ad
recommended the adaptation to Ireland of a type of central institution
which it had found in successful operation on the Continent wherever it
had pursued its investigations. So far as schemes applicable to the
whole country were concerned, the central Department, assuming that it
gained the confidence of the Council and Boards, might easily justify
its existence. But the greater part of its work, the Recess Committee
saw, would relate to special localities, and could not succeed without
the cordial co-operation of the people immediately concerned. This fact
brought Mr. Gerald Balfour face to face with a problem which the Recess
Committee could not solve in its day, because, when it sat, there still
existed the old grand jury system, though its early abolition had been
promised. It was extremely fortunate that to the same minister fell the
task of framing both the Act of 1898, which revolutionised local
government, and the Act of 1899, now under review. The success with
which these two Acts were linked together by the provisions of the
latter forms an interesting lesson in constructive statesmanship. Time
will, I believe, thoroughly discredit the hostile criticism which
withheld its due mead of praise from the most fruitful policy which any
administration had up to that time ever devised for the better
government of Ireland.

The local authorities created by the Act of 1898 provided the machinery
for enabling the representatives of the people to decide themselves, to
a large extent, upon the nature of the particular measures to be adopted
in each locality and to carry out the schemes when formulated. The Act
creating the new Department empowered the council of any county or of
any urban district, or any two or more public bodies jointly, to appoint
committees, composed partly of members of the local bodies and partly of
co-opted persons, for the purpose of carrying out such of the
Department's schemes as are of local, and not of general importance.
True to the underlying principle of the new movement--the principle of
self-reliance and local effort--the Act lays it down that 'the
Department shall not, in the absence of any special considerations,
apply or approve of the application of money ... to schemes in respect
of which aid is not given out of money provided by local authorities or
from other local sources.' To meet this requirement the local
authorities are given the power of raising a limited rate for the
pur