264 THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD FOR IRELAND. 



In order to carry out the policy of enlarging holdings and of migra- 

 tion to lands purchased by the Board, it is often 

 necessary to effect a change in some holdings 

 Migration. on neighbouring estates which have not been 



purchased by the Board. To bring about these 

 enlargements it is necessary to induce a tenant 

 to surrender his holding in the " congested " area and to remove to a new 

 holding which has been prepared for him on the Board's land, and his old 

 holding is then divided up among the adjoining farms. By removing a few 

 families from a badly congested district to new holdings in another and less 

 crowded district, it is thus possible to better the condition both of the 

 migrants and of those who are left behind. The action of the Board is 

 confined of course to cases where the landlord will consent to these changes, 

 and the Board have also to arrange so- that the landlord shall get from all the 

 enlarged holdings the same amount of rent which he had previously derived 

 from all the original holdings. It will be seen that the selection of migrants, 

 where the changes are not confined to tenants on estates purchased by the 

 Board, is a troublesome matter and requires much careful negotiation. 

 Another point to which the Board has to attend in nearly every case, is that 

 the tenants thus settled have some working capital, without which the land 

 is of little use to them. It is for this reason that the Board have co-operated 

 with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society in founding and aiding co 

 operative credit associations. The Board has allowed banks in congested 

 districts to borrow loan capital from it to the extent of ;^3,ooo. The 

 amount lent to the individual societies varies from ;^50 to iJ^200, on which 

 they pay interest at the rate of 3 per cent. These small deposits serve as a 

 nucleus round which other sums gather by degrees, until a sufficient capital 

 will be in time acquired. The Raiffeisen banks thus aided issue numerous 

 small loans to their members — the very poor — who could not obtain credit 

 elsewhere. The profit to the individual borrowers is generally very con- 

 siderable, and so far no losses have been incurred by the banks — indeed, in 

 every case a small profit has been made and carried to the reserve fund. It 

 is difficult to over-estimate the effect a well organised system of agricultural 

 credit would have upon the West of Ireland. Many of the migratory 

 labourers who go to Great Britain in search of work are landholders whose 

 farms would profitably respond, were capital available, to a very considerable 

 amount of intelligently applied labour. But at present the lack of capital 

 and the inability of a small landholder to wait over a season for the reward 

 of his industry turns the balance of advantage in favour of migration. 



The Board, of course, has paid particular attention to improving the 

 methods of cultivation in vogue in the congested dis- 



A. . ,, tricts. For several years seven Agricultural 



° ■ Inspectors have been employed, and in addition to 



advising small landholders as to the management and 

 improvement of their land and stock, and lending farm implements, they 

 inspect animals issued under the various schemes, and have had charge of 

 nearly forty example holdings, and about five hundred experimental and 

 example plots. The work on some example holdings consists chiefly of per- 

 manent improvements, such as draining, levelling, and clearing away rocks ; 

 in others small grants of seeds and manures are made for the purpose of in- 

 ducing the occupiers to try a better rotation of crops, or to grow crops such 



