Co-operative Credit Banks, and
denounced the Co-operative Farming Societies as injurious to local
shopkeepers. And thus he made it clear that it is impossible in
Ireland to conduct even such a business as the development of
agriculture without stirring up political bitterness.

Another effort of Mr. Balfour's--the establishment of the Congested
Districts Board--has had a strange and instructive history. It was
established in 1891. Mr. Balfour decided to entrust to a small body of
Irishmen, selected irrespective of party considerations, the task of
making an experiment as to what could be done to relieve the poorest
parts of Ireland; and with this object, the Board, though endowed with
only small funds, were given the widest powers over the area within
which they were to operate. They were empowered to take such steps as
they thought proper for (1) Aiding migration or emigration from the
congested districts, and settling the migrant or emigrant in his
new home; and (2) Aiding and developing agriculture, forestry,
and breeding of live stock and poultry, weaving, spinning, fishing
(including the construction of piers and harbours, and supplying
fishing boats and gear and industries subservient to and connected
with fishing), and any other suitable industries. Both the powers and
the revenues of the Board were increased from time to time, until by
1909 its annual expenditure amounted to nearly L250,000. It became
clear almost at the beginning of its labours that amongst the many
difficulties which the Board would have to face there were two
pre-eminent ones; if it was desired to enlarge uneconomic holdings by
removing a part of the population to other districts, the people to be
removed might not wish to go; and the landless men in the district to
which they were to be removed might say that they had a better right
to the land than strangers from a distance, and the result might be a
free fight. As the only chance of success for the labours of the Board
was the elimination of party politics, Mr. J. Morley, on becoming
Chief Secretary in the Gladstonian Government of 1892, appointed as
Commissioners Bishop O'Donnell of Raphoe (the Patron of the Ancient
Order of Hibernians, and a Trustee of the Parliamentary Fund of the
United Irish League); and the Rev. D. O'Hara, a leading Clerical
Nationalist of a violent type. It is needless to say that under their
influence the action of the Board has been conducted on strictly
National