294 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Etc., FOR IRELAND. 



the people of a district have been successfully working out their industrial 

 advancement and learning the powers which combination gives the simplest 

 and most remote of communities, even in complicated business affairs, there is 

 an inevitable tendency for combined efforts for other purposes to group them- 

 selves. In this way opportunities and means for educational improvement and 

 social amenity are multiplied in places vi^here such means and opportunities 

 did not exist before ; while the faculties of the people are expanded, their 

 hopefulness is increased, and life at home on the Irish countryside is rendered 

 more attractive. The Department, relying, as it does, for the ultimate im- 

 provement of the country mainly upon the developed character of the people, 

 will encourage, as far as it may, organisation which is calculated to have such 

 results. 



Such are the general considerations which have guided the Department in 

 the first year of its work, and which are intended to guide it in future years. 



