May 26th, 1905.

AT THE Conference of Welsh Revolters, which met at Shrewsbury last week, the Merionethshire Committee was instructed “to take immediate steps for establishing emergency schools, into which to draft the Nonconformist children withdrawn from the existing Church schools”. If we are to treat the leaders of the Revolt as men of common honesty, we must accept their statement that the Church schools can no longer be maintained, because their drains are defective, and because the health of the children has been sacrificed to dogma. We say nothing, for the moment, about the fact that in the case of many provided schools no steps have been taken towards putting their drains, officially condemned as defective, in order. What we want to know is, what is the sanitary state of the buildings — chapels, dairies, and so forth — which are going to be used as emergency schools, and what guarantee there is that in all respects they are structurally fit for the purpose for which they will be used. We have assumed that Mr Lloyd-George and his associates honestly believe the nonsense they allow themselves to talk about “putrid drains” and “pure dogma”. If they desire to clear themselves of the suspicion of hypocrisy, they must show that every one of the emergency schools they intend to open conforms to the standard of structural and sanitary fitness which they have sought to impose on the managers of Church schools.