GRANTS IN AID 



Sm HOEACE Plunkett has overlooked nothing, Nowhere has he 

 been more careful and painstaking than in considering the lines 

 on which State aid should be given. He decided that it should 

 be preceded by self-help on the part of the Irish 'people. This was 

 easy of accomplishment, for the self-help movement began in 1889. 

 State aid to agriculture, apart from the State aid given by the 

 Congested Districts Board, did not follow till the Department of 

 Agriculture was brought into existence in 1899. This order of 

 things is excellent, and on approved economic lines. There is 

 room to doubt, however, whether too short a time had not elapsed 

 between the beginning of the self-help movement, when self-help 

 was at a great discount, and the time when State aid was the order 

 of the day. 



State aid having been decided upon, Sir Horace had to consider 

 in what shape it was to be given. He resolved to proceed along 

 two well-known lines. Along one line — the indirect line — lay the 

 education of the Irish people. Sir Horace Plunkett believed that 

 along that line there was most hope, and he set about the develop- 

 ment of an educational policy, which we have outlined in the next 

 chapter. He was not so enamoured of progress along the direct 

 line, though the Irish people, as might have been expected, saw 

 the advantage of advancing along this line, and took to it more 

 naturally. They could not always see far enough ahead to under- 

 stand the advantages of a sound education. They could always see 

 the advantage, as Sir Horace put it, of a bull, a boat, and a handloom. 

 Sir Horace, however, has done his best to make advance along this 

 direct line as limited, and within its limits, as national, and as 

 educational as possible. He has been pressed, but has refused, to 

 spend money in assisting private industries. He has been urged, 

 but to no purpose, to purchase grass lands, and divide them up 

 into moderate sized farms. He has refused to advance money to 

 increase the live stock of Ireland, while he has advanced money 

 for the purchase of sires .to improve the breed of the live stock, 

 believing that this would be an object lesson to the Irish people of 

 the value of good stock. He has not given money to individual 

 farmers to enable them to make ends meet. He has established, 

 as already mentioned, experimental plots in different parts of the 

 country to show the farmers how they can themselves make ends 

 meet. He has spent money experimenting on the drying of fruit 

 and vegetables, because the fruit and vegetable trade is in its 

 experimental stage, and may yet be of national dimensions. He 

 has lent money to agricultural banks, because agricultural credit 

 is a siiu qua hon of Irish farming. He has advanced money for 



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