§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.']
§ 10.0 p.m.
§ Mr. W. G. Morgan (Denbigh)After the wide range of subjects that the House has been discussing today it may appear to many that the subject which I am privileged to raise in this Adjournment debate is one of rather limited importance; but it is of great importance to hundreds of thousands of people in the Principality of Wales. The matter which I wish to raise tonight is that of Treasury support for publications in the Welsh language. I am very grateful that, although this is a matter which substantially affects the Treasury, the Government are represented tonight by no less a person than my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs. I am particularly glad that this is so because I have had a certain amount of correspondence with him upon the subject. I think that the issue between us is well known to us both. I hope that after tonight there will be no issue.
It is not the first time that this important matter has been raised in the House by way of an Adjournment debate. It was the subject of a debate 306 in the early hours of the morning of 2nd May, 1961, the instigator of the debate being the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris). The hon. Gentleman made a most excellent speech. I do not hope to equal the eloquence he then showed. The matter has been further raised by way of Questions by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson). All this serves to show that this is a matter concerning Welsh Members on both sides of the House.
Since the subject of tonight's debate is specifically Treasury support for publications in the Welsh language, I must of necessity direct most of my remarks to the financial issues. It is not irrelevant for me to point out in opening that we Welsh have been fighting to preserve our nationhood for a very long time, and our language is a very important facet of our nationhood. Looking back over the centuries, I think that the remarkable thing is not that the speaking of the Welsh language has gradually declined, but that it has survived at all bearing in mind the impact of its mighty neighbour the English language, a world language with all the media of the Press, radio and television at its command. It is a truism that unless we have a living language a literature cannot survive. The converse is also true. A language without a literature—by that I mean a literature that is constantly being added to and expanded—is doomed to extinction.
I should like at this stage to say a few words about what has been achieved up to the present and to pay tribute to three categories of persons for what they have done already—first, to the publishers of Welsh books; secondly, to the University of Wales Press Board; and, thirdly, to the Government. I should have liked to have been able to put the Government higher on the list, because they have done a lot. Frankly, I am rather disappointed with their present attitude and for the moment at any rate my praise of the Government in this respect must be muted. I hope that I shall have reason to take a kindlier view at the end of this debate.
As to the publishers of Welsh books, it is perfectly right to say that for very many years now their work has been 307 inspired primarily by devotion to the Welsh language—indeed, one might say solely by devotion to the Welsh language. They realise that if they ceased to publish they would sound the death-knell of the Welsh literary language. In consequence of this, they more often than not produce Welsh books at great sacrifice to themselves. They keep themselves in business solely through their general publishing work. Indeed, to put the matter in a nutshell, for many years they have consistently published Welsh books at a loss. They have subsidised these publications from other activities.
This is not a new experience to us in Wales. We are proud that we are the only nation in the world with a university founded by the people and sustained in its early years by the pennies of the poor.
Nearly a century ago the well-known Victorian Welsh publisher, Thomas Gee, of Denbigh, risked £20,000 to publish an encyclopaedia in the Welsh language. That amount was no mean sum in those days, nor is it today. He took the risk and his venture was a success. At that time there was a reasonable chance of making the venture pay, which it did, because the appeal of his publication was to a nation where the native language was, I believe, still spoken by the majority of the people and where there were fewer distractions than there are today.
Today the position is infinitely more difficult, not only because of the decline in the number of speakers of the Welsh language but because the huge majority of those who speak the Welsh language are fully bilingual, which they were not when Thomas Gee published his encyclopaedia. Naturally one realises the tremendous impact of the English language through the various means of communication which I have mentioned.
All that the Welsh publishers are asking is that the Government should give them a measure of security over a reasonable period in the future and, secondly, that they should be enabled by Government support to publish works in the Welsh language without suffering loss through doing so, even if they cannot make a profit—though it seems not 308 unreasonable to expect them to make a small profit. This seems a reasonable request.
I paid tribute earlier to the work of the University of Wales Press Board, and before dealing with the contribution of the Government I should like to express my appreciation of the work the Press Board does in considering applications for Government grants and determining the amount of those grants without claiming one penny for the work it does.
As to the Government's contribution, I do not think I exaggerate the case when I say that up to now they deserve every compliment for the assistance they have given. Ministers for Welsh Affairs have without exception given Welsh publishers a sympathetic hearing. More important—and I have particularly in mind my right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary, who was for many years Minister for Welsh Affairs—they have given practical support in raising the annual grant for Welsh books by annual increments; from £1,000 in the past to its present figure of nearly £5,000. However, this sum is doomed to extinction in about twelve months' time unless something is done.
Were it not for the assistance that has been given by the Government the few existing publishers in the Welsh language would not have been able to survive the ever-increasing production costs. There is no doubt that the improvement in the grant has increased the number of books published for adult readers and it is fair to say that never has so little public money achieved so much public good as has this grant.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend will not mind if I mention again the fact that he and I have had correspondence about the future of the grant, particularly since this is the matter which concerns us most tonight. During this correspondence he has emphasised two points. I do not propose to disagree with them, so far as they go. He has pointed out that the grant has always been regarded as terminable and that it is not merely a question of shortage of Government money, because it is desirable that the Welsh publishing industry should stand on its own feet as soon as possible.
I am sure that I speak for all Welsh publishers and all who are interested in 309 Welsh publications when I say that they are anxious that the industry should become economically viable as soon as possible. They do not ask for charity in the form of a permanent dole from the Treasury. They ask only for a reasonable measure of support in carrying out what is, after all, a great service to Wales and the Welsh nation. I think I am interpreting my right hon. Friend aright when I say that he said that it would be wrong to conclude now that the industry will not be in a sufficiently strong position and able to support itself by 1965.
I am afraid that it is on that issue that I must part company with him. I should not like to think that my right hon. Friend is unsympathetic—I am sure that he is not. I prefer to believe that in this matter he is being rather un-realistically optimistic. I do not think that there is any ground for supposing that all will be well with Welsh-language publishing by 1965, and to my mind there has never been any real reason to suppose that that would be so. Indeed, it would be nothing short of miraculous if the payment of what is, after all, only a small grant for half a dozen years or so could of itself counteract the effect of 90 years of general education through the medium of the English language, together with the accompanying spread of newspapers and periodicals and radio and television broadcasting in that tongue. It is far too much to expect Welsh publishers to gain a new market and a new public all at once; one cannot look for a revival overnight.
I should like my right hon. Friend to bear in mind that it is only in recent years that there has been a change of heart on the part of Governments and officialdom generally towards the teaching and use of the Welsh language. Only a little more than a century ago The Times saw fit to describe the Welsh language as "the curse of Wales", and I regret to say that the Victorian view expressed by the "Thunderer" in 1846 still persists in the minds of a few arrogant people.
To put the matter quite frankly, I think that all parties represented in this House deserve some portion of blame for not taking measures to save the language when the task would have been appreciably less formidable than 310 it now is. But it is no use crying over spilt milk—we want to look to the future. I do not want my right hon. Friend to get the impression from what I have said that the position of the language has become hopeless, and that there is no point in doing anything about it. Although there has been a gradual decline in the number of Welsh speakers since the census of 1911—when, incidentally, they amounted to nearly 1 million—much of it has been due to emigration to England, where many of them have tried, and in cases have succeeded, to retain their Welsh nationality and language. It is right to say, too, that the small decline shown by the census figures between 1951 and 1961 was not as much as was expected, but the point is, because it relates to the future, that there are hopeful signs even in the anglicised areas of Wales that the new Welsh schools will point the way to a real bilingual culture in which the best of both languages will be preserved.
Before I come to my hopeful suggestions for the future, which I hope my right hon. Friend will carefully consider, I should like to make one last point in favour of the publishers, because it is something that is not generally realised. The fact is that, and I do not criticise anyone for it, very few of them have ever received the grant for which they asked in respect of a particular book or title, even though, and this is important, they have to supply details of the costing of a publication when making their applications.
I come now to my suggestions. Although it may sound rather a lot to ask for at the present time, I suggest that my right hon. Friend should increase the grant to a minimum of £10,000 a year and guarantee it for a period of 20 to 25 years. I do not consider either the sum I suggest or the period of time I suggest to be unreasonable, because not only have we, on the one hand, to give Welsh publishers security, but we have also to inculcate reading habits in Welsh in the younger generation, otherwise the money that has been expended may be entirely wasted. If my right hon. Friend does not care to pledge himself to that, I wonder whether he would at any rate consider the appointment of a small 311 committee of inquiry to consider the whole position in the very near future? There is no lack of matters which such a committee could consider—the size and method of distribution of the grant, the provision of Welsh textbooks, children's books, and so on.
My final point is that it has not escaped notice in Wales that in the financial year 1962–63 the Government spent no less than £200,000 in sending low-priced English books overseas. I make no criticism of that—this expenditure was very necessary to enable English books to hold their own in foreign markets. We in Wales are modest people—we do not expect anything as generous—but we feel that the Government are under a moral obligation to do their utmost within reason to preserve one of the oldest living tongues, spoken within its jurisdiction, almost on its own doorstep, and, I am proud to say, by many Members of this House.
§ 10.15 p.m.
§ Mr. Emlyn Hooson (Montgomery)I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Denbigh (Mr. Morgan) on raising this matter. I have to declare an interest because I am a director of a Welsh publishing firm, Gwasg Gee. The hon. Member referred to it as the oldest Welsh publishing company. Like my fellow directors, I am an unpaid director, but I can tell the Minister a fact which he already knows, I am sure, that the publishing of Welsh books normally does not pay. It is subsidised by old-established publishing companies from their other activities, generally their printing activities.
One point which I should like the Minister particularly to bear in mind is that when we have English publishing and one publishes, for example, a fairly successful novel or a serious book in England and it is taken up by the public libraries, this is normally enough to make it a commercial success. On the other hand, if one publishes a Welsh book, whether a novel or a serious book, and it is taken up by the public libraries this is almost sufficient to ensure its failure, because if it is not purchased, or purchased to a very limited extent, or only by those libraries which provide Welsh books, this makes it a completely uneconomic proposition.
312 I do not know the number of public libraries in England, but it probably runs into several thousand. Therefore, if half of them buy a book and one has a circulation of about 2,000 copies, this normally would ensure that one would at least make a balance on one's costs. With Welsh publishing the position is quite different. We depend not only on publishing the books but on persuading people to buy them, rather than just get them from the library. This is why I think it is so important to have the kind of grant which the Government have given in the past and which I certainly hope will be increased.
§ 10.17 p.m.
§ The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for WelshAffairs (Sir Keith Joseph)My hon. Friend the Member for Denbigh (Mr. Morgan) and I have corresponded a good bit about the subject of this debate, and I know that he is by no manner of means the only hon. Member who takes a deep interest in this subject. I was very grateful to him for his thoroughly deserved tribute to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for his constructive concern with the publishing of books in the Welsh language
I cannot pretend to the same record as my right hon. Friend, but I, too, recognise, and have recognised since I have had any responsibility for Welsh affairs, that a living language and a living literature must support each other, and therefore the preoccupation with the survival of the spoken Welsh language must spill over strongly into a concern for the number of books, for adults as well as for children, for pleasure as well as for study, in the Welsh language.
I should like to echo my hon. Friend's tribute to the Press Board of the University of Wales which gives an honorary service, an invidious as well as an honorary service, because it is invidious to pick and choose between different alternative ways of spending what is, after all, a limited sum of money. I think that we all owe them a great debt of gratitude.
I think it only right also to pay some tribute to the publishing industry that concerns itself so generously and in such a dedicated way in many cases with the 313 publication, often at a loss, of Welsh books. Finally, there is a whole army of Welsh enthusiasts who are, by their purchasing and reading habits, I think beginning to show the sort of support that we all want to see; not enough yet but on a rising trend. There is, after all, a great deal of support for books published in Welsh.
My hon. Friend scrupulously kept to the exact limitations of this debate—the Treasury support.
But we all know that the Welsh Joint Education Committee and its specialist panels has a very enlightened scheme for the support of Welsh books, admittedly mainly text books and children's books, and we all know the admirable Five Counties scheme.
I was sorry to hear the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) comment on the value of purchases by libraries. I realise that he was not deprecating them but was saying that, unlike the position in England, they were not enough on their own. I have read the interesting ideas of Mr. Alun Edwards for making the libraries in Wales some constructive basis for further support of Welsh books as the schools have already become. This is not my business. It is that of the Minister of Education but I mention these existing facets of enlightened support.
There is the Welsh Books Council which has been in operation only some months but has already made itself felt by canalising contributions from a number of local authorities which themselves receive rate deficiency grants for their contributions, and which, as I quote from the Guardian last month, has distributed about £4,000 among 40 authors. The Welsh Books Council, as we all know, aims to support authors whereas the University of Wales Press Board distributes Treasury money among publishers.
There is, therefore, quite a lot of support one way or another and I believe the figures show that there are a rising number of books published in the Welsh language. It was never intended that the support From the Treasury should go on for ever. My hon. Friend himself said that he always accepted that the annuity should be a terminable annuity. He rightly paid tribute to the fact that 314 the annuity has been a rising one, by £500 a year, and that as a result there has been a rising number of books supported by it. In 1962 there were fifty-one books, which is the highest number supported, published by twelve different publishers, and engrossing the £4,000 which is available. Every year, except one when there was a particular interference, there has been a rising trend in the number of books supported by the scheme which we are discussing.
In the light of my hon. Friend's recognition that the support, to be healthy, must be terminable, otherwise we are putting the industry on some sort of dole, it is odd that he should have finished his speech by suggesting that there should be an increase in the grant to £10,000 and that this should continue for twenty-five years. This, in the terms we are discussing, would be a large and permanent dole, such as my hon. Friend said earlier would not be suitable for the industry. And it would be throwing in the sponge when there is a rising trend and increased prospects that the industry may well be more rewarding than is immediately recognised.
I have little new to tell the House but perhaps there are two things which may not be generally known. The University of Wales Press Board makes a report. This is one of the conditions of the Treasury grant. It reports each year to the Minister for Welsh Affairs, but in order to avoid the invidious publication of details of its support it is a convention that the report is not published. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave a report to the House which was published in HANSARD in 1961. Therefore it would be possible, if there were a general desire for it, for me to bring that report up to date. It would not be a verbatim repetition of the University of Wales Press Board's report to me, but it would give figures which might be of interest to the House, and if there is a general desire for it I will follow that up.
The Board has announced that it proposes next year, which is the penultimate year of the present grant scheme, to make a survey of the latest three years of its activities when it will have spent the largest sum of money in support of Welsh books. That survey will 315 be reported to the then Minister for Welsh Affairs. This will enable the then holder of that office to study it with the University of Wales Press Board, which is most closely and sympathetically associated with us, before the final termination of the present grant scheme. I hope that at that time the figures and the morale—if I may speak of morale in the industry—will be such as will make it seem sensible to wind up the scheme. I naturally hope, and I am sure hon. Members do, that by then the Welsh book industry will be seen to be on a healthy upward trend, even if not fully established as viable.
My hon. Friend worried me a little, however, when he said that there was no need to wait that long because he could tell me now, on behalf of the publishers, that the scheme was nowhere within sight of being viable. That is not the impression that I got. I suggest that the most sensible thing to do is to wait and enable the Minister at the time to study the promised three-year survey by the University of Wales Press Board. But if the publishers of Welsh books feel that they have information that they would like to pass on to the Minister for Welsh Affairs, and if they would like to propose such a thing, I for one would be very glad to meet the Welsh publishers and discuss this matter. So that at an appropriate time, just before the University of Wales Press Board report reaches my Department, which I imagine will be towards the end of next year, the views of the Welsh publishers
316 will be known to the holder of this office.
I put that forward as a possibly constructive suggestion so that before the termination of this scheme—I must emphasise that it is still the intention of the Government to bring the scheme to an end, as has always been undertaken, unless there is a strong reason shown to the contrary—what I am suggesting will make it possible for the views of all concerned to be known thoroughly by the Government before the final date.
I have not gone in for a lot of figures. It is generally accepted that the trend of Welsh books published for adults is rising. I have reason to believe that the variety of Welsh books published for adults is healthy, and there is a mounting number of novels, essays, poetry and travel books—the sort of things that we would have wanted to see flourish to serve the Welsh culture.
I am, therefore, glad to recognise that this short debate is not altogether a depressed debate. We recognise that the trend is healthy. The only question is whether viability is as close as 1965 or not. I suggest that it is sensible to await the Report, and I am willing to have a personal discussion with the Welsh publishers, if they think fit, somewhere about the middle of 1964. I am grateful to hon. Members for their interest in this subject which must serve the interests of Wales.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Ten o'clock.