money locally only where a local contribution is raised and a
local scheme prepared. The last aim met with a fine response. Every
County Council in Ireland raises a rate, and has a scheme for
agricultural and technical instruction. I can only enumerate some of the
multifarious functions which the Department evolved for itself or took
over from various other unrelated Boards and concentrated under single
control. It gives instruction in agriculture and rural domestic economy
(horticulture, butter-making, bee-keeping, poultry-keeping, etc.)
through schools, colleges, or agricultural stations under its own
direction, through private schools for both sexes, and through an
extensive system of itinerant courses conducted (in 1909) by 128 trained
instructors. It gives premiums for the breeding of horses, cattle,
asses, poultry, swine. It conducts original research, it experiments in
crops, and, among other things, is slowly resuscitating the depressed
industry of flax-growing, and starting a wholly new industry in the
southern counties, that of early potatoes. It sprays potatoes,
prescribes for the diseases of trees, crops, and stock, advises on
manures and feeding-stuffs, teaches forestry, and gives scholarships at
various colleges for proficiency in agricultural science. On the side of
Technical Instruction it teaches and encourages all manner of small
industries, such as lace-making. It superintends all technical
instruction in secondary schools, and organizes and subsidizes similar
instruction in a multitude of different subjects under schemes prepared
by local authorities, while at the same time carrying on an important
and extensive system of training teachers. It also superintends
sea-fisheries and improves harbours.

The material results have been great; the moral results perhaps even
greater. Just as we should expect, wherever education goes, and wherever
men work together for economic improvement, unnatural antagonisms of
race and religion tend to disappear. This is not the result of any
direct influence wielded by the Department, which never finds it
necessary to lecture people on the duty of mutual tolerance; it is the
result of common sense and a small experience in Home Rule. High
officials of the Department have informed me that their work, for all
intents and purposes, is unhampered by local religious prejudices. A
spirit of keen and wholesome rivalry permeates the people. County and
Borough Committees in distr