Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/154

 We have had no one officer or one body responsible for the preservation of the literature and records of Wales. Despite that, gallant and noble efforts have from time to time been made by individuals and by true lovers of Wales to collect, keep and care for the manuscripts and books and records of Wales. Our debt to these wise benefactors is very great. Of late years we have made sometimes modest and sometimes frantic appeals to the Government to do something to fill up this gap, to do something to help the proper presentation and publication of the records and manuscripts of Wales. It is well to see in the British Museum a great collection of manuscripts relating to Wales and manuscripts of Welsh literature. It is well to find that the local and legal records of Wales are being cared for in the Record Office, instead of being allowed to rot away unheeded and uncared for. But they are still, in a sense, buried. They are only very partially available to the scholars of Wales. They are a hidden treasure to the mass of the Welsh people. Of late years, some of us have been growing clamorous and importunate