62 



REPORT OF THE SCOTTISH COMMISSION 



Nobody who has studied the question and seen the work of 

 the Board on the spot will think lightly of the difficulties which 

 have to be overcome, nor will chey doubt that the Board is doing 

 the work with all its might. If the Board does not succeed, it 

 will not be its fault. We are afraid it has been set the impossible 

 task of making bricks without straw, of creating economic holdings 

 without either the men or the land. The first need — and it is 

 a great need — is education. Education apart, is the land capable 

 of supporting the people ? Science will do much in the future 

 to add to the productiveness of the soil. Co-operation will lessen 

 expenditure and increase income, "Will both, combined with such 

 home industries as it is possible to start, or will anything else, 

 do enough to make many of these Irish holdings pay ? That 

 is a question of supreme importance which the exigencies of the 

 moment did not press on our legislators. It was not fully con- 

 sidered at the outset, and it is difficult to consider it now. The 

 movement having begun cannot easily be stopped, with the result 

 that the Board is getting ever wider powers and the State is 

 advancing ever-increasing suins of money, and nobody knows 

 whither the movement is leading. 



STREET SCENE, CASTLEREA 



