QUEEN MARY VISITS WALES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 122, 26 May 1938, Page 2

QUEEN MARY VISITS WALES

) INTEREST IN UNEMPLOYMENT | According to news from London, Queen Mary has paid a visit to the townships and villages in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, where there is still a great deal of unemployment. She helped in the distribution of parcels of clothing, then paid a surprise visit to the Trallwn Unemployed Club. In the mining town of Maesteg. Queen Mary was the first Royal visitor for 600 years. She visited the cottages of the unemployed, and when 1 .told by one miner, who had not worked for seven years, what the amount of his unemployment was, said “And can you manage on that?” “Yes, Your Majesty, just scrape along,” was his reply. Following her visit to the valleys round Cardiff, Queen Mary rang up the King, when mother and son had a long talk on the telephone abopt the misery seen there. She told the King that she had been overwhelmed by the pitiful conditions ip which out-of-work miners and their wives are bravely rearing I their children. j Her telephone call was in fulfilment ■ of a promise Queen Mary made tu the King before she went 10 stay willLord and Lady Plymouth in South Wales, that she would tell him as soon as posible exactly how she found things there. The Royal tour has brought new hope into these grey valleys, and mon and women of Ihe Rhondda and the Llynflii are waiting to see what the result may be.