TRANSIT 



We have shown in this Report that the Department of Agriculture 

 in Ireland is setting about the development of minor and special 

 industries such as the production of butter, bacon, and eggs, the 

 cultivation of early potatoes, fruit, and flowers. Now, the develop- 

 ment of such a trade presupposes proximity to the market. The 

 market may be near because it is at the door. Many people think 

 it is only then that it is near. But it may also be near because the 

 steam engine and the motor car have brought it near. Sometimes 

 in such circumstances it may be as near to the farmer fifty miles deep 

 down in the country as it is to the farmer five miles away. When 

 that happens the industries mentioned may be carried on at the end 

 of the fifty miles, just as well as at the end of the five miles. Ireland, 

 apparently, is to take advantage of the wider limitation, * and the 

 Department for that reason and for others connected with farming 

 generally, is as much interested in transit as it is in agriculture, in 

 the marketing of produce in the busy centres of population as in the 

 manufacture of that produce on the distant farm. 



The Department at once recognised that before it could do any- 

 thing worth doing in the way of helping the Irish farmer to market 

 his produce, it was necessary that reliable information on the subject 

 of transit generally should be obtained. It appointed transit in- 

 spectors with this object in view. They wandered up and down the 

 country taking note of the methods adopted by the Irish farmer in 

 the marketing of produce and by the Railway Companies in the 

 handling of produce. They visited Scotland and England with the 

 view of finding out all that could be found out about the marketing 

 of continental produce in these countries and the position which 

 Irish produce occupied compared with continental produce. The 

 Department was very soon in possession of a vast amount of informa- 

 tion which enabled it to come to the conclusion that the farmer was 

 to blame as well as the Railway Company. Acting on the well- 

 known principle which it endeavours to enforce on all occasions that 

 the farmers should first help themselves before they are otherwise 

 helped, the Department pointed out to the farmers the defects in 

 their own methods, defects in the construction of butter and egg 

 boxes, and defects in handling produce. It also pointed out that 

 so long as they persisted in sending small parcels instead of com- 

 bining and sending their produce in bulk, it was impossible for the 

 Railway Companies to put them on a satisfactory footing. It 

 further pointed out that in many cases their complaints against the 

 Railway Companies were without foundation in fact. The result of 

 the representations by the Department to the farmers has been a 

 very considerable improvement in the construction of the butter and 

 egg boxes and in the consigning of produce generally. 



