However, the Welsh Council of the League of Nations, formed at Shrewsbury in 1922, was, for a brief period at least, an example to all world leaders. With clear roots in the traditional British Liberal ethos, it trumpeted the need for co-operation between all nations if peace was to be preserved. It was, as The Encyclopaedia of Wales puts it:
"A significant force in Welsh life, as a non-party political body dedicated to the furtherance of the principles of the League of Nations."
The Welsh Council received financial aid from industrialists such as David Davies and was led and organised by the Rev Gwilym Davies. There had always been a strong pacifist tradition in Wales, particularly within the non-conformist denominations, and during the Great War many Welshmen refused to fight.
These men invariably became conscientious objectors, a large number of them – people like the bard Gwenallt (David James Jones) and the later Communist leader Arthur Horner - were sent to prison for their beliefs. It was this clear abhorrence of violence and war that was the impetus for the creation of the Welsh Council and the driving force for taking it forwards.
Right from the beginning the Council advocated disarmament and compulsory arbitration in all disputes between nations and, amongst other things, was strong in its condemnation of Welsh Nationalism. The creation of an international police force was another of its proposals.
After its formation in 1922 the Welsh Council grew rapidly and within three years it boasted 571 branches and a membership of 31,299. Very soon the council was organising an annual pilgrimage to Teregaron, the birthplace of Henry Richard, the secretary of the International Peace Society, and from the year of its creation onwards sent out a Goodwill Message to the World from all the children of Wales.
As the 1930s progressed, however, the threat of international violence grew. Not for nothing did the poet WH Auden call it a "low dishonest decade". And, of course, organisations like the Welsh Council suffered in the face of growing militarism from people like Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. It became increasingly clear that the powers of the political Right could only be stopped by direct military action.
By the beginning of the 30s membership of the Welsh Council had dropped drastically as the economic situation in the world began to worsen. The Spanish Civil War, the Munich Crisis and Mussolini's adventures in North Africa mauled and maimed the council, which was finally killed off by the declaration of war in 1939.
It had been, however, a courageous attempt at creating world peace, something that was advocated by a small nation with no axe to grind. It was an organisation of which the Welsh nation could be justifiably proud.
