since then I have taken
my annual holiday across the Atlantic, and have studied rural
conditions over a wider area in the United States than my business
interests demanded.

For eight years, commencing in 1892, I was a Member of Parliament. My
legislative ambition was to get something done for Irish industry, and
especially Irish agriculture. Having secured the assistance of an
unprecedented combination of representative Irishmen, known as the
Recess Committee (because it sat during the Parliamentary recess), we
succeeded in getting the addition we wanted to the machinery of Irish
Government. The functions of the new institution are sufficiently
indicated by its cumbrous Parliamentary title, "The Department of
Agriculture and other Industries and for Technical Instruction for
Ireland." I mention this official experience because it not only
intensified my desire to study American conditions, but it also brought
me frequently to Washington to study the working of those Federal
institutions which are concerned for the welfare of the rural
population. There I enjoyed the unfailing courtesy of American public
servants to the foreign inquirer.

On one of these visits, in the winter of 1905-1906, I called upon
President Roosevelt to pay him my respects, and to express to him my
obligations to some members of his Administration. I wished especially
to acknowledge my indebtedness to that veteran statesman, Secretary
Wilson, the value of whose long service to the American farmer it would
be hard to exaggerate. Mr. Roosevelt questioned me as to the exact
object of my inquiries, and asked me to come again and discuss with him
more fully than was possible at the moment certain economic and social
questions which had engaged much of his own thoughts. He was greatly
interested to learn that in Ireland we have been approaching many of
these questions from his own point of view. He made me tell him the
story of Irish land legislation, and of recent Irish movements for the
improvement of agricultural conditions. Ever since, his interest in
these Irish questions--to _the_ Irish Question we gave a wide berth--has
been maintained on account of their bearing upon his Rural Life policy,
for I had shown him how the economic strengthening and social elevation
of the Irish farmer had become a matter of urgent Irish concern. I
recall many things he said on that occasion, which show that his two
great policies of Conservation and Country Life r