THE MOVEMENT IN IRELAND 



79 



A Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction 

 was duly created under the authority of an Act of Parliament 

 passed in 1899, and the organisation of this Department 

 included, in turn, a Council of Agriculture and two Boards 

 of which one was concerned with agriculture and inland 

 fisheries and the other with technical instruction. The 

 Department relieved the Society of the cost of a consider- 

 able amount of the technical instruction it had previously 

 given as a necessary adjunct to the work of organisation, 

 to which it was now enabled completely to devote itself, 

 and further agreed to defray the expenses of the I. A. O. S. 

 in organising and supervising agricultural credit societies and 

 subsequently also certain other kinds of societies. The 

 grant in respect to these expenses for the year ending 

 February 28th, 1906, amounted to £2,000. There then 

 came into force a new arrangement under which a grant was 

 made to the general expenses of the Society on the basis of 

 its income from voluntary sources, though the amount to be 

 given was in no case to exceed £3,700. This arrangement 

 lasted only until the end of 1908, when the Department 

 ceased to give a grant to the Society, which, however, still 

 continues to receive a small grant from the Congested 

 Districts Board, fixed in that year at £350 per annum. To 

 the question of grants from the Development Fund to the 

 Irish Agricultural Organisation Society reference will be 

 made in the chapter that follows. 



The present position of agricultural organisation in Ireland 

 is shown approximately by the following table, taken from 

 the report of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society for 

 the year ending June 30th, 191 1 : — 



Dairy societies 

 Auxiliary societies not 

 separately registered 

 Agricultural societies 

 Credit societies 



Number 

 Societies.! ship - 



Member- 



312 



79 

 165 

 237 



44.792 



16,743 

 19,190 



Paid-up 



Share 



Capital. 



i 



I44.25I 



6,68l 



Loan 

 Capital. 



i 



I20,3 5 8 



36,545 

 55.884 



Turnover. 



i 



124,720 

 55.855 



