Social Evolution and The avail able evidence as to the prevalent type of the Welsh people shows that they are on the whole less fair, tall and bulky than the farmers of the English plains. They are, as a rule, more wiry and hardy than muscular, and a certain predominance of the nervous over the muscular system gives them, in certain districts especially, an air of keenness, sensitiveness and vivacity. The freshness of the air and the beauty and variety of the scenery also contribute to thiS end, as well as to an appreciation of linguistic aptness and poetic imagery. The excellent voices of Welshmen, too, are mainly due to the purity of the air. Brachy-cephalic types are rare, but mesocephalism prevails. Though the extreme blonde type is uncommon, there is a fair proportion of light or reddish hair, and in South Wales especially, a considerable admix ture of pale-faced, black-haired and markedly dolicho-cephalic men, who look as if their type had been evolved in the shelter of the ancient forests of the country. Generally speaking, it may be stated that the prevalent types are the natural counterparts of the conditions of life of the Welsh farmer and his dependents, with its hard toil, careful calculation and plain fare.
The necessary interdependence of the mem bers of the scattered communities of rural Wales has produced a certain sociability, fluency and aptitude for co-operation in public affairs, though in religious matters there is consider able cleavage. The chief religious denomina tions are the Calvinistic Methodists, the Inde pendents and the Baptists. In purely Welsh districts crime is very rare. The conditions of 'Welsh agriculture from the remotest times, under necessities of soil and climate which often frustrated man's best hopes, have created a deep-rooted sense of man's dependence on powers that are beyond his control, and beneath the markedly religious spirit of the Welsh people there lies this fundamental instinct, the traditional intensity of which at times finds vivid expression. To this feeling are also linked a sense of the pathos of life, which has found utterance in Welsh poetry, a deep at tachment to the soil, a minimizing of the im portance of human distinctions in the lace of the powers of nature, and a passion for a kind of natural justice, which has expressed itself in modern times mainly in a demand for religious equality and the disestablishment and disendowment of the State Church, and in the desire to correct by means of education the disabilities of birth and station.
The social evolution of the country has been largely conditioned by its geography. This is such that the economic value of land varies greatly. Until recent times, the stress of com petition was almost entirely for the surface products of the soil. The discovery of mineral wealth, however, has now given the economic, social and political evolution new directions. In the hunting, pastoral, fishing and agricul tural life of man in the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, right down to modern times, whether Wales was invaded by Iberian, Goidel, Brython, Belgian, Roman, Saxon or Norman, the motive of the struggle was essentially the same, namely, the possession of the good lands of the country, such as the river valleys and the flatter districts afforded. In Wales, the records of the ancient system of land tenure suggest that the weaker and stronger communi ties came to be interspersed, the better type of holdings being held by freemen in family groups, while the unfree villagers farmed their land mainly by a system of cotillage. The basis of social life was mainly tribal, and the necessary social adjustments produced a cor relative body of custom and law.
The successive invasions of the country have left numerous archmological traces, as for ex ample, the fortresses of unmortared stone of which Trerceiri in Carnarvonshire is an excel lent instance. This fortress is now assigned by archaeologists to about 100-50 D.C. The Romans developed the road communications and worked some of the lead mines of the country. After the departure of the Romans, the western coasts were harassed by invaders from Ireland, and Britons from the north appear to have been invited to assist in their expulsion. Some of these families, notably that of Cunedda Wole dig, remained in Wales and became the found ers of Welsh local dynasties. The struggles
against the English and the Normans brought into the foreground of Welsh life. The conquest of Wales by Edward I led to the a network of castles and gar rison towns, governed by English law and cus tom, while the country districts remained Welsh. This led to constant friction, and the revolt of Owen Glyndwr (Glendower) was essentially a struggle of the country against the towns. The reign of Henry VII (a de scendant of an Anglesea Welshman, Owen Tudor) was hailed with great enthusiasm in Wales, but it was this prjnce and his son Henry VIII who finally assimilated the Welsh legal system to that of England. Wales main tained its attachments to the Crown even through the Civil War, and until the second half of the 19th century was mainly conserva tive in politics.
The discovery of coal, slate, lead and other minerals, as well as the industrial and com mercial revolution generally, has given the life of Wales a new aspect. In Glarnorganshire, Monmouthshire, East Carmarthenshire, East Denbighshire and the slate districts of Carnar vonshire there are thriving and progressive in .clustrial communities, with corresponding facil ities for communication by land and sea. The rapid development in question is well exempli fied in the case of Cardiff, (q.v.) which has grown in a few decades from being a moderate sized market town into one of the leading coal ports of Britain. New docks, too, for Irish and Atlantic traffic have been built by the Great Western Railway at Goodwick in Pembroke shire. There is in Wales a considerable sea faring population and in Montgomeryshire, Carmarthenshire and Merionethshire there are some woollen factories. The industrial districts of Wales and the large towns of England, as well as the United States and the colonies, have ,absorbed the superfluous population of the Welsh country districts, until depopulation has in several places been the result. The price of agricultural labor has gone up, and, owing to the greater possibility of finding employment elsewhere, there is a more independent attitude toward the governing classes in religion and politics. Local government has more and more fallen into the hands of Liberals and Noncon formists, and there are now no Welsh Conser vatives in the House of Commons, but the land owners are mostly Conservatives. See Lout'. GOVERNMENT in this section.
Side by side with this development, there has grown up a desire for a measure of national self-government, especially in the sphere of edu cation; and the first instalment of this was given in 1897 by the establishment of the Cen tral Welsh Board for Intermediate Education, for the purpose of controlling the secondary schools founded under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889. These schools have made very rapid progress, and there are now about 120. The establishment of the Univer sity of Wales, federating the University College of Aberystwyth (founded in 1872), Bangor (1884), and Cardiff (1883) is a phase of the same movement. (See also BRITISH EDUCATION — WALES). Royal charters, too, have been granted for the foundation of a Welsh national museum at Cardiff and a Welsh national li brary at Aberystwyth. Several private collec tions of Welsh MSS. have been already bought for the latter. The great difficulty, however, in the way of complete national development and unification is the absence of a metropolis within easy of all parts. The most convenient meeting-place for the whole of Wales is Shrewsbury (the ancient Pengwern), which lies outside the Welsh border.
In addition to the foregoing factors of mod ern Welsh development, it should be stated that in the summer months there is a very great in flux into Wales of visitors from England and elsewhere, in search of health and pleasure, and that for their accommodation whole towns have grown up along the coast. This link with Eng land has helped to bring Wales more and more into closer touch with the outer world, while still living its own life and maintaining its indi viduality. Of the fine arts music and poetry are the only ones that have received extensive cultivation.
For topography, climate, etc., see WALES; for industries, commerce and trade see articles in this section on AGRICULTURE; MINING; ERIES; INDUSTRIES; COMMERCE; BANKING; RAIL.