130 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



cultural Organisation Societies of Scotland and Ireland is 

 also recorded. 



In June, 191 1, the Commissioners considered an applica- 

 tion from the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (the 

 story of which will be told in the section that follows) for an 

 annual grant of £1,500. It was decided to recommend an 

 advance for the current year equal to the amount spent by 

 the Society from its own funds, but not in any case exceeding 

 £1,000, and with the proviso that the Committee of the 

 Society should be increased by the addition of members 

 nominated by the chairmen of the County Councils and the 

 Scotch Agricultural Colleges ; that the Society's operations 

 should be in harmony with the scheme of work of the 

 colleges ; that the Society should appoint an additional 

 organiser and have its accounts audited by an approved 

 professional auditor ; and that it should give particular 

 attention in organising agricultural co-operation to the needs 

 of small holders in that direction. 



The question of assisting the organisation of agricultural 

 co-operation in Ireland was found by the Commissioners to 

 have been rendered more difficult by complications with 

 party politics. An application from the Irish Agricultural 

 Organisation Society for assistance was opposed both by the 

 Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for 

 Ireland and by the Irish Council of Agriculture, the latter 

 body passing a resolution to the effect that any money 

 available for agricultural co-operation in Ireland should be 

 granted to and administered by the Department. A draft 

 scheme, which contemplated a grant of £9,000 and the 

 organisation of co-operative associations for the growing 

 of fruit, early potatoes and flax, bee-keeping and lime 

 burning, was prepared by the Department, but the Com- 

 missioners " were not satisfied that it amounted to a scheme 

 for the organisation of agricultural co-operation in the sense 

 which they felt bound to attach to those words," and " they 

 could not, therefore, accept it as the Irish counterpart of the 

 measures taken for that purpose in England and Wales and 

 Scotland." At their meeting in March, 1912, the Commis 



