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The Growth of Political Consciousness
Tom Ellis perhaps best exemplified the spirit of free trade, individual freedom and social equality that was taking root in his country. Tireless in his support of the "three areas" (land reform, education, and disestablishment) he also strongly advocated the astonishing idea of home rule for Wales. From Bala, Merionethshire, Ellis was particularly influenced by the determination of the Irish nationalist M.P.'s.
In 1886, Ellis helped found the Cymru FYI (Free Wales). This movement drew its inspiration, not only from what was happening in Ireland, with the revival of Gaelic and the call for home rule, but from nationalist movements taking place in many areas of Europe as many small "nations" sought their political independence.
Like so many before it, however, Cymru Fydd was short lived; not only did it not gather general support, there was a complete lack of a separate Welsh political structure to express national consciousness. Ellis' premature death, and the ever-widening gap between the interests of primarily Welsh-speaking North and West Wales, on the one hand, and the vastly more populated and influential English-speaking Southeast on the other, meant that Cymry Fydd never succeeded in becoming a generally popular movement. Its members were often regarded as fanatics or were conveniently snubbed as being of no consequence.
Thus it was that the introduction of a Welsh Home Rule Bill in March, 1914 for all intents and purposes a one-man affair, and its presenter E.T. John was more or less ignored by Parliament. In the House of Commons, in a passionate speech that predated similar concerns of Lord Tonypandy more than 60 years later, Welsh M.P. Herbert Roberts best expressed the general feeling of his party concerning "our call for domestic self-government":
There is no portion of the United Kingdom
which is prouder of the British Empire than
Wales...there is not a shadow of desire to
impair the supreme authority of this
Parliament or to advance one single step
along the road to separation.
Roberts was not alone: it was equality and recognition that was sought after by the majority of the Welsh people, not total separation. They had been part of a greater Britain too long. The influence of the new Nonconformity and the decline of the ancient squirearchy had meant that things would never again be the same in Wales, but the Nonconformist denominations, most active in Welsh affairs through sheer numbers and what they considered their "divine calling" did not advocate home rule. Their interests lay in an extension of the franchise and the disestablishment of the Anglican Church, and these were the two areas in which they expended most of their considerable energy.
Home Rule for Wales was considered an awful nuisance to these interests, a hindrance not to be tolerated; the Welsh language was another. In addition, the leaders of the Welsh-speaking community were only too anxious to show that the peculiarities of Welsh culture were not a threat to the unity and tranquility of the kingdom. Once again, the idea of a British national identity found itself overwhelming the purely local, isolated, and all too often ridiculed aspirations of those who wished for a Welsh nationhood.
In South Wales, feelings on the matter were sharply expressed. At a crucial meeting in Newport, Monmouthshire, in January 1898 it was firmly stated (by Robert Byrd) that there were thousands of true Liberals who would never submit "to the domination of Welsh ideas." With few exceptions, this seems to sum up the attitude of most Welsh politicians of the next one hundred years. There were too many in Wales whose close ties with English interests made the idea of home rule repugnant and one to be fought against at all costs.
Chapter 19 Continued
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