of Irishmen who were acquainted with the local circumstances, and who were in a position to give their services to a public philanthropic purpose.  They were given the widest discretion in the expenditure of the interest of this capital sum, and from time to time their income has been augmented from annually voted moneys.  They were restricted only to measures calculated permanently to improve the condition of the people, as distinct from measures affording temporary relief.

I agree with those who hold that Mr. Arthur Balfour’s plan was the best that could be adopted at the moment.  But events have marched rapidly since 1891, and wholly new possibilities in the sphere of Irish economic legislation and administration have been revealed.  A new Irish mind has now to be taken into account, and to be made part of any ameliorative Irish policy.  Hence it was not only possible, but desirable, to administer State help more democratically in 1899 than in 1891.  The policy of the Congested Districts Board was a notable advance upon the inaction of the State in the pre-famine times, and upon the system of doles and somewhat objectless relief works of the latter half of the nineteenth century; but the policy of the new departure now under review was no less notable a departure from the paternalism of the Congested Districts Board.  When that body was called into existence it was thought necessary to rely on persons nominated by the Government.  When the Department was created eight years later it was found possible, owing to the broadening of the basis of local government and to the moral and social effect of the new movement, to rely largely on the advice and assistance of persons selected by the people themselves.

The two departments are in constant consultation as to the co-ordination of their work, so as to avoid conflict of administrative system and sociological principle in adjoining districts; and much has already been done in this direction.  My own experience has not only made me a firm believer in the principle of self-help, but I carry my belief to the extreme length of holding that the poorer a community is the more essential is it to throw it as much as possible on its own resources, in order to develop self-reliance.  I recognise, however, the undesirability of too sudden changes of system in these matters.  Meanwhile, I may add in this connection that the Wyndham Land Act enormously increases the importance of the Congested Districts Board in regard to its main function—­that of dealing directly with congestion, by the purchase and resettlement of estates, the migration of families, and the enlargement of holdings.[46]