The Labour party in Wales has a formidable history. Labour governments have created institutions as significant as the National Health Service and the National Assembly. Labour councils have built the schools, developed the services, created the opportunities which have done so much for the Welsh people. The party has combined principles and energy with a deep commitment to developing practical and workable policies for the nation as a whole. No other party can match its achievements.

Success did not come easily. In the election which following the formation of the Labour party in 1900, Labour returned a single MP - Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil. By 1918 the party was a force in the coalfields, but Labour grew more slowly elsewhere. The forces of traditionalism were not easily eroded, even by mass unemployment. In 1935, at the height of the depression, Labour captured just half of the parliamentary seats in Wales.

Nonetheless, by the later 1930s Labour was proving its worth. Labour councils responded to mass unemployment and the degrading Means Test with both passion and practical support. Labour councils mitigated the impact of unemployment, led the fight against TB, worked to reduce the scandalously high Welsh maternal and infant death rates and promoted industrial diversification.

The 1945-51 Labour government built on and expanded these achievements, developing a public sector, educational provision and a welfare system which served the whole of Wales. Yet the party still captured just 25 of the 35 Welsh seats in 1945. Although the government had merged social justice and economic modernisation, it was only when the party refined and extended this approach in the 1950s and 1960s that it captured even hitherto hostile parts of north Wales. In 1966 Labour gained more than 60 per cent of the Welsh vote and won all but four of the parliamentary seats. It was not to regain this level of support until 1997. The 1970s and early 1980s were a hard time for Labour. In 1976 its support in local government plummeted. In the 1983 parliamentary election, the party's lead over the Tories fell to just 5 per cent. Plaid Cymru and the Liberals and Plaid Cymru became a significant threat.

In developing its position, the Labour party in Wales has always relied on a comparatively small band of party members and officials (there was not even a formal Welsh Labour party structure until 1947). The passion, idealism and commitment of these members led them to support the families and the cause of striking miners in 1926 and in 1984-5, and victims of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Such people carried out endless, thankless, tasks for the party and the community. Both activists and officials have at times clashed with the party in London - and with each other. The merits of devolution, Welsh language education, nuclear disarmament, homosexual law reform and other issues have all been advanced - and opposed - in determined manner. Welsh Labour has produced its fair share of mavericks and crusaders, who have been thorns in the flesh of party leaders (and sometimes of constituency parties). Yet many schooled in the rough and tumble of Welsh Labour politics have also turned into constructive leaders of the British party, including Aneurin Bevan and Jim Griffiths in the 1940s and 1950s, and Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock in the 1970s and 1980s.

The lessons of the past are seldom unambiguous, but one thing is clear. The party has earned its support by serving and representing Welsh voters, losing its grip only when it failed to match new expectations and needs. At the turn of a new century Labour can feel pride in its achievements, but no complacency about its future. The world which made the Labour party - and which Labour helped to mould - has vanished. The party now faces a new challenge. Victories made in the past will need to be remade in the future if Labour's second century is to be as successful as its first.