Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/134

 right national organisation. Obeying fashion is a great folly and a greater crime; but gradual changes in dress properly accompany a healthful national development." Only relics of our old rural economy and national costume remain. There is now a continuous rush from Manchester and Liverpool of the latest fashions, and too often the tawdriest shoddy. Rural Wales will gain in health, in prosperity, in taste, and in self-respect, when her streams will again be utilised to minister to her own needs by supplying the motive power for revived village industries. Nor can one but be apprehensive about the change for the worse in many matters of diet. The Quarries Commission in its report just issued, says "We are of opinion that the Welsh quarryman might with advantage copy his brethren in Scotland and elsewhere, and make use of a more varied diet such as porridge and milk, broth with vegetables, &c., and be careful to avoid stewed tea, for we were struck by the fact that the physique of the Scotch and Cornish quarrymen was decidedly superior to that of the Welshmen." The