the power of the purse. I laid special stress upon the important part
these instruments of the popular will were intended to play as a link
between the people and the Department. I gave a similar description and
explanation of the Committees of Agriculture and Technical Instruction,
appointed by local representative bodies, by means of which the people
were brought into touch with the local as distinct from the central
work, and made responsible for its success. The details were necessarily
dull; and so also must be those which will now be required in order to
indicate the general nature and scope of the work for the accomplishment
of which all this machinery was designed. Yet I am not without hope
that even the general reader may find a deep human interest in the
practical endeavour of the humbler classes of my fellow-countrymen to
reconstruct their national life upon the solid foundation of honest
work.

The Department has at the time of writing been in existence for three
years, the term of office, it will be remembered, of the Council of
Agriculture and of the two Boards. It would be unreasonable to expect in
so short a time any great achievement; but the understanding critic will
attach importance rather to the spirit in which the work was approached
than to the actual amount of work which was accomplished. He may say
that no true estimate of its value can be formed until the enthusiasm
aroused by its novelty has had time to wear off. Those of us who know
the real character of the work are quite satisfied that the interest
which it aroused during the period in which the people had yet to grasp
its meaning and utility is not likely to become less real as the blossom
fades and the fruit begins to swell. The attitude of the Irish people
towards the Department and its work has not been that of a child towards
a new toy, but of a full-grown man towards a piece of his life's work,
upon which he feels that he entered all too late. Indeed, so quickly
have the people grasped the significance of the new opportunities for
material advancement now placed within their reach, that the Department
has had to carry out, and to assist the statutory local committees in
carrying out, a number and variety of schemes which, at any rate, proved
that public opinion did not regard it as a transitory experiment; but
as a much-needed institution which, if properly utilised, might do much
to make up for lost time, and which, in any case, had