Ireland In The New Century Part 9

The local authorities created by the Act of 1898 provided the machinery for enabling the representatives of the people to decide themselves, to a large extent, upon the nature of the particular measures to be adopted in each locality and to carry out the schemes when formulated. The Act creating the new Department empowered the council of any county or of any urban district, or any two or more public bodies jointly, to appoint committees, composed partly of members of the local bodies and partly of co-opted persons, for the purpose of carrying out such of the Department's schemes as are of local, and not of general importance.

True to the underlying principle of the new movement--the principle of self-reliance and local effort--the Act lays it down that 'the Department shall not, in the absence of any special considerations, apply or approve of the application of money ... to schemes in respect of which aid is not given out of money provided by local authorities or from other local sources.' To meet this requirement the local authorities are given the power of raising a limited rate for the purposes of the Act. By these two simple provisions for local administration and local combination, the people of each district were made voluntarily contributory both in effort and in money, towards the new practical developments, and given an interest in, and responsibility for their success. It was of the utmost importance that these new local authorities should be practically interested in the business concerns of the country which the Department was to serve. Mr.

Gerald Balfour himself, in introducing the Local Government Bill, had shown that he was under no illusion as to the possible disappointment to which his great democratic experiment might at first give rise. He antic.i.p.ated that it would "work through failure to success." To put it plainly, the new bodies might devote a great deal of attention to politics and very little to business. I am told by those best qualified to form an opinion (some of my informants having been, to say the least, sceptical as to the wisdom of the experiment), that notwithstanding some extravagances in particular instances, it can already be stated positively that local government in Ireland, taken as a whole, has not suffered in efficiency by the revolution which it has undergone. This is the opinion of officials of the Local Government Board,[44] and refers mainly to the transaction of the fiscal business of the new local authorities. From a different point of observation I shall presently bear witness to a display of administrative capacity on the part of the many statutory committees, appointed by County, Borough, and District Councils to co-operate with the Department, which is most creditable to the thought and feeling of the people.

It would be quite unfair to a large body of farmers in Ireland if, in describing the administrative machinery for carrying out an economic policy based upon self-help and dependent for its success upon the conciliatory spirit abroad in the country, I were to ignore the part played by the large number of co-operative a.s.sociations, the organisation, work and multiplication of which have been described in a former chapter. The Recess Committee, in their enquiries, found that, in the countries whose compet.i.tion Ireland feels most keenly, Departments of Agriculture had come to recognise it as an axiom of their policy that without organisation for economic purposes amongst the agricultural cla.s.ses, State aid to agriculture must be largely ineffectual, and even mischievous. Such Departments devote a considerable part of their efforts to promoting agricultural organisation. Short a time as this Department has been in existence it has had some striking evidence of the justice of these views. As will be seen from the First Annual Report of the Department, it was only where the farmers were organised in properly representative societies that many of the lessons the Department had to teach could effectually reach the farming cla.s.ses, or that many of the agricultural experiments intended for their guidance could be profitably carried out. Although these experiment schemes were issued to the County Councils and the agricultural public generally, it was only the farmers organised in societies who were really in a position to take part in them. Some of these experiments, indeed, could not be carried out at all except through such societies.

Both for the sake of efficiency in its educational work, and of economy in administration, the Department would be obliged to lay stress on the value of organisation.[45] But there are other reasons for its doing so: industrial, moral, and social. In an able critique upon Bodley's _France_ Madame Darmesteter, writing in the _Contemporary Review_, July, 1898, points out that even so well informed an observer of French life as the author of that remarkable book failed to appreciate the steadying influence exercised upon the French body politic by the network of voluntary a.s.sociations, the _syndicats agricoles_, which are the a.n.a.logues and, to some extent, the prototypes, in France of our agricultural societies in Ireland. The late Mr. Hanbury, during his too brief career as President of the Board of Agriculture, frequently dwelt upon the importance of organising similar a.s.sociations in England as a necessary step in the development of the new agricultural policy which he foreshadowed. His successor, Lord Onslow, has fully endorsed his views, and in his speeches is to be found the same appreciation of the exemplary self-reliance of the Irish farmers. I have already referred to the keen interest which both agricultural reformers and English and Welsh County Councils have been taking in the unexpectedly progressive efforts of the Irish farmers to reorganise their industry and place themselves in a position to take advantage of State a.s.sistance. I believe that our farmers are going to the root of things, and that due weight should be given to the silent force of organised self-help by those who would estimate the degree in which the aims and sanguine antic.i.p.ations of the new movement in Ireland are likely to be realised.

And it is not only for its foundation upon self-reliance that the latest development of Irish Government will have a living interest for economists and students of political philosophy. They will see in the facts under review a rapid and altogether healthy evolution of the Irish policy so honourably a.s.sociated with the name of Mr. Arthur Balfour. His Chief Secretarys.h.i.+p, when all its storm and stress have been forgotten, will be remembered for the opening up of the desolate, poverty-stricken western seaboard by light railways, and for the creation of the Congested Districts Board. The latter inst.i.tution has gained so wide and, as I think, well merited popularity, that many thought its extension to other parts of Ireland would have been a simpler and safer method of procedure than that actually recommended by the Recess Committee, and adopted by Mr. Gerald Balfour. The Land Act of 1891 applied a treatment to the problem of the congested districts--a problem of economic depression and industrial backwardness, differing rather in degree than in kind from the economic problem of the greater part of rural Ireland--as simple as it was new. A large capital sum of Irish moneys was handed over to an unpaid commission consisting of Irishmen who were acquainted with the local circ.u.mstances, and who were in a position to give their services to a public philanthropic purpose. They were given the widest discretion in the expenditure of the interest of this capital sum, and from time to time their income has been augmented from annually voted moneys. They were restricted only to measures calculated permanently to improve the condition of the people, as distinct from measures affording temporary relief.

I agree with those who hold that Mr. Arthur Balfour's plan was the best that could be adopted at the moment. But events have marched rapidly since 1891, and wholly new possibilities in the sphere of Irish economic legislation and administration have been revealed. A new Irish mind has now to be taken into account, and to be made part of any ameliorative Irish policy. Hence it was not only possible, but desirable, to administer State help more democratically in 1899 than in 1891. The policy of the Congested Districts Board was a notable advance upon the inaction of the State in the pre-famine times, and upon the system of doles and somewhat objectless relief works of the latter half of the nineteenth century; but the policy of the new departure now under review was no less notable a departure from the paternalism of the Congested Districts Board. When that body was called into existence it was thought necessary to rely on persons nominated by the Government. When the Department was created eight years later it was found possible, owing to the broadening of the basis of local government and to the moral and social effect of the new movement, to rely largely on the advice and a.s.sistance of persons selected by the people themselves.

The two departments are in constant consultation as to the co-ordination of their work, so as to avoid conflict of administrative system and sociological principle in adjoining districts; and much has already been done in this direction. My own experience has not only made me a firm believer in the principle of self-help, but I carry my belief to the extreme length of holding that the poorer a community is the more essential is it to throw it as much as possible on its own resources, in order to develop self-reliance. I recognise, however, the undesirability of too sudden changes of system in these matters. Meanwhile, I may add in this connection that the Wyndham Land Act enormously increases the importance of the Congested Districts Board in regard to its main function--that of dealing directly with congestion, by the purchase and resettlement of estates, the migration of families, and the enlargement of holdings.[46]

I have now said enough about the aims and objects, the const.i.tution and powers, and the relations with other Governmental inst.i.tutions, of the new Department, to enable the reader to form a fairly accurate estimate of its general character, scope and purpose. From what it is I shall pa.s.s in the next chapter to what it does, and there I must describe its everyday work in some detail. But I wish I could also give the reader an adequate picture of the surge of activities raised by the first plunge of the Department into Irish life and thought. After a time the torrent of business made channels for itself and went on in a more orderly fas.h.i.+on; practical ideas and promising openings were sifted out at an early stage of their approach to the Department from those which were neither one nor the other; time was economised, work distributed, and the functions of demand and supply in relation to the Department's work throughout Ireland were brought into proper adjustment with each other.

Yet, even at first, to a sympathetic and understanding view, the waste of time and thought involved in dealing with impossible projects and dispelling false hopes was compensated for by the evidence forced upon us that the Irish people had no notion of regarding the Department as an alien inst.i.tution with which they need concern themselves but little, however much it might concern itself with them. They were never for a moment in doubt as to its real meaning and purpose. They meant to make it their own and to utilise it in the uplifting of their country. No description of the machinery of the inst.i.tution could explain the real place which it took in the life of the country from the very beginning.

But perhaps it may give the reader a more living interest in this part of the story, and a more living picture of the situation, if I try to convey to his mind some of the impressions left on my own, by my experiences during the period immediately following the projection of this new phenomenon into Irish consciousness.

When in Upper Merrion-street, Dublin, opposite to the Land Commission, big bra.s.s plates appeared upon the doors of a row of houses announcing that there was domiciled the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, the average man in the street might have been expected to murmur, 'Another Castle Board,' and pa.s.s on. It was not long, however, before our visiting list became somewhat embarra.s.sing. We have since got down, as I have said, to a more humdrum, though no less interesting, official life inside the Department. But let the reader imagine himself to have been concealed behind a screen in my office on a day when some event, like the Dublin Horse Show, brought crowds in from the country to the Irish capital. Such an experience would certainly have given him a new understanding of some then neglected men and things. While I was opening the morning's letters and dealing with "Files" marked "urgent,"

he would see nothing to distinguish my day's work from that of other ministers, who act as a link between the permanent officials of a spending Department and the Government of the day. But presently a stream of callers would set in, and he would begin to realise that the minister is, in this case, a human link of another kind--a link between the people and the Government. A courteous and discreet Private Secretary, having attended to those who have come to the wrong department, and to those who are satisfied with an interview with him or with the officer who would have to attend to their particular business, brings into my not august presence a procession of all sorts and conditions of men. Some know me personally, some bring letters of introduction or want to see me on questions of policy. Others--for these the human link is most needed--must see the ultimate source of responsibility, which, in Ireland, whether it be head of a family or of a Department, is reduced from the abstract to the concrete by the pregnant p.r.o.noun 'himself.' I cannot reveal confidences, but I may give a few typical instances of, let us say, callers who might have called.

First comes a visitor, who turns out to be a 'man with an idea,' just home from an unp.r.o.nounceable address in Scandinavia. He has come to tell me that we have in Ireland a perfect gold mine, if we only knew it--in extent never was there such a gold field--no illusory pockets--good payable stuff in sight for centuries to come--and so on for five precious minutes, which seem like half a day, during which I have realised that he is an inventor, and that it is no good asking him to come to the point. But I keep my eye riveted on his leather bag which is filled to bursting point, and manifest an intelligent interest and burning curiosity. The suggestion works, and out of the bag come black bars and b.a.l.l.s, samples of fabrics ranging from sack-cloth to fine linen, b.u.t.tons, combs, papers for packing and for polite correspondence, bottles of queer black fluid, and a host of other miscellaneous wares. I realise that the particular solution of the Irish Question which is about to be unfolded is the utilisation of our bogs. Well, this _is_ one of the problems with which we have to deal. It is physically possible to make almost anything out of this Irish a.s.set, from moss litter to billiard b.a.l.l.s, and though one would not think it, aeons of energy have been stored in these inert looking wastes by the apparently unsympathetic sun, energy which some think may, before long, be converted into electricity to work all the smokeless factories which the rising generation are to see. Indeed, the vista of possibilities is endless, the only serious problem that remains to be solved being 'how to make it pay,' and upon that aspect of the question, unhappily, my visitor had no light to throw.

The next visitor, who brings with him a son and a daughter, is himself the product of an Irish bog in the wildest of the wilds. His Parish Priest had sent him to me. A little awkwardness, which is soon dispelled, and the point is reached. This fine specimen of the 'bone and sinew' has had a hard struggle to bring up his 'long family'; but, with a capable wife, who makes the most of the _res angusta domi_--of the pig, the poultry, and even of the b.u.t.ter from the little black cows on the mountain--he has risen to the extent of his opportunities. The children are all doing something. Lace and crochet come out of the cabin, the yarn from the wool of the 'mountainy' sheep, carded and spun at home, is feeding the latest type of hosiery knitting machine and the hereditary handloom. The story of this man's life which was written to me by the priest cannot find s.p.a.ce here. The immediate object of his visit is to get his eldest daughter trained as a poultry instructress to take part in some of the 'County Schemes' under the Department, and to obtain for his eldest son, who has distinguished himself under the tuition of the Christian Brothers, a travelling scholars.h.i.+p. For this he has been recommended by his teachers. They had marked this bright boy out as an ideal agricultural instructor, and if I could give the reader all the particulars of the case it would be a rare ill.u.s.tration of the latent human resources we mean to develop in the Ireland that is to be.

I explain that the young man must pa.s.s a qualifying examination, but am glad to be able to admit that the circ.u.mstances of his life, which would have to be taken into account in deciding between the qualified, are in his case of a kind likely to secure favourable consideration.

And now enters a sporting friend of mine, a 'practical angler,' who comes with a very familiar tale of woe. The state of the salmon fisheries is deplorable: if the Department does not fulfil its obvious duties there will not be a salmon in Ireland outside a museum in ten years more. He has lived for forty-five years on the banks of a salmon river, and he knows that I don't fish. But this much the conversation reveals: his own knowledge of the subject is confined to the piece of river he happens to own, the gossip he hears at his club, and the ideas of the particular poacher he employs as his gillie. His suggested remedy is the abolition of all netting. But I have to tell him that only the day before I had a deputation from the net fishermen in the estuary of this very river, whose bitter complaint was that this 'poor man's industry' was being destroyed by the mackerel and herring nets round the coast, and--I thought my friend would have a fit--by the way in which the gentlemen on the upper waters neglect their duty of protecting the sp.a.w.ning fis.h.!.+ Some belonging to the lower water interest carried their scepticism as to the efficacy of artificial propagation to the length of believing that hatcheries are partially responsible for the decrease. As so often happens, the opposing interests, disagreeing on all else, find that best of peacemakers, a common enemy, in the Government. The Department is responsible--for two opposite reasons, it is true, but somehow they seem to confirm each other. We must labour to find some other common ground, starting from the recognition that the salmon fisheries are a national a.s.set which must be made to subserve the general public interest. I a.s.sure my friend that when all parties make their proper contribution in effort and in cash, the Department will not be backward in doing their part.

At the end of this interview a messenger brings a telegram for 'himself'

from a stockowner in a remote district.[47] 'My pigs,' runs one of the most businesslike communications I ever received, 'are all spotted.

What shall I do?' I send it to the Veterinary Branch, which, with the Board of Agriculture in England, is engaged in a scheme for staying the ravages of swine fever, a scheme into which the late Mr. Hanbury threw himself with his characteristic energy. The problem is of immense importance, and the difficulty is not mainly quadrupedal. Unless the police 'spot' the spotted pigs, we too often hear nothing about them. I am sure it must be daily brought home to the English Board, as it is to the Irish Department, that an enormous addition might be made to the wealth of the country if our veterinary officers were intelligently and actively aided, in their difficult duties for the protection of our flocks and herds, by those most immediately concerned.

So far it has been an interesting morning bright with the activities out of which the future is to be made. The element of hope has predominated, but now comes a visitor who wishes to see me upon the one part of my duties and responsibilities which is distasteful to me--the exercise of patronage. He has been unloaded upon me by an influential person, upon whom he has more legitimate claims than upon the Department. He has prepared the way for a favourable reception by getting his friends to write to my friends, many of whom have already fulfilled a promise to interview me in his behalf. His mother and two maiden aunts have written letters which have drawn from my poor Private Secretary, who has to read them all, the dry quotation, 'there's such a thing as being so good as to be good for nothing.' The young hopeful quickly puts an end to my speculations as to the exact capacity in which he means to serve the Department by applying for an inspectors.h.i.+p. I ask him what he proposes to inspect, and the sum and substance of his reply is that he is not particular, but would not mind beginning at a moderate salary, say 200 a year. As for his qualifications, they are a sadly minus quant.i.ty, his blighted career having included failure for the army, and a clerks.h.i.+p in a bank, which only lasted a week when he proved to be deficient in the second and dangerous in the third of the three R's. His case reminds me of a story of my ranching days, which the exercise of patronage has so often recalled to my mind that I must out with it. Riding into camp one evening, I turned my horse loose and got some supper, which was a vilely cooked meal even for a cow camp. Recognising in the cook a cowboy I had formerly employed, I said to him, 'You were a way up cow hand, but as cook you are no account. Why did you give up riding and take to cooking?

What are your qualifications as a cook any way?' 'Qualifications!' he replied, 'why, don't you know I've got varicose veins?' My caller's qualifications are of an equally negative description, though not of a physical kind. He is one of the young Micawbers, to whom the Department from its first inception has been the something which was to turn up. He had, of course, testimonials which in any other country would have commanded success by their terms and the position of the signatories, but which in Ireland only ill.u.s.trate the charity with which we condone our moral cowardice under the name of good nature. I am glad when this interview closes.

One more type--a Nationalist Member of Parliament! He does not often darken the door of a Government office--they all have the same structural defect, no front stairs--he never has asked and never thought he would ask anything from the Government. But he is interested in some poor fishermen of County Clare who pursue their calling under cruel disadvantages for want of the protection from the Atlantic rollers which a small breakwater would afford. It is true that they were the worst const.i.tuents he had--- went against him in 'The Split,'--but if I saw how they lived, and so on. I knew all about the case. A breakwater to be of any use would cost a very large sum, and the local authority, though sympathetic, did not see their way to contribute their proportion, and without a local contribution, I explained, the Department could not, consistently with its principles, unless in most exceptional--Here he breaks in: 'Oh! that red tape. You're as bad as the rest--exceptional, indeed! Why, everything is exceptional in my const.i.tuency. I am a bit that way myself. But, seriously, the condition of these poor people would move even a Government official. Besides, you remember the night I made thirteen speeches on the Naval Estimates--the Government wanted a little matter of twenty millions--and you met me in the Lobby and told me you wished to go to bed, and asked me what I really wanted, and--I am always reasonable--I said I would pa.s.s the whole Naval Programme if I got the Government to give them a boat-slip at Ballyduck.--"Done!" you said, and we both went home.--I believe you knew that I had got const.i.tuency matters mixed up, that Ballyduck was inland, and that it was Ballycrow that I meant to say.--But you won't deny that you are under a moral obligation.'

Well, I would go into the matter again very carefully--for I thought we might help these fishermen in some other way--and write to him. He leaves me; and, while outside the door he travels over the main points with my Private Secretary, the lights and shades in the picture which this strange personality has left on my mind throw me back behind the practical things of to-day. In Parliament facing the Sa.s.sanach, in Ireland facing their police, he has for years--the best years of his life--displayed the same love of fighting for fighting's sake. In the riots he has provoked, and they are not a few, he is ever regardless of his own skin, and would be truly miserable if he inflicted any serious bodily harm on a human being--even a landlord. It is impossible not to like this very human anachronism, who, within the limitations imposed by the convenience of a citizens.h.i.+p to which he unwillingly belongs, does battle

For Faith, and Fame, and Honour, and the ruined hearths of Clare.

The reader may take all this as fiction. I am sure no one will annoy me by trying on any of the caps I have displayed on the counter of my shop. What I do fear is that the picture of some of my duties which I have given may have made a wrong impression of the Department's work upon the reader's mind. He may have come to the conclusion that, contrary to all the principles laid down, an attempt was being made to do for the people things which the new movement was to induce the people to do for themselves. The Department may appear to be using its official position and Government funds to const.i.tute itself a sort of Universal Providence, exercising an authority and a discretion over matters upon which in any progressive community the people must decide for themselves. However near to the appearances such an impression might be, nothing could be further from the facts. If I have helped the reader to unravel the tangled skein of our national life, if I have sufficiently revealed the mind of the new movement to show that there is in it 'a scheme of things entire,' it should be quite clear that the deliberate intentions both of Mr. Gerald Balfour and of those Irishmen whom he took into his confidence are being fulfilled in letter and in spirit. It only remains for me to attempt an adequate description of the work of the Department created by that Chief Secretary, and, above all, of the way in which the people themselves are playing the part which his statesmans.h.i.+p a.s.signed to them.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] See Report of the Local Government Board, 1901-2.

[45] See Annual General Report of the Department 1900-1901, pp. 25-27.

[46] _Cf. ante_, pp. 46-49.

[47] No fiction about this, nor about the following letter to the Secretary:--

'The Scratatory, Vitny Dept.

'Honord Sir,

'I want to let ye know the terible state we're in now. Al the pigs about here is dyin in showers. Send down a Vit at oncet.'

CHAPTER X.

GOVERNMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.

In the preceding chapter I attempted to give to the reader a rough impression of the general purpose and miscellaneous functions of the new Department. I described in some detail the const.i.tution and powers of the Council of Agriculture--a sort of Business Parliament--which criticises our doings and elects representatives on our Boards; and of the two Boards which, in addition to their advisory functions, possess the power of the purse. I laid special stress upon the important part these instruments of the popular will were intended to play as a link between the people and the Department. I gave a similar description and explanation of the Committees of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, appointed by local representative bodies, by means of which the people were brought into touch with the local as distinct from the central work, and made responsible for its success. The details were necessarily dull; and so also must be those which will now be required in order to indicate the general nature and scope of the work for the accomplishment of which all this machinery was designed. Yet I am not without hope that even the general reader may find a deep human interest in the practical endeavour of the humbler cla.s.ses of my fellow-countrymen to reconstruct their national life upon the solid foundation of honest work.

The Department has at the time of writing been in existence for three years, the term of office, it will be remembered, of the Council of Agriculture and of the two Boards. It would be unreasonable to expect in so short a time any great achievement; but the understanding critic will attach importance rather to the spirit in which the work was approached than to the actual amount of work which was accomplished. He may say that no true estimate of its value can be formed until the enthusiasm aroused by its novelty has had time to wear off. Those of us who know the real character of the work are quite satisfied that the interest which it aroused during the period in which the people had yet to grasp its meaning and utility is not likely to become less real as the blossom fades and the fruit begins to swell. The att.i.tude of the Irish people towards the Department and its work has not been that of a child towards a new toy, but of a full-grown man towards a piece of his life's work, upon which he feels that he entered all too late. Indeed, so quickly have the people grasped the significance of the new opportunities for material advancement now placed within their reach, that the Department has had to carry out, and to a.s.sist the statutory local committees in carrying out, a number and variety of schemes which, at any rate, proved that public opinion did not regard it as a transitory experiment; but as a much-needed inst.i.tution which, if properly utilised, might do much to make up for lost time, and which, in any case, had come to stay. The amount of the work which we were thus constrained to undertake was somewhat embarra.s.sing; but so general and so genuine was the desire to make a start that we have done our best to keep pace with the local demands for immediate action. The staff of the Department caught the spirit in which the task had been set by the country, and showed a keen anxiety to get to work; and I am glad to have an opportunity of acknowledging that both the indoor and outdoor support it has received leaves the Department without excuse if it has not already justified its existence.

I shall deal as mercifully as I can with my readers in helping them towards an understanding of what has been actually done in the three years under review. I am aware that if I were to attempt a description of all the schemes which the variety of local needs suggested, and in the execution of which the a.s.sistance of the many-sided Department was sought and obtained, I should lose the patient readers, who have not already fainted by the way, in a jungle where they could not see the wood for the trees. These things can be studied by those interested,--and they I hope, in Ireland at any rate, are not few--in the Annual Reports and other official publications of the Department.

For the general reader I must try to indicate in broad outline the nature and scope of that side of the new movement which seeks to supplement organised self-help and open the way for individual enterprise by a well considered measure of State a.s.sistance. I shall be more than satisfied if I succeed in giving him a clear insight into the manner in which the delicate task of making State interference with the business of the people not only harmless but beneficial has been set about. It is obvious that the fulfilment of this object must depend upon the soundness of the economic policy pursued, and upon the establishment and maintenance of mutual confidence between the central authority and the popular representative bodies through which the people utilise the new facilities afforded by the State.

I think the best way of giving the information which is required for an understanding of our somewhat complicated scheme for agricultural and industrial development under democratic control is first to explain the line of demarcation which we have drawn between the respective functions of the Department and the people's committees throughout the country; and then I must give a rapid description of some of the most important features of the Department's policy and programme. I shall add a sufficiency of detail from the actual work accomplished in these organising and experimental years, to ill.u.s.trate both the difficulties which are incidental to such a policy, and the manner in which these difficulties may be surmounted.

When it became manifest that both the country and the Department were anxious to drive ahead, the first thing to do was to lay down a _modus operandi_ which would a.s.sign to the local and central bodies their proper shares in the work and responsibilities and secure some degree of order and uniformity in administration. This was quickly done, and the plan adopted works smoothly. The Department gives the local committee general information as to the kind of purpose to which it can legally and properly apply the funds jointly contributed from the rates and the central exchequer. The committee, after full consideration of the conditions, needs and industrial environment of the community for which it acts, selects certain definite projects which it considers most applicable to its district, allocates the amount required to each project, and sends the scheme to the Department for its approval. When the scheme is formally approved, it becomes the official scheme in the locality for the current year; and the local committee has to carry it out.

Although harmony now usually exists between the local and central authorities to the advantage and comfort of both, a considerable amount of friction was inevitable until they got to understand each other. The occasional over-riding of local desires by the 'autocratic' Department, which in the first rush of its work had to act in a somewhat peremptory fas.h.i.+on, was, no doubt, irritating. Now, however, it is generally recognised that the central body, having not only the advice of its experts and access to information from similar Departments in other countries to guide it, but also being in a position to profit by the exchange of ideas which is constantly going on between it and all the local committees in Ireland, is in a position of special advantage for deciding as to the bearing of local schemes upon national interests, and sometimes even as to their soundness from a purely local point of view.

Pa.s.sing now from the conditions under which the Department's work is done, we come to review some typical portions of the work itself so far as it has proceeded. This falls naturally, both as regards that which is done by the central authority for the country at large and that which is locally administered, into two divisions. The first consists of direct aid to agriculture and other rural industries, and to sea and inland fisheries. The second consists of indirect aid given to these objects, and also to town manufactures and commerce, through education--a term which must be interpreted in its widest sense. Needless to say, direct aids, being tangible and immediately beneficial, are the more popular: a bull, a boat, or a hand-loom is more readily appreciated than a lecture, a leaflet, or an idea. Yet in the Department we all realise--and, what is more important, the people are coming to realise--that by far the most important work we have to do is that which belongs to the sphere of education, especially education which has a distinctly practical aim. To this branch of the subject I shall, therefore, first direct the reader's attention.

It must be remembered that, for reasons fully set out in the earlier portions of the book, I am treating the Irish Question as being, in its most important economic and social aspects, the problem of rural life.

The Department's scheme of technical instruction, therefore, need not here be detailed in its application to the needs of our few manufacturing towns, but only in its application to agriculture and the subsidiary industries. I do not suggest that the questions relating to the revival of industry in our large manufacturing centres and provincial towns are not of the first importance. The local authorities in these places have eagerly come into the movement, and the Department has already taken part in founding, in our cities and larger towns, comprehensive schemes of technical education, as to the outcome of which we have every reason to be hopeful. Not only that, but it is highly necessary for the Department to consider these schemes in close relation to its work upon the more specially rural problems, for, as I have said elsewhere,[48] the interdependence of town and country, and the establishment of proper relations between their systems of industry and education, is a prime factor in Irish prosperity. But the rural problem, as I have so often reiterated, is the core of the Irish Question; and to deal at all adequately with technical education, so far as we carry it on upon lines common both to Great Britain and Ireland, would lead us too far afield on the present occasion. I must, therefore, content myself with indicating my reasons for leaving it rather on one side, and pa.s.s on to a brief description of the Department's educational work in respect of its two-fold aim of developing agriculture and the subsidiary industries.

In the case of agriculture our task is perfectly plain. We know pretty well what we want to do, for we are dealing with an existing industry, and with known conditions. The productivity of the soil, the demand of the market, the means of transport from the one to the other, are all easily ascertainable. What most needs to be provided in Ireland is a much higher technical skill, a more advanced scientific and commercial knowledge, as applied to agricultural production and distribution.[49]

This, in our belief, depends, more than upon any other agency, upon the soundness of the education which is provided to develop the capacities of those in charge of these operations. Our chief difficulty is that of co-ordinating our teaching of technical agriculture with the general educational systems of the country--a difficulty which the other educational authorities are all united with us in seeking to remove.

When, on the other hand, education--again, I believe, the chief agency for the purpose--is considered as a means for the creation of new industries, we come face to face with a wholly different problem. We have no longer an industry which we are seeking to foster and develop going on under our eyes, steadying us in our theorising, and in our experimenting upon the mind of the worker, by bringing us into close touch with the actual conditions of his work. Our chief aim must be to develop his adaptability for the ever-changing and, we hope, improving economic industrial conditions amidst which he will have to work. But unless we can satisfy parents that the schemes of development in which their children are being educated to take their place have an a.s.sured prospect of practical realisation, they will naturally prefer an inferior teaching which seems to them to offer a better prospect of an immediate wage or salary. The teachers in the secondary schools of the country, who, so far, have shown a desire to a.s.sist us in giving an industrial and commercial direction to our educational policy, would also in that event have to meet the wishes of the parents; and thus education would fall back into the old rut with its cramming, its examinations and result fees--all leading to the multiplication of clerks and professional men, and preventing us from turning the thoughts and energies of the people towards productive occupations.

The natural trend of our educational policy will now be clear. Leaving out of account large towns, where our problem is, as I have said, the same as that which confronts the industrial cla.s.ses in the manufacturing centres of Great Britain, we are chiefly concerned with the application of science to the cultivation of the soil and the improvement of live stock, and of business principles to the commercial side of farming; with the teaching of dairying, horticulture, apiculture, and what has been called farm-yard lore, outside the rural home, and with domestic economy inside. On the industrial as distinct from the agricultural side of the work in rural localities, technical instruction must be directed towards the development of subsidiary rural industries.

We early came to the conclusion that we could not expect to find a system which we could simply transplant from some other country. The system adopted in Great Britain, where each county or group of counties maintains an agricultural college and an experimental farm, and many more elaborate systems on the continent, were all found on examination to be inapplicable to our own rural conditions, unsuitable to the national character, and unrelated to the history of our agriculture.

Many of these schemes might have turned out a few highly qualified authorities on the theory of agriculture, and even good practical directors for those who farm on a large scale. But we are dealing with a country with great possibilities from an agricultural point of view, but where, nevertheless, agriculture in many parts is in a very backward condition, and where it is probably safe to say that three-fifths of the farms are crowded on one-fourth of the land. We are dealing with a community with whom the systems of elementary, secondary and higher education have not tended to prepare the student for agricultural pursuits. A system of agricultural and domestic education suited to the wants of those who are to farm the land must recognise and foster the new spirit of self-help and hope which is springing up in the country, and must be made so interesting as to become a serious rival to the race meeting and the public-house. The daily drudgery of farm work must be counteracted by the ambition to possess the best stock, the neatest homestead and fences, the cleanest and the best tilled fields. The unsolved problem of agricultural education is to devise a system which will reach down to the small working farmers who form the great bulk of the wealth producers of Ireland, to give them new hope, a new interest, new knowledge and, I might add, a new industrial character.

We were met at the outset by the difficulty which would apply to any system--that of finding trained teachers. This deficiency was felt in two directions--first, in the secondary school, in which the preliminary scientific studies should be undertaken, which are necessary to enable a lad to profit by more advanced instruction later on; and, secondly, in the special training of technical agriculture. It would not have been desirable to overcome these difficulties by any very extensive importation of teachers from without. I certainly hold the occasional importation of teachers with outside experience to be most desirable, but these should not form more than a leaven of the pedagogic lump; for it is a serious hindrance when to the task of familiarising students with a new system of education there is added that of familiarising a large body of teachers with the intellectual, social and economic conditions of the people among whom they are to work.