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The Growth of Political Consciousness
The mid-19th century literary revival had an enormous effect on the political scene. The sense of a national identity for Wales once more began to flourish. Just as the forces of Protestantism two centuries earlier united the various factions of the British Isles in their war on Catholicism (and helped isolate Ireland as separate non-British nation), so the forces of nonconformists were to become the central uniting element in British politics in the late 19th century. In Wales, the renewed physical energy expressed itself in politics -- at Westminster in the Parliament of England, true - but a particularly Welsh expression, nevertheless.
The rapid growth in the political consciousness of the Welsh people found an effective organization and a program of action in the Liberation Society aided by a vigorous radical press. Periodicals such as Baner in the North, and Seren Cymru (Welsh Star) and Y Gwladgarwr (The Patriot) in the South spread the word about the need for additional parliamentary reform and an extension of the franchise.
Political discussion occupied much of Seren Gomer, which also advocated the rights of the Welsh peasant class and denounced the evil of the tithing system. More radical papers argued for franchise reform and the secret ballot, and there were many more periodicals that served to educate the Welsh middle class.
All these efforts (greatly aided by similar movements in England) were rewarded by the Parliamentary Reform Act of 1867 that created 60,000 new voters in Wales. In addition to the tenants of small farms, many of the workers in the burgeoning Welsh industrial towns now had the vote. They made their wishes known in the general election of 1868 and 1880 that ushered in the era completely dominated by the Liberal politicians for the next sixty years. As they were in Ireland, landlords in Wales were seen as mainly responsible for the high price of food and exorbitant rents. Resentment led to a complete break in the old tradition of electing members of Parliament from the landed families.
In 1880, twenty-nine liberals out of thirty-three Welsh M.P.'s went to Westminster, an astonishing turn about. Important names in the party were Tom Ellis, Sam Evans, Ellis Griffith, William Jones and most well-known of all, David Lloyd George. Their tenure was sustained by support from the shopkeepers and traders of Wales, by the popular press, and above all, by the workers in the great industries of coal, tinplate, iron, steel and shipping.
At Westminster, the influence of the new M.P.'s, aided by the large numbers of Irish Nationalist M.P.'s led by Parnell, was instrumental in gaining security of tenure and arbitration on rents to Irish tenants by an act of 1881. Prime Minister Gladstone (married to a girl from Hawarden, North Wales) offered support for similar measures for Wales: in a speech in the House of Commons in 1881, he stated:
Where there is a distinctly formed Welsh opinion
upon a given subject, which affects Wales alone
...I know of no reason why a respectful regard
should not be paid to that opinion.
The passing of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act, the same year, showed that there could be legislation specifically engineered for the Welsh people. It not only demonstrated the dominance over people's lives of the Welsh Chapel, but was also the first piece of parliamentary legislation that granted Wales the status of a distinct national unit. It may have primarily represented the nonconformist sense of teetotalism and a respect for the Sabbath, yet it also represented a sense of Welshness.
Chapter 19 Continued
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