42 State Aid to Agriculture in Ireland. 



Council, it may be added, must meet at least once a year for 

 the discussion of matters of public interest in connection with 

 any of the purposes of the Act. For the first few years it met 

 whenever occasion arose : now it meets twice a year. 



The foregoing narrative is intended to enable the reader 

 to understand the constitution of the Department and the 

 ideas underlying it. 



When the Department was started in April, 1900, I was 

 appointed its first Vice-President. Once in unfolding its 

 policy I said that the aim of the Department was to be that of 

 " helping people to help themselves." The new body was not 

 to be a mere machine for administering State subsidies. The 

 idea of those who founded the Department was that State aid 

 should be based upon self-help, or directed to evoking and 

 fostering the spirit of self-help wherever it did not as yet exist. 

 It was in pursuit of this aim that in its constitution the elected 

 public bodies of Ireland are so closelj' associated with the 

 Department, the idea being that the new institution should 

 work with and through local bodies. The Act expressly pro- 

 hibits the Department from applying (save in special cases) 

 any of its funds to schemes in respect of which financial aid is 

 not provided by local authorities or from local sources. The 

 loKjal bodies must give if thej' mean to receive, and must also 

 set up the coaamittees which are to administer the main part 

 of the Department's work in their own districts. They 

 provide, then, the local administration and part of the funds ; 

 the Department provides the rest of the funds, as well as 

 expert skill and advice. It is plain then that if the Act i3 to 

 work at all, its working must depend mainly upon the willing 

 co-operation of local bodies. 



There are strong reasons why such a constitution and mode 

 of working are not merely desirable but essential in Ireland. 

 Through the effect of unha})py past causes. Irishmen are 

 peculiarly prone to throw all their Inirdens upon the State, 

 largely because they look lipon the State as having been the 

 author of the causes in question. But while they are so much 

 inclined to look to the State for remedial effort, tbey are also 

 inclined to regard all direct State action in Ireland with either 

 apathy, aloofness, or hostility, their interest manifesting itself 

 chiefi_y in captious criticism. If the new Department had 

 attempted to work on ordinary bureaucratic lines, its whole 

 proceedings, however well-intended, would have been regarded 

 with coolness or aversion. But when machinery was devised 

 which placed some of the central and almost all the local 

 administration in })opular hands, the whole case was changed, 

 and a turn for cavilling could only find play at the expense of 

 the friends or neighbours of the cavillers. Moreover, the local 



