales, pp. 37–38. Y Ddraig Goch carried adverts encouraging the purchase of Welsh products and supporting Welsh labour.

68. Jones, D.W.L., ‘Crefftau gwledig Cymru a'r awdurdodau lleol’ [Wales's rural crafts and the local authorities], Y Ddraig Goch, Mehefin 1937, 9Google Scholar; on the Scandinavian influence on him, see Peate, Iorwerth C., Rhwng Dau Fyd (Dinbych, 1976), pp. 106–7, 133Google Scholar; Pyrs Gruffudd, ‘Tradition, Modernity’, 37–39. There were also aspirations to create a national architectural tradition, emulating Sweden (Roberts, D.O., ‘Ragnar Ostberg a phensaerniaeth cenedl’, Heddiw, 6:5 (1940), 144–9Google Scholar). Peate had become disillusioned with Plaid Genedlaethol's constitutional and economic strategies by the late 1930s and argued that preserving the nation's cultural and linguistic integrity was more important than self-government (and did not wholly depend on it). See above n.22.

69. ‘Y Bath and West a Chymru, Y Ddraig Goch, Mehefin 1934, 6,8; ‘Y Bath and West – rhesymau dros atal dyfod siou Seisnig i Gastell Nedd’[reasons for preventing an English show from coming to Neath], Y Ddraig Goch, Awst 1934; ‘Perygl y “Bath and West”: y drwg a wna i Gymru’[The danger of the Bath and West: the harm it will do to Wales], Y Ddraig Goch, Mai 1935, 8. Cf. The Times, 26th April 1934, p. 8; The Times, 27th May 1936, p. 7.

70. This was perhaps because the Royal Agricultural Society had always had a significant number of leading Welsh landowners among its members and vice-presidents and had from time to time reported in its Journal on Welsh agricultural and farming practices. It did meet with some more muted Nationalist opposition in 1938, however, when the Show came to Cardiff, causing the Welsh Agricultural Society to cancel its show.

71. ‘Brad Castell Nedd’[Neath's Treachery] Y Ddraig Goch, Ebrill 1934, 9; ‘Gwaradwydd Castell Nedd’[Neath's Shame], Y Ddraig Goch, Gorffennaf 1935, 1; Howell, D.W., Taking Stock: the Centenary History of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society (Cardiff, 2003), p. 57Google Scholar. The Welsh and the Bath and West were of a similar size in terms of membership but the latter had double the reserves of the former (Howell, Taking Stock, pp. 52–53).

72. It was among the Show's most successful years (The Times, 1st June 1937, p. 15).

73. Welsh Nationalist Party, Protest against the Establishment of a Bombing School at Porth Neigwl, Lleyn Peninsula (n.d.). Porth Neigwl was the nearby coastline where bombing practice was to occur. Support for the Peace Pledge Union's Peace Ballot had been high in Nonconformist rural Wales and gave the Nationalists confidence to oppose the remilitarisation policies of (as they saw it) British imperialism.

74. Saunders Lewis, Paham y Llosgasom yr Ysgol Fomio [Why We Burned the Bombing School] (1937?).

[Can you try to understand our feelings when we saw scholars and authors in England referring to the ‘sanctity’ of ducks and swans, and on that score succeeding in getting the Minister for the Air Force to move the bombing school, and we in Wales, and exactly at the same time having to organise a great national campaign to defend really sacred things in God's creation, namely nation, her language, her literature, her age old traditions and Christian rural life, and we not even having from the government as much as a hearing for a deputation to discuss the matter?]

75. ‘Baldwin . . . Ddoe a Heddiw’[Baldwin . . . Yesterday and Today], Y Ddraig Goch, Ebrill 1937, 12, in which the praises he had heaped upon the unspoiled Welsh landscape at a St David's Day banquet in 1927 were thrown back at him. He had suggested the nationalisation of land of outstanding natural beauty. Interestingly, Lloyd George, in his presidential address to the National Eisteddfod at Neath in 1935 had emphasised preserving the rural from the philistines (The Times, 9th August 1935, p. 8). For Baldwin and his essay ‘On England’ (1937), see K. Robins, Great Britain: Identities, Institutions and the Idea of Britishness (1988), pp. 202–3.

76. From 1937, the appointment of a secretary of state for Wales was a feature of Welsh Liberal and Labour policies but was one which was rejected by Nationalists as being insufficient to defend Welsh interests.

77. Parri, Ieuan, ‘Gwerin’, in Thomas, Gwyn, ed., Ysgrifau Beirniadol, 26 (Dinbych, 2002), pp. 96–114Google Scholar.

78. And also more military installations. Contemporaneously with Penyberth was the move to establish an air base in the Vale of Glamorgan, against which the Nationalists (and notably Iorwerth Peate) raised a voice, but not so stridently; perhaps because industrial and commercial interests in nearby Cardiff were so strongly in favour. More resistance was nurtured to the intention to establish a mines depot at Trecŵn, Pembrokeshire. See ‘Llywodraeth Loegr yn Meddiannu Trecwn’, Y Ddraig Goch, Hydref 1936, 2. Most crucially came the appropriation of large tracts of Mynydd Epynt, Breconshire in 1940. See Gruffudd, Pyrs, ‘Welsh Language and the Geographical Imagination’, 122–8; Herbert Hughes, An Uprooted Community: A History of Epynt (Llandysul, 1998)Google Scholar. In the immediate post-war period, the continued military appropriation of land in Wales led to an effective oppositional alliance between Welsh scholars and some local communities such as Trecŵn and was a fillip to the Nationalist movement. On the impact of the war on Welsh agricultural practice more generally, see Moore-Colyer, R.J., ‘The County War Agricultural Executive Committees: The Welsh Experience, 1939–1945’, Welsh History Review, 22:3 (2005), 558–87Google Scholar.

79. Mudiad Cymru Fydd was largely composed of Nationalists and Liberals and during the ensuing few decades acted as a pressure group, drawing Welsh MPs’ attention to cultural, economic and social (especially rural) issues which affected the Welsh nation and petitioning the respective governments about securing greater Welsh institutional recognition. Its principal spokesman and secretary was T.I. Ellis, son of the prominent late Victorian Liberal Nationalist MP, Thomas Edward Ellis. See Jones, R. Gerallt, A Bid for Unity. The Story of Undeb Cymru Fydd 1941–1966, with a postscript to 1970 (Denbigh, 1971)Google Scholar. It had emerged from more local and ad hoc ‘defensive’ groups during 1938–40.

80. Plaid Genedlaethol after 1945 was recast as Plaid Cymru under the leadership of Gwynfor Evans into a more coherent electoral machine purporting to better defend the rural areas of Wales than the predominant Labour party. In actuality, the rural electorate was less impressed by nationalism prior to 1966 but the failure of Whitehall adequately to address rural recovery in Wales presented Plaid with a fruitful agenda. The post-war Labour government's one significant constitutional concession to Wales in the form of the advisory Council for Wales and Monmouthshire (1949) had included as one of its major remits the regeneration of rural Wales.