TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14645, 21 April 1913, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

According to a writer in A "The Times," a now Wales New is being born. .In politics, Waks. religion, literature, and art

new ideas aro spreading throughout tho land, and tho country is undergoing a complete change. The principality was once, ••tho paradise* of old-fashionod Liberalism," but now economic ideas, the most important of which is syndicalism, are laying hold of tho industrial classes. Men of tho "Mabin" typo ,tho working man who talked the language of tho people, attended the Eisteddfod, and was active, in Church work, is being replaced by tho theorist and the revolutionist. The younger men frankly admit that they aro disappointed with tho orthodox politician. Education is being widened hi its application to life. In literature, there is a movement of eluiltengo and revolt. The literature of twenty years ago took the IJible as its model, but the new work is not unlike tho products of the Renaissance "in its love of beauty, its delight in, tho passions, find its echoes of older cultures/ Ono of tho strangest features of tho change that is coming over Wales is the interest taken in tho drama. Nowhere was the Puritan so vehemently opposed to the .stac-e as in Wales, but while the spirit still lingers.

I the younger people "opeuiy condemn it. As for religion, the correspondent has no doubt that the old theology i.s losms its hold on tho people. The Welshmen, he believes, will always need somo definite form of spiritual expression, but no one can predict the of tho pro-sent religious unrest. "Such is the seething condition of the Wales of to-day. All is changing silently, but fundamentally, and one thing only is certain—that the Wales of the next generation will have little in common with the Wales of the last."

Some very interesting Demand .statistics bearing on the and labour market in tho Supply. Old Country are published in "The Times." Tho country is enjoying a boom in trade—Ministers describe tho state of trade as one of unparalleled prosperity—yet there is a large army of men out of work. While in somo trades tho demand for men is greater than tho supply, there are 90,000 men on tho books of the Labour Exchanges wanting work, and 16,000 men are receiving help from Distress Committees. Beside-; thes<\. there are the men out of work who do not go in the Labour Exchanges, and there are the thousands to whom the Poor Law is applied. The scarcity of labour is most fell, in regard to skilled labour, tho deficiency being ascribed to an inadequate supply of properly trained lads, 10-is by emigration, aud a growing preference for "black-coated" occupations. Any number of clerks can bo got for £Ls a week, but offers of 50s are mado in vain for skilled anisans. But in some places unskilled labour is also scarce. In Glasgow, for instance, there was recently a. shortage of a thousand labourers. One number of tho

'"Labour News" contained quite a number of advertisements for navvies, and contractors complained that they could not get men. Yet, while men wore Wing sought for, thousands of men wore looking for work at tho exchanges, and thousands of others wero getting charitable relief. "The real explanation of tho discrepancy lies in tho character of tho applicants. Tho scarcity is of competent workers, the excess is of incompetent. There aro good men out of work hero and thero, but apart from the building trades and some other special branches they do not remain out of work long. Tho bulk of the out-of-works aro not worth employing at current rates of wages." Tho principal remodv for this state of things seems to bo education. A great many of these unemployables aro men who were attracted in their boyhood to blind-alley occupations, preferring to earn comparatively good wages at once, to spending some years in learning a trade. When such workers grow up they lose their employment, being replaced by boys, and join tho great army of tho unskilled unemployed.