HAS WALES CAPITAL

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1935, Page 7

HAS WALES CAPITAL

WARM DISPUTE REVIVED. THE CLAIM OF ST. DAVID’S. The Silver Jubilee has revived an old controversy in Wales, echoes of which are occasionally heard outside the borders of the principality, states the Yorkshire Post. Which town is the capital of Wales? A North Walian will vehemently speak for Caernarvon, but in the south they think otherwise, arguing that the/ honour belongs to Cardiff; and now that it has been decided to hold the natioijal celebrations of the Silver Jubilee in that city the case at least seems won. .But Cardiff’s is a pyrrhic victory in this'battle of argument; the truth of the matter is that Wales is a country without a capital. Until medieval times the country was divided into a number of petty principalities, of which the more politically important were Deheubarth, Gwynedd, and Powys; and so deep-seated were the rivalries of the princely families and their subjects that national unity was permanently impossible. It was a Wales hopelessly divided against herself which Edward I. conquered at the end of the 13th century; and, sad as it is to have to admit it the spirit of disunity has never altogether deserted the land. It is a curious thing that so many Welsh nationalists, bitterly hostile to Anglicisation in other directions, champion the claim of Caernarvon to be regarded as the capital of Wales. Has it never occurred to them that the calim of Caernarvon rests upon the somewhat suspect foundation of English domination? It was in Caernarvon that the great Ediward offered his first-born son as a prince to the people of Wales (and incidentally Ich Dien may represent a mutilation of two Welsh words meaning “Your Man”); and as a conquered people they could not reject the gift. THE' DIM PAST. Cardiff was tire creature of the alien de Clares, those fierce Lords Marcher, whose power in Wales was a constant menace to the Kings of England; and neither before their time nor afterwards has the place been intimately identified with the national culture of the people. / In the dim and distarit past, when Cunedda Wledig stood forth, to defy the Anglo-Saxon penetration of Britain, Pengwem (now Shrewsbury) was the centre of Welsh life and culture; but even that was quickly challenged, and in the days of Maelgwn Gwynedd (he died about A.D, 547), the prince who came hearer than any man to unifying the country, the chief town in the land was Degannwy. Owen Glyn Dwr, whom Englishmen know as Glendower, made Aberystwyth the seat of his Administration; and it is significant that when he summoned representatives of the Welsh people to confer with him in a “parlement” he chose Machynlleth as the place of meeting. For Machynlleth is to Wales what Crewe is to England—the heart of the system of communications. . It was Yr Hen Fam (the Old Mother), or the Church, which united the people into one racial family; but an alien priesthood, unable to minister to their 'parishioners in their own language, drove thousands away from the Church, and as a result the land became dotted with white-washed chapels, aesthetically marring the beauty of the countryside but still cherishing dearly much that is vital in the national culture and life. In the hearts of every good Welshman, North Walian and South Walian, Churchman and Nonconformist, Tory and Socialist, one little city (actually the smallest city in the United Kingdom) ' holds pride of place over all other cities and towns in Wales. It is St. David’s; if not the political, assuredly the sentimental, capital of Wales.