INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL OR RUIN?

Mr. Baldwin : Severn Bridge : The B.B.C. Fury At Mr. Caradoc Evans
From our Welsh Correspondent The reply of the Prime Minister to the proposals of the Welsh members of parliament, who have urged a bold plan of action to remedy the economic ills of South Wales, is but another sympathetic platitude. Nothing is to be done : the Government will " sympathetically consider " any plan to make the manufacture of oil from coal practicable, it will not " overlook any opportunity " of increasing the exports of Welsh coal; the formation of a corporation, backed by a Government guarantee, to develop industries is " not necessary " for " there is no reason to suppose " that money cannot be found on the market for new industries having a sound economic basis. However, an aircraft storage unit is to be established and the Ministry of Transport is prepared to discuss with local authorities the re-submission of the Severn Bridge scheme to Parliament.
But, as Mr. Arthur Horner, president of the South Wales Miners' Federation, remarked at a meeting held at Paddington Station to consider ways and means of rehabilitating the coal trade, it is nonsense to suppose that the bridge would be the solution of the South Wales problem.
Unrealised Indeed, Sir Robert Horne considered that the £3,000,000 which the scheme would cost might be much more profitably employed to subsidise export coal or to build a great plant for the extraction of oil from coal.
Perhaps Lord Portal reached the core of the matter by declaring that if Wales were within 20 miles of London its troubles would have been settled years ago. One of the greatest difficulties was to get people living away from the desolation of South Wales to realise the position there.
Even so, there is room within Wales itself for a greater understanding of the present crisis. The traditional rivalries between North and South may not seem to be very serious, but as Mr. George Williams pointed out at a recent congress of local authorities at Caernarvon a truly national Economic Senate (on the lines of the non-political Council for the Development for Industry in the South) might do much to prepare evidence and present the Government with an authoritative body which meant to get justice for Wales in the economic sphere.
It could work, for example, for the building of a main road from North to South which ought to be a great boon to industry. Unemployment is a national issue and it can only be tackled boldly if local (and relatively unimportant) prejudices are set aside.
Meanwhile the Ullswater Report on broadcasting has engaged the attention of Wales. The Postmaster-General's assurance in the House of Commons that the B.B.C. intends to regard Wales as a distinct region for the purposes of broadcasting has been generally welcomed. Hitherto, technical difficulties have made the provision on a large scale of special facilities impossible.
The three points that are generally demanded are the inclusion of a Welshman in the Board of Governors, the provision of a station exclusively for Wales with its own wave-length and a guarantee that the staff of the Welsh station should be Welshspeaking.
The appointment of Mr. Hopkin Morris to be the Regional Director for Wales, despite a minor controversy about the way the appointment was made, should do much to enable Wales to make a real contribution to world wireless. His experience both as a member of parliament for that most Welsh of constituencies, Cardiganshire, and as a metropolitan magistrate for several years, will undoubtedly help to solve the very thorny problems that lie before him.
The treatment of Wales at the hands of the B.B.C. has been a particularly glaring instance of bureaucratic indifference to national demands, and now that recognition is at last being given to the legitimate claims of Wales to have a distinctive wireless system, it is probable (as the member for the Welsh Universities remarked in the House of Commons) that more people will take out wireless licences in the rural parts, since there will be some chance of their hearing programmes in a language they can understand.
Sir J. Reith's Ruling
The claim to have a Welsh representative among the governors has hitherto been resisted by Sir John Reith on the plea that " appointments to the board had never been on the basis of territorial representation." But with the increase in number of governors, it is probable that the B.B.C. will reconsider the matter, remembering, one may hope, that Wales is a nation as well as a wireless " region." When Mr. Ernest Evans urged such an appointment, he was interrupted by a member who wanted to know how many Welshmen have no knowledge of English. Mr. Evans replied that a considerable percentage of people in the rural areas spoke Welsh on all occasions. That does not mean that they are ignorant of English: they prefer their native tongue and therefore they would prefer programmes in Welsh to those in what is, after all, a foreign language. The advocates of more jazz or even of more symphony concerts are vociferous enough. They claim that they should be heard: they pay their ten shillings and want their money's worth. Can the claim of Wales be honestly dismissed as being less important, less legitimate?'
The joke of the week has unquestionably been the appointment of Mr. Caradoc Evans to adjudicate in the Welsh novel competition at the National Eisteddfod at Macynlleth next year. It need hardly be said that a storm of opposition has greeted this (apparent) approval of the most outspoken and vitriolic of Welsh artists. He is quite certainly the best-hated man in Wales, and, like most satirists, he suffers most from those who have never read his books.
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objected and has almost threatened to withdraw its patronage from the Eisteddfod. Mr. Evans, however, is unmoved and says he is as delighted with the honour as the Gorsedd is furious at the dishonour. The appointment is at least a gesture and may do something to remove the heavy air of respectable mediocrity that is at present the chief characteristic of the Eisteddfod,