Ffynh 8Z

Your joint telegram as to the action taken by the Government in reference to the bombing school incident gave me a great shock, and I immediately wired you my first impressions. I think it an unutterable piece of insolence, but very characteristic of this Government. They crumple up when tackled by Mussolini and Hitler, but they take it out of the smallest country in the realm which they are misgoverning. It is the way cowards try to show that they are strong by bullying. They run away from anyone powerful enough to stand up to them and they take it out of the weak. In the worst days of Irish coersion [sic], trials were never taken out of Ireland into the English courts. They might be removed from Roscommon to Dublin, but they were never taken to the Old Bailey. I cannot recall a single instance in the past of its having been done in the case of Wales. Certainly not in a criminal case. This is the first Government that has tried Wales at the Old Bailey.I wish I were there, and I certainly wish I were 40 years younger. I should be prepared to risk a protest which would be a defiance. If I were Saunders Lewis I would not surrender at the Old Bailey,I would insist on their arresting me, and I am not sure that I would not make it difficult for them to do that. This Government will take no heed of protests which do not menace it. I hope the Welsh Members will make a scene, and an effective one, in the House.

(Lloyd George to Megan Lloyd George, 1 December 1936, from Jamaica, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth [Tip: daliwch Ctrl a chliciwch dolen i'w agor mewn tab newydd. (Cuddio tip)] )