The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1871-04-07

L -
This is the nostrum which the English
Protestants always propose for the vi
ces and social diseases of. Ireland, and
this is the reason urged for the moral
and religious superiority of the English
people. Yet the Welsh are eminently
and undisputably bible-reading peo-
pie. Not a cottage in the principality
however wild and impoverished the re-
gion, is without the Holy Book. Every
Welshman is able to read the language
of his country, and every Welshman
reads the Bible. Its principal contents
are instilled into his mind from earliest
infancy, and as familiar to hear as
household words. 1t is emphatically
the Book the people revere, and is
studied by every yonth in the land the
comfort and counsellor of the suffering
and the aged. This is fact universal
and irrefutable. Either these English
protestants or Royal commissioners
are wrong. This, however, is certain,
that as no man is perfect, all nations
have necessarily their vices and errors,
and if the Welsh people are only guilty
of minor vices; they Appropriated
nearer to the state of the just and per-
feet men. To expect to be alike free
from great crimes and minor vices is to
expect from them the virtues and per-
fections of gods.
But we admit the existence of greater
offences than these among our brethren
on the other side of the Atlantic. We
apprehend that their guilt as nation
has been i'll changing from that fierce
love of independence that distinguished
their fathers to a mean and servile sub
mission to their Norman-SaXon mas
tiers. Loyalty has not been their virtue,
but their folly and infirmity. Had they
continued to present holder front to
the foe they would have secured his re-
spect. England only honors when she
fears; she only comedies when she is
constrained. But loyalty has been the
error of the Welsh people. 1t led them to
support the cause of tyranny in that day
when the English puritans and the pill
grim fathers of this land were strug-
Cling for freedom and the rights of
conscience; and until within few
years since loyalty to the sovereign and
the rulers of England was one of their
noted characteristics. Allegiance to
law and constituted authorities is of
course just, and gives high evidence of
the supremacy of moral influences and
faithfulness to a sentiment of duty
amongst people. But such allegiance
must be founded on justice and an equal
share in the power and legislation to
which men are called upon to submit.
Without this, tyranny preyails in gov
ernments, and slavery amongst the peo-
pie. Without this loyalty is servility
to the man, not respect for the law.
The Welsh are a conquered people; no
power or honor is extended to them
until they cease to be Welsh, that is
until they leave their country and for
get their language, and become in every
respect English. Their loyalty has had
no effect in recommending them to the
esteem of their rulers. The Welshman
is treated in England as one of an in
ferior race ; he is marked-jeered, des-
tracted vile suspicious are attached to
him; vile names are applied to him.
This is one of the natural results of
conquest. 1t ever swelIs the self-es-
TEEN and pride of the conqueror; it
ever reduces the conquered to disgrace
and degradation and meanness. We
therefore rejoice in knowing that our
countrymen are awakening to a sense
of their rights and their dignity. We
rejoice that the loyalty, that is to say
the homage paid to the assumed super
iority of the conquering race is fast de-
caying, and perishing. The people are
not rebellious. They have no stirring
agitations-no monster meetings-no
revolutionary leaders eliminating them
but they have ceased to be loyal. They
no longer believe that any divinity
doth hedge" an English King on an
English government. They are in fact
in q transition state. AS a nation of
protestant dissenters they have no res
pect or affection for the creed and clergy
of the English established church. That
church appears to them as an instru-
ment of English oppression whose
grand purpose is TO exact titles and sup
press their ancient language. Hence
they hate it with a silent and deep and
growing hatred. They regard its min
listers as clerical tyrants, having no
sympathy with the people of the land
often irreligious and immoral-lusting
after filthy lucre rather than anxious
for the salvation of souls-wolves in
sleeps clothing sent to rob and starve
the flock. The want of sympathy and
respect shown them at all times by the
English people and the English govern
ment; the jeers of the Saxon and the
misrepresentation of royal Commits
sioners-haye utterly changed the
sentiments and embittered the feelings
of once loyal and submissive people.
They only wait now for the hour and
the man to claim with the unity and
authority of million of human beings
Justice and right, and assume their
proper political position as a nation.
One fact will serve to show the truth of
tDls statement. a lew years Dack
Welsh periodicals were entirely theo-
logical in character. There was a senti-
ment amongst the people, very foolish
and false one it is true, a very satisfac-
tory one, too-that politics were pro-
fame, that a professor of religion would
contaminate his soul by taking any in
terest in the political events of the day
1t was worldly and unspiritual.
But change has come over the peo-
pie. Nosc the politics of the day form
a regular and important feature of the
works and are subjects of constant and
free discussion and when the English
government issued its false and SANDER
Gus reports on the moral condition of
the Welsh, it gave a most useful and
needfnl impulse to this political resus-
citation. Public meetings were held
throughout Wales and in many parts of
England at which Welshmen spoke Bit
terly-and with none of the old veneT-
alton for governmental this last act
of Anglo-Saxon injustice-this reward
for centuries of loyalty; since then, dis