Re Lloyd-George:

   ' .......So that was what "politics" now meant for Welsh Liberalism, not the corporate struggle for a noble aim, but an obsequious subservience to the ascendancy of one man; no policy for a nation however strong that man's passion for social justice. It is indeed a far cry from here to 1886.

     The advice was taken, but it was not for Wales, but her leaders who reaped the "substantial benefits." For the parallel between the effect on Wales of Henry Vll and Lloyd George can be taken farther than the seduction of the dominant class from their loyalty in Wales under the cloak of service to her; it holds for the method adopted to confirm Welshmen in their new allegiance - a revolting system of rewards. The struggling nationalist movement was overwhelmed by an avalanche of offices and honours. Between this famous victory of 1906 and 1918 some three dozen Welsh M.P.s received honours or appointments, and the policy, which was extended to a far wider field than the political, was apparently pursued with complete cynicism.

     The Liberal victory in Wales in 1906 was held to "reflect the rapid growth of a vehement spirit of nationalism in Wales." No doubt it did reflect the nationalism of the people of Wales; it is the ordinary people of Wales who have been through the last four centuries the custodians of the Welsh tradition. It was not the people of Wales who failed, but their leaders. Had they leaders worthy of them, with strength enough to resist the fleshpots of the English Parties, they would by now have been led to national freedom. One of that generation was asked to point out the difference between Irish and Welsh nationalism. "The leaders of Irish nationalism," he said, "live a great deal of their time in gaol, and many of them die on the gallows. In Wales they live in comfort and die with a considerable amount of property to dispose of under their wills.

     Not much was needed to keep the Welsh Parliamentary Party in its place. One searches in vain through these decades for a tribute of admiration to their selfless struggle for Wales, for although there were some very fine exceptions among them, they made no such struggle. "The Welsh (Parliamentary) Party as such is a negligible factor in our national life. Where it ought to dominate it is utterly unregarded. It exerts no authority in Wales; it wields no influence at Westminster. It has never evolved a programme or inspired a policy. Not once in its uneventful history has it heralded an advance in Welsh Politics."

     When the new Parliament assembled Ellis Griffith proposed to the Parliamentary Party that its decisions should be binding upon its members, on all matters, but found only five to support him. Thus even when they were all drawn from one Party, there was no unity among them on Welsh questions? Such a "Party" does not even aspire to effectiveness.

     The Welsh cultural movement as distinct from the political, went from strength to strength in this period. It was the heyday of Y Beirniad, Cymru and Y Geninen, of new life in poetry, prose, literary criticism and industrial research; and this development was to prove far more fruitful than the sterile politics of the time. It is to this period that we owe the National Library, the National Museum, and the Welsh Department of Education, which was given through the influence of Lloyd George as a sop for the failure to secure a Council of Education for Wales.'

     The moral of the story is that English Parties and their Welsh puppets are self-serving and not Wales serving.

VOTE LEANNE WOOD (and PLAID CYMRU - THE PARTY OF WALES) whose 'raison d'être is the defence of Wales and is no puppet.