WELSH COLONY IN PATAGONIA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 61, 26 October 1911, Page 8

WELSH COLONY IN PATAGONIA.

Forty-six years ago a handful of Welshmen with their families left their homes in Whiles, some for political reasons, some for questions of language, and a few for a love of adventure; they wore d terminal to found a colony where they world he entirely free, governing th.-miehes and speaking their own Longue. With litis object in view they landed near the present Vie <f I’m t Aladiyn, on the cast coast 'of Patagonia, which was then a sort of “No Alan’s Land.”, .Making their way overland to the Jhuhut Valley, they found the country a waste; hut with great efforts and hardships they dug canals more than forty miles in length (with the main branches more than 200 miles) and irrigated the land, so changing what was then only a part of the desolate Patagonian plain into the now fertile Chuhiit “Colony 7.”

When the Argentina took over the government of Batagonia, the. settlers felt in some way that the land so hardly won was being taken from them hy “foreigners.” The colony itself, however, included many political refugees, and so fell between two stools, being in sympathy neither with Britain, from widen they had come, nor with Argentina, which had- annexed them ; so that the present generation was brought up without any national sentiment or esprit de corps to speak of, and a feeling of listlessness and resentment for a long time permeated the settlement. During Die last four or live years, however, a more healthy feeling has b-en growing up, due in part to the greater prosperity of tln> farmers, in part to increased facilities of communication with Fmrope, and the consequent ;;;-

flux of young men from Britain, who have brought new ideas and new ideals to the country. it is now found possible to be both British in sentiment and at the same time good Argentine citizens. The Coronation ol King George and the Investiture ol the ' Prince of Wales have been made the occasion of an outburst of patriotism. The celebrations in Chuhiit were notable for a popularity and an organisation unprecedented in the annals of the colony; and the outcome has keen the formation of a “British Society.”