The article begins with a brief introduction to the development of Welsh society and industry between 1870 and 1914. This is followed by a review of Welsh education, especially technical education, in that period, highlighting its backwardness and the factors accounting for that backwardness. The report of the Haldane Commission is then examined against a background of a brief statement of the "revisionist" case. Against the British Retardation theory, the performance of south Wales' industrialists is assessed. This reveals that in contradiction to the "revisionist" view that British industrialists did as well as could have been expected, such was not the case in south Wales. (Contains 33 notes.)