40 . State Aid to Agriculture in Ireland. 



never, single-banded, make any great advance in agriculture, 

 and very little in farming as a business ; he lacked the training, 

 the methods, and the organisation of his foreign rivals. A lai-ge 

 immediate improvement in his methods of farming would in 

 itself have been of little use without an even greater advance 

 in his means of marketing his produce. He had three problems 

 to face : how, being poorly-off, to get his requirements advan- 

 tageously ; how to increase his produce ; and how to market 

 it most profitably. The last problem was quite as pressing as 

 the former two, indeed there was little use in solving these 

 unless the marketing difficulty was met simultaneously. 



In these circumstances it seemed to us that the application 

 of co-operation to the business of farming was the thing most 

 likely to save the Irish small holder. Starting in the year 

 1889 we set our propaganda on foot, and though the work 

 was terribly uphill at first, we at length began to make some 

 advance. After five years we found it necessary to start the 

 Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, so as to continue on 

 a broader basis the work which was becoming too much for 

 a few individuals. In the following year, 1895, some of us 

 who had been working together in this movement invited a 

 number of representative Irishmen of all parties to meet in 

 order to see for what measures beneficial to Ireland a common 

 agreement could be secured. Many Irish public men of note 

 responded to our invitation and we formed a committee 

 which sat during the Parliamentary Recess of 1896, and was 

 hence called the Recess Committee. The Committee set 

 themselves to study the methods adopted by the State in 

 other covmtries for the development of agricultural and in- 

 dustrial resources, and sent commissioners abroad for that 

 purpose. The result was the presentation of a Report recom- 

 mending the creation of a Department of Agriculture and 

 Industries for Ireland, which should be responsible to 

 Parliament through a ministerial head, and in contact with 

 public opinion through an elected consultative Council. Mr. 

 Gerald Balfour was then Chief Secretary for Ireland, and in 

 January, 1897, he very favourably received an influential 

 deputation which waited on him for the purpose of advocating 

 the new scheme. Two years afterwards a Bill embodying 

 most of the Recess Committee's chief recommendations was 

 passed by Parliament, creating a " Department of Agriculture 

 and other Industries and Technical Instruction for Ireland." 



It now becomes important to describe not only the 

 constitution of the new Department, but the ideas underlying 

 it, and the policy which it was meant to carry out. Take 

 first its constitution. Why was technical instruction linked 

 with an agricultural Department ? For the reason that in 



