Cylchgronau Cymru

VOLUME XV THE NUMBER XII WELSH OUTLOOK Where there is no vision the people perish NOTES OF THE MONTH WALES is to-day face to face with a national calamity,-with suffering on a scale and of an intensity unknown in this country since the Hungry Forties. We wonder to what extent the general public-and especially the public of North Wales-ha-S realised what is happening in the distressed mining areas of the South? If the position has been realised, the response is utterly inadequate. If it has not been realised, it is high time that it should be. To us in the North the facts are a challenge both to our common humanity and to our common nationality. We claim to be a nation. Let us act as a nation -all together. There is something every one of us can do for his fellow countrymen. Let us do it. WHAT are the facts? A special corres- pondent of The Times stated on November 28th that not within the life- time of anyone living has South Wales faced a winter with such apprehension and misgiving as it does now. Of the mining population of some- thing over 200,000 in South Wales, nearly 80,000 are walking the streets in compulsory idleness, and 30,000 more are only able to obtain work for two or three days a week. And the worst is not yet. Owing to the economic impossibility of carrying on, collieries are closing down one after another. The number of unemployed grows with every pit closed. GET hold of that figure. Eighty thousand Try to realise it. Perhaps you live in a town. How big is it? Ten thousand in- habitants? Then your unemployed fellow coun- trymen from South Wales would fill eight such DECEMBER 1928 towns-the men alone. If you allow an average of two dependents-a wife and a child-to each man, they would fill twenty-four such towns as yours. Every household in those twenty-four towns will need food and clothing and warmth this Christmastide, but not a man among them can earn a penny. Think of it. Does that bring it home? Think of the children-read what four competent observers say elsewhere in these columns about the plight of the little ones in our distressed areas. Think-most of all-of the mothers. For on the whole it is true to say that the mother suffers most when the family purse is low. She feeds the children first, and then the husband, and then-third and last and least- herself. And having thought-wake up, North Wales PLEASE do not plead that a great deal has been done and is being done to come to the rescue. That is perfectly true. But the point is that a very great deal still remains to be done. It is true that the Unemployment Benefit funds have been in full operation. It is true that relief paid by the Guardians has staved off actual starvation in the vast majority of cases. It is true that school children known to be suffering from under-feeding are being supplied with extra nour- ishment. But remember these three groups of activity represent the full extent of any ameliora- tive measures that can legally be undertaken out of public funds. These measures make no pro- vision for supplying children with boots and cloth- ing. There are hundreds of single men without dependents who have been idle for so long that they have lost their title to unemployment benefit and are not in receipt of poor law relief. There