192 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



were : (1) how the farmer was to make better 

 use of his land ; and (2), when that was accom- 

 pHshed, how he was to market the produce to 

 better advantage. 



When the history of the New Ireland 

 comes to be written, it will be shown how the 

 solution of the second of these problems took 

 precedence over the first. To stimulate 

 the Irish farmer to greater industrial activity 

 it was natural enough that he should be 

 shown how to market to advantage what he 

 had already produced before he could be asked 

 to produce more. That is a lesson which rural 

 educationists, and all who are eager to revive 

 country life, have yet to learn in England. 



The Honourable Horace Plunkett, a poor 

 speaker, a member of the suspected landlord 

 class, the brother of a lord, and a Protestant, 

 first took the field in 1889. What he asked 

 the Irish farmers to do was to help themselves 

 by forming agricultural co-operative societies. 

 Regarded with suspicion by priests and 

 nationalist leaders alike, Mr. Plunkett (now Sir 

 Horace) seemed to have set himself an almost 

 superhuman task. Sometimes his meeting 

 consisted solely of the village schoolmaster and 

 the parish priest — impelled by curiosity — and 



