that only fishermen have reaped the benefit of the Act. This is
entirely erroneous. The Board works unceasingly at the development of
agriculture, the planting of trees, the breeding of live stock and
poultry, the sale of seed potatoes and seed oats, the amalgamation of
small holdings, migration, emigration, weaving and spinning, and any
other suitable industries, as well as in aid of fishing and fishermen.
Besides the innumerable direct and indirect methods by which
agriculture and industries are assisted in production, the Board has
laboured successfully in the establishment of such means of
communication, by railway, steamship, or otherwise, as will enable
goods to be imported and exported at rates sufficiently low to make
trade possible and profitable to producers and consumers in remote
congested districts. Another popular error arises from regarding the
work of the Board as merely a means of relief during periods of
exceptional distress. Mr. Balfour would be the first to deprecate this
notion. His scheme was constructed with a view to bringing about a
gradual and lasting improvement in the poor districts of Ireland, by
putting the people in a way to help themselves, and not by doling out
large sums in charity. The works, which are wrongly called "relief
works," are in every instance a well-considered effort to permanently
and materially improve the trade and resources of a given area in
connection with agriculture and miscellaneous industries. Such was the
invariable principle of every action of the Board while under Mr.
Balfour's administration. The people have been taught better methods,
and helped to carry out the instruction they had received. The Royal
Dublin Society has in some instances employed an instructor, whose
duty it has been to teach the people the best system of cultivating
portions or plots of their holdings, and to encourage them by gifts of
seed and by giving prizes to those who were most successful in
carrying out the instructions of their teacher. It is conceded that by
proper management, by the adoption of modern methods of farming such
as are well within the grasp of the smallest landowner, the produce of
Irish farms might be increased from one-third to one-half. Consider
the effect of this unassailable proposition on the eternal question of
rent. The question can hardly be over-estimated. Compare the solidity,
the practicability, the substantial usefulness of this kind of help,
with the wea