LANGUAGE & THE LAW

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1943, Page 4

LANGUAGE & THE LAW

USE OF WELSH IN COURTS.

If not world-shaking, still of worldwide interest—since Welshmen, like the more numerous Irish and Scots, are everywhere to be found—is the report from London that an act in force since the days of Henry VIII has been repealed. This act provided that English should be spoken in Welsh courts of law, and is reported to have caused much dissatisfaction in Wales. Its repeal by the House of Commons was a concession to Welsh nationalists but, says the dispatch from London, ‘lt is unlikely the Government will make any further concessions.” That statement may prove . debatable but it at least indicates a belief in London that much has been granted in this repeal. Possibly that is a fact: When one considers what a really literate lawyer can do with the most simple case even when stating it in the English tongue, one is almost afraid to think what may happen when lawyers oifer their briefs in the language of that famous Welsh book, “Yn y Llyvyr hwn” or the later and greater “Drych y Prif Oesoedd.” —“Christian Science Monitor.”